Shortly after we moved, there were stories in the press that Father
Ingram
had engaged in improper behavior with some pupils. I
think because I was one of the youngest I was shielded from most of it,
but
there was one incident that should have given me a clue
as to what the gossip was all about. On our way back from singing in St
PaulÕs Cathedral one day, a few of the boys started kissing
each other. My curiosity piqued, I asked my neighbor if, when he had a
moment, I might try it, too. Without so much as a
by-your-leave, he obligingly pulled himself away from Tibitz Minor and
sloppily kissed me full on the lips. I was promptly sick all
over his shoes, which gave me a fairly clear indication that it wasn't
something I wanted to try again. Much later it emerged that
Father Ingram wasn't a clergyman at all, and I believe he was sentenced
to a
ten year term.
At Oakfield, I started to come into my
own. The fees were more than we could really afford, but Mum and Den
scrimped and saved, giving up many small pleasures to keep me
there. It was there that I had the best teacher I ever had, a man called
Harold Passey. I had more ruler wallops on the hands from
him than from any of the other teachers, but it was Mr. Passey who first
saw
that I could act. He gave me the chance to prove it in
our school production of Benjamin Britten's Lets Make an Opera. It was
such
a success that we put on a proper performance, on a real
stage and sold tickets to the public. It was a sell-out. I was hooked.
My
mother and Den were less sure. It was Mrs. Gray, our
next-door-neighbor, who finally helped to convince them I could really
do
it. She noticed in her daily paper that the English Opera
Group was looking for boy sopranos to play in a production of Turn of
the
Screw and urged my mother to let me have a go. So I joined
hundreds of other children for auditions and they whittled us down to
just
four. But the pure terror of stage fright overtook me on
the last audition and my voice left me completely. However, they
remembered
me and I was called back for a production of Lets Make
an Opera, which starred Trevor Anthony. I had to audition at Britten's
home
in Regent's Park and he was by far the poshest person I
had ever met. I was paid £8 per week. Fantastic!
In the show with me was
a
girl called June, for whom I developed my first real case
of puppy love. The extent of our relationship was in seeing how long we
could kiss for. We were sometimes stuck together, like
guppies, for 20 mins at a stretch. I was almost inconceivably innocent
in
those days. By the time I was 14, I was working steadily,
and at 15 I was allowed to leave school. It was during the opera tour
that I
was advised to change my name (to avoid confusion with
a television newsman called Ingram). One afternoon, I saw a large
biscuit
lorry with an enormous sign along the side reading
"Crawford's biscuits are best". I don't know why, but the name jumped
out at
me. 'Michael Crawford'. I liked the sound of that.
Herne Hill was a strict upper-working-class area light years away from
the
exotic world I was joining. Mum may have wondered what I
was up to, but it wasn't something she'd dream of discussing with me.
Nobody
talked about sex in those days. She, and later my
lovely, maternal agent, Adza, tried to protect me from such things, and
I
could never find a way to tell them that I didn't want to
be protected. Of course, there were a few things they didn't know about,
like those summer afternoons on Sheppey when a group of 7
or 8 of us sat in the fields after scrumping for apples. My friend and
his
girlfriend would kiss, and the rest of us, in between
bites of Golden Delicious were sometimes allowed to touch the breast of
a
particularly friendly redhead called Hazel, who was
blessed with the firmest, most sumptuous bosoms on the island. Just
touch,
mind you. We never even kissed her.
And then when I was
15, my red letter day arrived. I had a fight with the pig-tailed Girl
Guide
who lived down the road. She was a robust girl with a
weight advantage of about 35lb. We'd been playing explorers at the end
of
our garden, and it suddenly turned into a wrestling match.
