Him & Me

Prologue by Nick Hewer

Introduction by Jack Whitehall

Part I First Memories

CHAPTER 1 A Black-Tie Affair

CHAPTER 2 The Curse of Timmy Twinkle

Part II School’s Out

CHAPTER 3 Fathers’ Race

CHAPTER 4 The Reluctant Dragon

CHAPTER 5 Touchline Tantrums

CHAPTER 6 School Scandals

Part III Going Wild in the Country

CHAPTER 7 Invite at Your Peril

CHAPTER 8 High Jinks

CHAPTER 9 Camping It Up

Part IV A Matter Of Life And Death

CHAPTER 10 Man and Beast

CHAPTER 11 Clipper Rash

CHAPTER 12 In Sickness and in Health

Part V Stars in His Eyes

CHAPTER 13 Dressed to Kill

CHAPTER 14 Running Away

Part VI ’Tis the Season to be Jolly

CHAPTER 15 His Christmas

CHAPTER 16 My Christmas

Part VII Hapless House Guests

CHAPTER 17 Nannies

CHAPTER 18 Sacha’s Laundry

CHAPTER 19 Dirty Den

Part VIII Holiday Hell

CHAPTER 20 The Tom Cruise Ship

CHAPTER 21 Welcome to Disney World

CHAPTER 22 Four Weeks in Provence

Part IX A State of Undress

CHAPTER 23 The Naked Truth

CHAPTER 24 Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans

Part X The Family Disappointment

CHAPTER 25 Acting Up

CHAPTER 26 Ungainful Employment

CHAPTER 27 Art

Part XI All Growed Up

CHAPTER 28 Voting Rights

CHAPTER 29 Cock Blocking

Glossary

Afterword by Michael Whitehall

Ten Things I Wish to Correct in This Book by Hilary Whitehall

Acknowledgements

Follow Penguin

Prologue

I was pleased to hear from Michael Whitehall on that Thursday morning. He had been a guest at a successful Good Companions lunch at the Reform Club two days previously and here was his call to thank me.

‘Lovely lunch. By the way, I’ve written a book, of course. Now are you listening because we don’t have much time? Jack and I think that we need an outsider who knows us well to write an introduction to our book Him & Me. And we’ve alighted on you. The problem is that we’ve run out of time. I’ll email the book to you and if you could craft a 750-word masterpiece – warm and insightful – by the weekend, that would be just dandy. Talk later. Bye.’

I switched on my computer and with a sickening thud realized that, following the removal of a cataract the previous Saturday and the insertion of a long-range lens, I was unable to focus on anything under forty-six point. Distance – perfect. Everything close-up – pea soup.

This infirmity, added to my inexperience of literary criticism, was going to make for a tricky day.

I first ran into Jack on the set of Would I Lie to You?, where we were both guest panelists. He was fast becoming nationally known as a wit, performer and actor; it was easy to see why.

A charming young man, taught from time to time at Marlborough College, as it happens, by my no-nonsense daughter-in-law, Liz. Later, I mentioned having met him and she remarked, ‘A very naughty boy – spent a good deal of time doodling in the margins.’

So whilst I met Jack on the set of WILTY, I was introduced to Father Whitehall, his éminence grise, in the Green Room after the show.

‘Daddy, this is Nick. You’ll have a lot in common. You can talk about the Blitz.’

As soon as I heard the first long, drawling vowel from Michael, I knew I was in good company. And when I turned to confront the voice, and Daddy’s twinkling eye, I knew Jack came from good comic genes.

I half closed my eyes. Was I listening to Rex Harrison? I decided not. It was an edgy George Sanders, whose urbane suicide note, ‘Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored’, would please Michael in the unlikely event that he ever feels low.

So the septuagenarian Daddy and the not yet mid-twenties darling of the girls’ upper sixth have set about a book together. And what a joy it is. Stories from their joint lives, told from their own viewpoints, each writing as well as the other. Daddy, with the driest of wits, ironic with nuggets of cruelty tossed in, to Jack’s more urban vocab.

The stories pile one on top of the other, peopled by wonderful characters – the theatrical brigade from Michael’s days as the most successful agent in London, and Jack’s collection of increasingly bizarre pals as he enters his teenage years. Up pops Nigel Havers in a dinner jacket right at the start of the book, calling in to the Portland Hospital within minutes of Jack’s birth to claim a role as a godfather with the exclusive right to be the boy’s moral guardian, while Richard Griffiths would immediately start a running-away fund.

