Free Parky: My Autobiography by Michael Parkinson Page A

me the scalping was just finishing for the day. I inspected his premises and found a hair or two. I charged him with having a dirty barber’s shop and had him doubling round the square for a long time. He didn’t recognise me. He simply thought I was another toffee-nosed public-school shit.
    I looked for the corporal but couldn’t find him. I’m still looking.
    When my posting came through I found I had to report to a Pay Office at Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire. I didn’t mind that. What did bother me was the thought that I was going to be in charge of working out pay for soldiers and I still couldn’t add up. After months of bobbing and weaving I was finally going to get found out. I decided to write again to the War Office, a letter about round pegs and square holes, asking if they were serious about making the best use of journalists by placing them in PR – in which case, I was their man!

9
    A CRICKETING GUINEA PIG
    I know I’m not supposed to admire Lancastrians, but I do. One way or another I have spent a good part of my working life in the county and have grown to admire a vigorous tribe of people. They have a dry wit I find appealing, best summed up in the story of Ken Taylor, a fine Yorkshire cricketer, making his debut in a Roses game at Old Trafford in the fifties. In those days there was a gate at the foot of the pavilion stairs manned by an attendant. As Taylor walked out in front of thirty thousand hostiles, the attendant opened the gate and as Taylor passed through said, ‘Good luck, young man, but think on, don’t be long.’ With this advice echoing in his mind, Ken was bowled first ball. As he returned, the attendant opened the gate for him and said, ‘Thank you, lad.’
    All of which explains why I enjoyed Ashton-under-Lyne. It was my first venture into what my father regarded as enemy territory. When I went home on leave he questioned me closely about the natives and warned me to be on my guard. He thought the people who lived on the wrong side of the Pennines were a tricky lot.
    I wasn’t there very long. I received a letter from the War Office saying I should report to the Army PR Department in Whitehall. I was given a desk in a large high-ceilinged room, opposite Captain Johnny Verschoyle. He had silver hair and I think he wore a monocle. If he didn’t, he ought to have. He was retired from his regiment and – if it wasn’t the Bengal Lancers, it should have been. The archetypal old-school British cavalry officer, he was also a kind and funny man.
    I was allowed to wear civvies, which was good news except for the fact that the only clothes I possessed were a pair of grey trousers and a black blazer with the badge of Barnsley Cricket Club on the top pocket. My colleagues all wore smart suits, and Captain Verschoyle was immaculate in waistcoat and regimental tie.
    ‘Which regiment is that, dear boy?’ he asked, indicating my blazer badge.
    ‘Barnsley Cricket Club,’ I replied.
    He lifted an eyebrow. ‘We’ve not had one of those at the War Office for a long time,’ he said. I took the kindly hint and bought a second-hand suit.
    The captain’s attitude to his job was, generally speaking, that enquiries from journalists interfered with his daily battle with the Daily Telegraph crossword. After sitting opposite him for about a week, I noticed I took many more calls than the good captain. I would receive twenty or more calls to his two or three. I decided to monitor his system and discovered that when he took a call he would say to the caller, ‘Just hang on for a moment, old chap, my other phone is ringing.’ Then he would put the receiver in his drawer and close it before returning to the crossword. After about thirty minutes he would replace the receiver. In that time, all his calls had been transferred elsewhere – mainly to me!
    I lived at Auntie Florrie’s cold-water flat in King’s Cross, sleeping on a camp bed in a frozen room. My lodgings could not have been in greater