A dealer in autographs

As eluded to last week, when we were kids we lived next door to a famous person, or rather we lived next door to the sister of a famous person and that famous person would sometimes come around to visit his sister.

The famous person in question was William Gaunt.

Yes of course you know him, you know, the one who wasn’t American in “The Champions”, the dopey looking one, the one who you look at and think “How did he get the gig ?”, the William Gaunt who has this Wiki page

You must know who I mean by now ?

No ? Never mind then, he got famous by being in a very rubbish 1960s TV programme called “The Champions” that we used to watch as a family while our dad yelled constantly in the background “Bloody rubbish”, and then got even more famous by being the harassed middle class father of a troublesome middle class family in the middle class BBC sitcom “No Place Like Home”, the only thing it didn’t have in it was Molly Sugden as a middle class granny (it was compulsory for all BBC sitcoms to feature Molly Sugden as a middle class granny during the 1980s)

So we live next door to a big TV star, or at least we live next door to his sister and the big TV star comes to visit sometimes in his big flash sports car, and one day our Ned asks Janet the Spinster (big TV star’s next door sister) if he can have her brothers autograph the next time he comes around, he asks her because of course we act all nonchalant every time the big TV star comes to visit, we stroll down our driveway as the big TV star is getting out of his car and barely give him a second glance, sometimes we say “oh hello” to him as if he is just the brother of our next door neighbour rather than a big TV star and once I heard our dad ask him “And what do you do for a living then ?” to which I was sorely tempted to remind him that this was the bloke that he called “bloody rubbish” on TV every Sunday afternoon.

So our Ned takes William Gaunts autograph to school with him and he holds it up in class at the “Show and Tell” session, not that we called it “Show and Tell” or anything, it was more like “does anyone have any news to tell the class, put your hand down Ned” for our Neds teachers all hated him, you should see his school reports, they are bloody hilarious.

And then all the kids in his class want William Gaunts autograph for William Gaunt is a big TV star and our Ned starts to think that maybe he has dropped himself in it by “Showing and Telling” for its one thing to ask your next door neighbour for an autograph from her brother but quite another to bring a ream of paper home and a whole batch of pens and ask for a wholesale lot of autographs, “do you think that the next time he comes around he’ll put aside four hours to sign all of these bits of paper please Janet the Spinster ?”

So our Ned does the next best thing – he signs William Gaunts name on all the bits of paper himself.

And he sells them at school, a nine year old autograph dealer, he made a fortune, I was very jealous.

But like all entrepreneurs Ned was not satisfied with just being the unauthorised Cookridge County Primary School dealer in William Gaunts autograph, oh no, two weeks later he starts a rumour around the school that our posh Auntie Doris lives next door to Johnny Giles, famous Leeds United footballer – and its true, she does, but its not something that we have ever exploited, autograph-wise.

And our Ned asks our posh Auntie Doris for Johnny Giles’ autograph and before you could say “famous Irish footballer” he has copied Mr Giles’ autograph out fifty times and flogged that one all around the school too.

And now he has got the bit between his teeth I get collared in the playground one day by a smaller kid who asks me if its true that John Wayne’s mum lives at the top of our street.

Its at that point where I take Ned to one side and tell him the story of the goose that laid the golden egg and maybe John Waynes mum living at the top of our street is just a step too far.

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