We travel through Jack’s childhood and his prep school days, starting with his bravura performance to be refused admission to the Dragon School; the sports fields at Marlborough; his short-lived career as a nude life model there, part of a plan concocted to lure a dishy girl pupil to disrobe too.

So the names and anecdotes from both come pouring in, each writing lengthily on the same events, fiercely contesting the other’s version. A nineteen-year tour of the Whitehall family, including the beautiful Hilary, mother to Molly and Barnaby, as well as naughty Jack.

What captivated me, apart from the arch humour and scintillating wit, was the deep affection that ran from page one between father and son. However hard they try to send one another up, it’s clear that Michael and Jack have a special and unbreakable filial bond.

Oh, Michael, why couldst thou not have been my father, and if I had had a second son, Jack, would you have …?

Nick Hewer

Introduction

January 2011, my good friend and long-time producer Ben Cavey suggests to me that it might be ‘fun’ to do a chat show complete with guests at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with my father, Michael Whitehall. My father is a very amusing man. He was an agent to some of the country’s finest actors but has never appeared on stage himself, but in a moment of weakness I mention the idea to him and he says as long as he can stay in a hotel that’s separate from whatever ‘squalid bedsit’ I’m renting for the month, he will do it. Oh, and then sends a very long email to Ben about the terms of the deal he’d be getting. Agents, eh?

In the run-up to the Festival, booking the show becomes a nightmare. Every guest I suggest is vetoed by my father on account of them being either ‘low grade’ or too ‘downmarket’. When I mention Jimmy Carr he simply roars with laughter, then says no.

He eventually insists that he will only travel up to the Festival if we book Simon Cowell. I tell him that I think it’s highly unlikely that we’d get him as he’s busy doing The X Factor. A lengthy rant about the death of culture in this country follows and I am asked whether I have even heard of the RSC. I realize that I have misheard him and that he actually said Simon Callow, who is up at the Fringe doing some random play. Simon Callow agrees to do it, so the show goes ahead. (Basically, if you think this book’s shit you can blame Simon Callow.)

Backchat opens and is pretty well received although it is not quite as ‘fun’ for me as my producer made out. A long two weeks of my father telling me off for being unprofessional, accusing me every day of having a hangover and constantly reminding me that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be as good an interviewer as Michael Aspel. He also spends a lot of the show trying to flog a memoir he has written (I’m not going to mention the title here as it will only give him the publicity he so desperately craved). When I ask him to stop promoting it, he claims I am jealous as I’m ‘illiterate and wouldn’t have been able to write a book as good as his’.

One night I let slip that I’ve actually been asked to write a book myself. It is a revelation that is met with utter derision. Penguin are accused of having let their standards slip and I am told that it is my duty to literature to turn the offer down. By the way, we’re still on stage when all of this is going on, the poor audience stuck in what is fast becoming a sort of middle-class Jeremy Kyle Show. Even our guest Miranda Hart was a little perplexed, but that was mainly because my father had spent most of the interview prior to this asking her if she was related to Tony Hart.

I must make clear the sole purpose of writing this book was not to show my father that all the money he’d, quote, ‘wasted on my education to travel up and down the country telling jokes about my penis’ was not frittered away and that I could achieve something, but it certainly was a factor.

I then had to decide what type of book to write. A novel seemed way beyond my abilities and the notion of anything autobiographical was ridiculous at twenty-four years old. All great writers wait till they’re at least twenty-six: Ashley Cole, Jordan, Tila Tequila …

I racked my brains for what I could write about. Was there a subject or person who interested me? A prevalent theme in all of my work? A key figure in my stand-up shows, the inspiration for everything I do? I made the call. It turned out Kriss Akabusi already had a biography. So I decided I’d write about my father.

So how did he manage to worm his way on to this ticket? Was I pushed or did I jump? He is a very persuasive man, and he is married to an even more persuasive woman, my mother, who made it very clear that if I was going to write about him, he would have to have a right of reply. She applied a lot of pressure and towards the end of last year I called him up and said, ‘Dad, do you want to write a book with me?’

His response: ‘Yes, but only if my name appears above yours on the title. I am, after all, the only published author.’

‘But (title of book withheld) was really just a bit of fun,’ I replied. ‘What I want to write is a proper in-depth insight into a relationship between a father and son, so much more than just a collection of funny stories,’ and we have ended up with a book that I am proud to say … is just a collection of funny stories.

Writing this book has been totes amazeballs (I will be using the odd young-person phrase like this throughout the book because I know how much it annoys my dad); we’ve both in a sense become each other’s biographer. I’ve been able to find out more about the man I love the most in the world than I ever thought I would; in some cases too much. To this end, I must apologize for the number of stories which end up with either my father or me without any clothes on. It seems nudity is a pretty prevalent theme in both our lives.

