Free Frank Skinner Autobiography by Frank Skinner

altogether. This way I still get the money and mass adulation (my dream is a life-size cardboard cut-out of me gesturing towards a special display case full of Frank Skinners by Frank Skinner, in all major bookstores), and a book that doesn’t upset any of my friends, family, or former teachers. But what would Super Frank make of that? The old-school rappers used to have a saying, ‘Keep it real’. My motives are probably a weird mix of greed, selfishness, pride, meticulousness, honesty and vanity, but I’m sticking with it. Walk on, Bruce.
    My dad liked to bet on horse-racing. My dad liked a drink. My dad had a bad temper. I really loved my dad. My dad always said there wasn’t one working class, there was two. And we should see ourselves as being in Working Class Division One. Consequently, he believed in keeping up appearances. He was never a man to wander the streets in his working clothes, unless he was going to or from work. Therefore, if he wanted to have a bet on the horses, he would usually get someone else to put it on. Otherwise he would have to put a suit and tie on and once he’d done that he might as well go to the pub and get arseholed. This would almost certainly involve him spending more money in the pub than he was likely to win at the bookies, with his ten five-pence doubles, ten five-pence trebles, and a tenpenny roll-up.
    So it was when, one Saturday morning in 1963, he asked my mom to put a bet on for him. Mom said she was too busy and he should ask Terry. Terry claimed he was too busy as well. My dad was slowly inching towards the end of his tether. The bet was never placed. The first horse ran. It won. The second horse ran. It won. My dad’s thirst took a turn for the worse and he decided to go to the pub after all.
    Even as a small child, I could smell trouble. When Dad returned at about 3.30 that afternoon, he had sorted out the thirst problem, but his anger at the unplaced bet had grown out of all proportion. Apparently, some of his other unbacked horses had also done quite well. He didn’t say much. He took off his jacket and walked into the garden. Keith, my mother, and me decided against following him, but watched him through the window. He stood, centre stage, and took a deep breath. Clearly, he had set himself a task but we had no idea what it might be. Then he sprang into action. The first part of his task seemed to involve pulling down the garden shed with his bare hands. He was holding the bottom of the shed and apparently trying to drag it off its foundations. Bear in mind that the shed contained a work bench complete with vice, plus garden and work tools and, as Keith pointed out, his school cricket bat. Incredibly, the shed slowly began to move. My dad, legs braced and head pulled back till he was looking at the sky, dragged the whole thing into the middle of the garden. We looked at each other in some confusion. I think my mom put her arms around us. Dad’s temper took many forms but never before had it manifested itself in landscape gardening. There was another shed, a little smaller than the first. Working-class men in the West Midlands loved a shed. There always seemed to be trucks knocking around the neighbourhood, carrying sheds, sometimes a greenhouse, but usually a shed. My dad was very good with his hands and he had built this second shed from scratch.
    He was a great builder of sheds, cucumber frames, chicken houses, chicken runs, goalpost-type structures for runner beans or sweet peas, all sorts, but I never ever knew him to buy any wood, or timber as he always called it. Thus, he was always on the lookout for free stuff. My old man’s endless quest for timber lasted for most of his life. Doors and floorboards from derelict houses, wooden fixtures and fittings in skips, any timber he could find. He would wait till it was dark and then tap one of his sons on the shoulder, mutter something about timber, and off we’d go to help him carry