When she saw no other chance of victory, she grabbed my private parts
through my shorts and gave them a violent squeeze. To my
astonishment, I immediately became erect, and experienced an incredible
craving for this enormous girl who seemed intent on
annihilating me. I kissed her so hard I must have almost eaten her
alive. As
we thrashed around in the bushes, my whole being went
into spasm and as the feeling went from absolute ecstasy to unbelievable
shame, I tore myself away from this delectable Girl Guide.
I'd had my first orgasm, and in the process, destroyed my mother's
prized
lilac bush.
All the same I remained pretty innocent about life and woman and, as
heavily
'mothered' as I was, opportunities to explore further
never seemed to arise. It was to be a full 6 years before I finally lost
my
virginity. She was an attractive actress, an older woman
of about 28. I was 21 and doing a show in Bristol. After our last night,
the
company gathered in a hotel room for a few beers and as
everyone was saying goodbye, this woman accompanied me down the corridor
and
said "Would you like me to come in for a little while?"
I began stuttering about an 'early start tomorrow' but luckily she came
in
anyway. We sat down by the fire and she started to take
my clothes off. All I could think was that IT was going to happen.
Frankly,
I was so overwhelmed that I was absolutely no help to
her. I didn't know whether I should try and remove her clothes or not.
In
fact, I thought she might hit me if I touched her.
Instead, very kindly, she told me what to do, whispering in my ear, and
I'd
never felt anything so wonderful before as this woman
close to me. I was so pathetic. Afterwards, she asked my age, but I
wouldn't
tell her. I didn't want her to know I was 21 and
terribly inexperienced. I waited around for her the next day, having
developed an insatiable yen for a complete re-enactment of the
night before, but she wanted nothing more to do with me. I stayed madly
in
love with her and though about her for months afterwards.
But, alas, I never saw her again.
It was to be quite some time before I
had
another sexual experience, but it was as fraught as the
first. She was a school teacher who would come and visit me backstage.
Mostly we would walk and talk, and I would drop her off with
a goodnight kiss.. Then, one night, we went walking down by the river.
We
hugged and kissed, and before I knew it, my trousers were
unexpectedly around my ankles. On the drive home, I began to experience
the
most horrendous itch. I had caught something horrible-
my private parts were covered in spots. A quick visit to the doctor
revealed
the worst- in my haste, I'd made love on a bed of
stinging nettles.
Shortly afterwards, I met a beautiful girl- a model
called
Virginia who sometimes wore woolly black stockings. Not
the sexiest of garments, I grant you, but they were dazzling on her
because
she had the most beautiful body. Unfortunately whenever
I contemplated launching my self on that body my Catholic upbringing
came
back to haunt me and I couldn't help seeing my priest
wagging a finger at me. In the end, I decided God wouldn't judge me too
harshly if I slipped every now and then. I slipped alright,
but I'm not complaining in the least. And thereÕs no doubt in my mind
that
Virginia in her woolly tights was my sexual Waterloo.
During my 21st year, I was given a part in Neil Simon's Come Blow Your
Horn
in the West End with Bob Monkhouse, Nyree Dawn Porter
and Libby Morris. The first night was a huge success. From that point on
it
was comedy for me. Mum and Den and Nan were all there
and the critical response was fabulous. The party lasted into the small
hours and Bob and his wife put me up for the night. When I
crept home early the next morning, I found a long brown envelope my
mother
had left on my pillow. She had written a few words on it
in pencil : "My wonderful, wonderful son." ThatÕs all it said, but it was
like an award for me, something I still treasure. I still
have it, wrapped in tissue, kept in a dark place so it doesn't fade. I'm
glad she had that opening night and that she was there with
me to share in the success. It was the last thing I was able to give
her;
she died within the year.
I've often been accused of being
susceptible to superstition. Perhaps I am, but I believe everyone has
experienced a sixth sense- or feelings that can't be explained
away in the normal course of events- and I accord it a healthy respect.
One
night during the run of Come Blow Your Horn, I'd been
out with some friends at the Earl's Court flat of an old friend of mine.