I also want to point out that although what you are about to read is written half and half, it is typed a hundred per cent by me, as my father hates computers, refuses to let me teach him how to use Word and struggles with the ‘Interweb’. It means I have had to transcribe every word of his as he dictates it from a notepad. This included early on in the process an attempt to read to me the story of my own conception, which he thought would be a fitting way to start the book. He didn’t tell me where the story was going, so I unwittingly started typing away and then, about five minutes in, was horrified to realize what he was talking about. They are images that will haunt me for the rest of my days and I’m pleased to say it is a story that will not be appearing in this book. Or hopefully any book ever.

I ended up doing what I do because of my father. He is the funniest man I know and throughout my life has been the source and, from time to time, subject of much amusement. People say they have dads that are their best friends. I’ve never thought of mine like that, as even my best friends I don’t want to hang out with all the time. Whereas I will never tire of my dad’s company even when he’s getting on my tits.

As you’ll see in this book, he is not a man who minces his words. In fact mincing in general is something that I would never associate with Michael Whitehall. He is certainly a product of a different generation and has some questionable views about the world (especially towards Germans), but is a loving father and devoted friend to me. Take everything he says with a pinch of salt and everything I say with a pinch of grammar. That’s the main thing I’ve learnt from writing this; my father was right, I am basically illiterate.

One final thing. The real force behind this book is not me or my father, it is my mother. She has been our referee, our editor, administrator, tea maker, the one who’s told us which family members we can and cannot make jokes about, and she also types all those bits of my father’s stories I can’t bear to listen to. She is a saint and by the end of this book you’ll understand why – she’s put up with us for over two decades. This book should really be called Him, Her & Me.

Jack Whitehall

P.S. Throughout the book you’ll find annotations in blue that have been added in by my father and others in black that have been added in by me. Also, my father was a theatrical agent and over the years he picked up some rather annoying industry habits. To be exact, he is a massive name-dropper. A lot of the names he drops are people you will never have heard of (especially you younger readers). So I have taken the liberty of providing a brief glossary of names. My dad said this was totally unnecessary and an insult to the illustrious individuals who crop up in his anecdotes, but you’ll find it at the end of the book anyway.

Chapter 1 A Black-Tie Affair

– MICHAEL WHITEHALL –

Jack’s birth day, 7 July 1988, was a particularly auspicious date for me. Late fatherhood had been on my mind for most of my life. When I entered the wrong end of my forties, my mother, Nora, was forever reminding me that I would make a wonderful father but not if I left it too late.

‘I know you’re an agent and that all those actors you look after, or whatever you call it, are like your children – they certainly behave like children, and spoilt ones at that – but it isn’t the same. You should think of yourself for once. I still don’t understand why you muck about with them anyway; they’re only interested in themselves. If only you could get yourself a proper job!’

I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing having this conversation at this point in my life with my eighty-year-old mother. I was beginning to feel like Anthony Perkins in Psycho, by coincidence a client of mine at the time.*

‘Picasso fathered a child when he was eighty-two,’ said Nora. ‘So there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.’

Nora liked quoting Picasso at me endlessly, drawing comparisons between the Spanish artist and myself despite the fact that in this anecdote he was twice my age.

I had always dreamt of having children some day and I couldn’t quite believe it when it finally happened. I was hugely proud of Hilary for giving me such an amazing baby boy and so proud of him too. I quickly became an older father bore, and have remained one ever since!

Peter Saunders, the obstetrician, delivered Jack at the Portland Hospital wearing a dinner jacket, not at our insistence but because he was on his way to a gynaecological dinner.

‘Do you want to put on some gloves and help?’ he asked me.

For the money I was paying him, I thought he could do it on his own so I declined his invitation. A face peered round the door of Hilary’s room.

‘Any news?’ asked Nigel.

It was my client the actor Nigel Havers.* I’d called him earlier and mentioned Hilary was coming to the boil, though to be honest I hadn’t expected him to appear quite so quickly. The nurse on the front desk was in such a flutter at seeing Nigel, of A Passage to India fame, that she ushered him straight to the delivery room. By coincidence he was also wearing a dinner jacket. Looking back, the whole scene had suddenly become very Downton Abbey.

‘Are you on your way somewhere?’ I asked him.

‘No, actually. When you rang I was trying on an old dinner jacket I bought from Piero de Monzi in Chelsea years ago to see if it still fitted, so I thought I’d come straight over.’

