Terry Ravenscroft was born in 1938, in the small town
of New Mills, Derbyshire. His mother had a particularly long
and difficult delivery, largely because she'd forgotten to take her
tights off. At first everyone thought that the new baby had two short
white legs and two long brown ones, but fortunately the mistake was
soon discovered, and they all lived happily ever after. (No,
sorry, that was The Sleeping Beauty,
sorry, Author) The Ravenscrofts decided to share
equally the responsibility of bringing up their son - however he proved to be a
difficult baby, often throwing tantrums and crying for long spells, especially
when it was his father's day for breast feeding him. But he eventually grew out
of it, prospered, and at the age of five started his formal education. He was a
bright child at school as his mother had painted his head with luminous paint
so she could pick him out easily when she came to collect him. A clever if
highly strung boy he passed the eleven-plus at the age of nine, passed three
GCE's at the age of eleven, and passed water in bed until the age of fourteen.
Due to the latter, plus a south-facing window and the central heating being on
full all the time, there was usually a rainbow in his bedroom and this gave him
an early interest in meteorology. To find out more about it he went to the
local library and asked if they had a book on it but unfortunately the
librarian thought he said 'metallurgy' and he spent the next two years
wondering what extracting metals from their ores had to do with the weather.
(The same thing probably happened to Michael Fish, but to know as much about
meteorology as he does he must have studied metallurgy for much longer) After
leaving school at the age of seventeen he went to Oxford, where he saw his
favourite football team Derby County lose 2-1 to Oxford United. His education
completed - in the toilet of the train back to Stockport by a woman he'd met in
the buffet car - he began his career when he took out articles at the
solicitors firm of Beckett and Hargreaves. The articles in question were a
silver paper knife, a gold pen and the cash box from Becket and Hargreaves'
safe. His next six months were spent at Her Majesty's Pleasure - when he
obtained a position as masseur and general pamperer to Princess Serena of
Jordan. It was while he was working for Princess Serena that he first realised
he could make people laugh, when one night she saw him having a pee and saw the
size of his penis. Heartbroken he returned to England to take stock of himself.
He was destitute, poorly educated, had no special talent and little ambition,
so there was only one thing for it - he would have to join the BBC. Sadly, on
being interviewed for the position of Director-General he was told he was
over-qualified. It was while he was at the BBC that he met his wife - she'd
realised he'd forgotten his cheese sandwiches and had followed him to London.
Disappointed, because he'd been expecting tuna sandwiches, he ate them and they
returned North. Back home they decided to startle a family. (That was a typing
error, it should have been 'start a family', but I've left it as it is because
on reflection there was nobody more startled than my family when my wife gave
birth to black quadruplets - Author) Never fully believing his wife's claim
that the reason their children were black was because when she was pregnant she
had been frightened by The Four Tops, he nevertheless did his best to bring
them up.
Whilst working in a succession of mundane
jobs he started writing comedy scripts, and after selling one or two he started
writing full-time in 1978. Since then he has written for Les Dawson, The Two
Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise, Terry and June, Smith and Jones, Not The
Nine-o-Clock News, Dave Allen, Ken Dodd, Roy Hudd and quite a few others. He
also wrote the award-winning BBC Radio series Star Terk Two. He recently became
semi-retired and now spends his time servicing his Razzamatazz comedy website
and running his successful speechwriting service.
Part of the
above is true, part of it is a load of old bollocks. Guess which is the truth,
the part written in black or the part written in red, and you could win Big
Money. Simply call us on 016634 753289 with your answer. Calls will be
charged at the rate of £1.50 per second and will be for a minimum of
three weeks, and the profit will be split equally between me, Chris Tarrant,
and those greedy bastards at British Telecom. (As this is also written in black
this could also be a lie, so be careful.)
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