She
was a country girl from a very good family. I'd known
her a few years and she knew my family. We'd entertained ourselves by
messing around with a ouija board, trying to get a lead on the
name of the next Derby winner. Later in the evening the pointer went
completely out of control, and my friend became hysterical,
crying uncontrollably. I managed to quieten her down eventually, though
she
still refused to say what was the matter.
Months later,
she revealed that she had suddenly seen my mother ill and dying. Later
that
evening, as my car turned into the end of our road, I
saw another car outside our house. It was strange for that time. Inside
the
house, everything was in a terrible state, my mother
was upstairs in her room with the family doctor and I could hear her
crying
in pain. Den and I sat downstairs feeling helpless.
finally the doctor came down and said she had to go to hospital
immediately.
She was taken to Dulwich Hospital, where she was
diagnosed with having had a gallstone attack. It was a terrible shock. I
had
never thought of mum as being vulnerable before, and
she had never had a day of illness that I could recall. But now she lay
in
hospital, helpless, covered in intravenous drips and
tubes. After several days it was obvious she wasn't responding to
treatment.
One night at the theatre, I sought out Bob for counsel;
he recommended we get a second opinion. Like many ordinary people, my
family
was intimidated by the medical profession and too timid
to ask questions. The next morning, I tried to convince Mum to get a
second
opinion, but she refused, worried about offending our
family doctor by questioning his judgement. For the first time in my
life, I
ignored her wishes; Bob's advice seemed so sensible. I
suppose I acquire my fist bit of worldly wisdom at that moment- but it
came
a week too late. I was able to find a specialist who
advised that mum be transferred immediately to another hospital to
undergo
emergency surgery. Without waiting another hour, I had
her removed to St George's in Hyde Park. I remember holding her hand in
the
ambulance as she glimpsed a view of Buckingham Palace on
that beautiful March morning. The doctor told us she had acute
pancreatitis
which should have been operated on days before.
Afterwards, I wept outside the ward. It was a long hard operation; when
we
saw her again, she was heavily sedated and drifting in
and out of consciousness, although she knew Den and I were with her. But
she
didn't improve and a decision was made to operate
again, this time to close an opening in the pancreas through which
poisons
were leaking into her body.
That night, when I left to do
the show, I couldn't touch her as she was housed in an oxygen tent and I
could only kiss her goodbye on the chilly plastic that
separated us. The next morning, at some black hour before dawn, the
sudden
ringing of the telephone ripped through the silence of
our house. I heard Den answer and muffled conversation. When he came
into my
room, I knew what he had to tell me, his tearstained
face said it all. She had just turned 44.
I've never felt such
overwhelming
loneliness and pain before or since, like a black cold
pain in the middle of my gut. I wept until my face throbbed with I and
then
I was suddenly engulfed with the most soul-destroying
rage. I beat my fists against the wardrobe door, wanting to smash it
open. I
couldn't bear the injustice of my mother's death, or
conceive that a good God would let such a thing happen. And I could weep
at
this moment for all the things I never knew- and will
never know- about her, and for the thousand questions I want to ask her
now
that I am older than she was when I last saw her.
Den and
I began a new life together, along with his parents who were still
living
with us. In his way, he had always done his best for me
and I owe him a debt for the years of sacrifice he made for a boy who
wasn't
his son. But I was always very conscious that he was my
stepfather. With my mother gone, we were like two strangers living in
the
same house. The strain pushed us to the limit until, one
day, it exploded and we fought, dredging up old hurts, both real and
imagined.
Den had only known one way to answer me- with the back of his hand.
Again,
it was as strong as a piece of iron when he swung his arm
through the air and knocked me to the floor. From that moment, the last
threads of family that bound us were broken. I waited until
Den left for work that night to pack up what I owned. Then, at the age
of
21, I left Herne Hill for good with no plan except to
start a new life.
Next week I'll be telling you of the adventures I encountered- and how I
met
the love of my life, only to lose her through my own
weakness.
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