‘Loved you in Chariots of Fire by the way,’ said Peter Saunders, mid-delivery. ‘Did you do all your own hurdling? Care to help?’

Peter offered Nigel some gloves as Jack’s head started to protrude from Hilary’s nether regions.*

‘No, I’m fine, thanks, old boy,’ said Nigel. ‘As far as I can see you seem to be doing jolly well.’

And he was; producing a very handsome baby weighing seven pounds and fourteen-and-a-half ounces.

‘My wife’s going to kill me,’ said Peter as he was clearing up the debris. ‘I’ve got blood all over my dress shirt and it was brand new. I should have worn an apron but I always think I look like a pathologist in those things.’

As Peter departed, Hilary handed Jack to me. Nigel and I headed off on a lap of honour and left Hilary to be tidied up. While I went to the loo Nigel struck up a conversation with a dowager and her expectant daughter who were standing outside their room. We were back in Downton Abbey again.

‘What a beautiful baby, Mr Havers,’ she said. ‘He looks so like you.’

‘Thank you so much, but he’s not actually my baby,’ said Nigel. ‘I’m just holding him while my friend goes to the loo.’

‘Left holding the baby, eh?’ gushed the toothy daughter.

‘Quite,’ said Nigel as I returned to join the party.

It is true the baby Jack did bear a striking resemblance to Nigel, and what with my friend’s reputation as a bit of a ladies’ man, I made a mental note to double check with him later just in case there was anything he wanted to tell me.

‘Have you seen that poor baby over there?’ said the dowager.

‘Why, what’s wrong with it?’ asked the daughter.

‘Oh, the poor little mite’s got the most terrible dark rash across its face and over its tiny little hands too.’

‘Mummy, don’t be ridiculous, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a black baby!’ she replied.

‘What!’ shrieked the dowager. ‘At the Portland?’**

While Nigel and I had been showing Jack off, another two of my clients, Richard Griffiths and Leslie Phillips,* had phoned the hospital and been put through to Hilary. Leslie had called reverse charges, saying that he was in someone else’s house, but Hilary was sure she’d heard his wife in the background, muttering and banging pots and pans around while she was cooking. Leslie always found a way to ring me reverse charges. It was business, so he thought the office, that is me, should pay for the call.

‘Have we heard back from the BBC yet?’ Leslie asked Hilary. ‘They promised they’d have a decision by today.’

‘Actually I’ve been rather tied up today having a baby and things, but I’ll get Michael to call you back.’

Ignoring Hilary’s reference to a baby, Leslie said, ‘Will you tell Michael I really need this job? Maybe we should meet up and discuss what other things there are in the pipeline. Why don’t I take him to lunch tomorrow?’

I’d had several experiences of Leslie Phillips ‘taking me to lunch’, all resulting in me paying the bill. On more than one occasion he’d pulled the dodgy credit card trick on me. This involved snatching the bill as soon as it hit the table and producing a card which the waiter would quickly return as it was out of date, in some cases by several years. I didn’t hurry to call him back.

We returned Richard’s call and asked if he would like to be Jack’s godfather.

‘Delighted,’ he said. ‘I’ll start putting money aside for a running-away fund for him, which he can use when he’s eighteen. Fast cars, loose women, Las Vegas, whatever.’

Forward planning was always one of Richard’s strong suits. As Nigel had heard me offering Richard a godfather role, and bearing in mind the competitiveness of actors, I thought it would be churlish not to ask Nigel as well.

‘Of course, I’d love to,’ he replied. ‘Richard can look after Jack’s finances and I’ll take care of his morals.’

I didn’t think Nigel was the perfect casting to oversee Jack’s moral welfare but I knew he would provide him with plenty of entertainment over the years.

‘Isn’t it a bit early to be arranging godparents?’ asked Hilary sleepily. The exertion of the last few hours was beginning to take its toll and Jack was looking pretty snoozy too.

‘Well, we’ve had nine months to think about it,’ I replied.

‘I noticed you didn’t suggest Leslie Phillips,’ she mumbled. ‘I’d like Jo Williams as well, to keep an eye on them.’ I agreed, as Jo Williams was an old schoolfriend of Hilary’s and one of the few I hadn’t fallen out with.*

With that decision made Hilary and Jack fell asleep.

‘Let’s go and wet the baby’s head somewhere, shall we?’ said Jack’s newly appointed moral compass.

By the time I got home I was extremely drunk and very hungry. There was nothing appropriate in the fridge for immediate consumption, so I opted for a tin of corned beef from the larder.**

As they do whenever I open any kind of tin, the key snapped off and I had to finish the job with a screwdriver. Drunk and desperate for food, I began scooping bits of meat out of the tin with my fingers until one of them attached itself to a razor-sharp piece of metal. Blood started spurting everywhere; it was like being back at the Portland. It was too late to call our local friendly doctor and, anyway, I was slurring too much to be able to explain what had happened, so I decided to call Hilary.

‘Sorry, darling, did I wake you up?’

Hilary drowsily told me to put my finger under the cold tap and get some plasters from the bathroom.

‘I’m feeling faint. Loss of blood probably,’ I said.

‘Too many vodka and tonics probably,’ she replied. ‘I’m sure you’ll live.’

‘How’s my beautiful Jack?’ I asked.

‘Asleep, just like I was,’ came the reply.

‘I think I’ll go to bed now,’ I said. ‘To be honest, I’m feeling pretty drained. It’s been quite an emotional day for me, sitting in the hospital waiting for Jack to be born, ringing all these people, having to talk to endless doctors and nurses, keeping Nigel entertained and, of course, having my first baby at the age of forty-eight, and all the stress that that entails. I think it’s been pretty amazing for me, don’t you?

‘Hello…? Hello?’

Silence on the other end of the phone and then a gentle snore. Still on a high, I tried to bore several of my friends about the momentous arrival, but fortunately for them they’d all gone to bed, so I headed off there too.

The following morning I was woken up by our cleaning lady, Mrs James. Mrs James was a native of Antigua* but more lately of West Kensington. She was an active member of the local Evangelist community, a brand of religion that I have given a wide berth during my life. I was raised a Catholic and for me church is about incense and guilt, not singing and holding hands. To my mind, a very small amount of happy-clappiness goes a long way.

Mrs James loved a bit of melodrama and this was a big moment for her. ‘Where is Miss Hilary?’ she asked nervously.

‘She’s in the hospital, Mrs James,’ I replied.

‘They have taken her, Mr Michael?’

‘Well, I took her actually.’

Hilary had gone into hospital a few days early, as Peter Saunders was about to go off on holiday and thought it was best to get the baby induced before he went. Peter, as you may have realized, was never one to let something like a birth get in the way of his social arrangements.

‘But they took her before her time, Mr Michael. You shouldn’t have allowed it! You must ask the Lord to watch over her and protect her from evil spirits!’ she wailed.

‘Just calm down, Mrs James. She’s fine and so is the baby.’

‘The baby has been born before its time. Have they taken it from her? Don’t let them take it from her, Mr Michael. The Lord will not forgive you.’ Mrs James then started telling me about prematurely delivered ‘devil babies’ in Dominica, where her aunt lived, and the dangers of brain damage if mothers were forced into hospital to have their babies too early.

‘Nobody forced Hilary to go to hospital,’ I said. ‘I took her there in the back of the Mercedes and a nice nurse showed us up to her room when we arrived.’

‘And is the baby a boy or a girl?’ she asked.

When I told her it was a boy she said that God had sent me a boy so that he could take over the family when I died. It was important at my age to have a son, she told me. Little did I know what was in store for me!

On my return home that evening her worries about Jack seemed to have subsided and she had transferred her concerns to the world of domestic appliances. She had left a note on the kitchen table saying: Somethin’ bad with hover it dont pik nuffin.*

I replaced the Hoover bag, probably for the first time. Perhaps fatherhood was changing me.

Two days later I was heading back to the Portland to collect mother and son. Hilary asked me to pick up a Moses basket at Peter Jones on the way. I hailed a cab in Sloane Square, carrying the basket and a couple of other packages.

‘Portland Hospital please,’ I said to the cabby.

I was rather breathless as the parcels were heavier than I’d thought. ‘Presents for the grandchild, guv?’ asked the driver.

‘My son actually,’ I snapped.

‘They’ll change your life, guv. I’ve got three grandchildren, Harley, Dean and little Tiffany.** They’re all right little scamps but they keep you young. I bet your daughter’s as pleased as punch.’

‘My wife actually,’ I replied.

He completely ignored me as only a cab driver can and spent the rest of the journey giving me unwanted advice from ‘one granddad to another’. We finally arrived at the Portland and I told the bossy-looking receptionist that I’d come to collect Hilary and Jack Whitehall.

‘Are you the father?’ she asked in an accusatory way.

‘Well, I hope so,’ I replied. ‘I’ve just spent eighty-five pounds on a bloody Moses basket.’

Jack & Michael Whitehall

HIM & ME

MICHAEL JOSEPH

Contents

HIM & ME

Prologue

Introduction

Part I

FIRST MEMORIES

Chapter 1

A Black-Tie Affair