Free This Is Your Life by John O'Farrell Page A

probably just keep going.
    Unbeknown to me the crew had stopped filming and gathered round a little monitor to check back the footage. Which is why they didn’t notice me dashing off up the hill, not daring to slow up in case I ruined another take or was shown on national television to be a rather weedy jogger. It must have been a minute or more later that the producer looked up from her screen to turn to me and ask what I thought, when she realized I was not in fact by her side but was still running with all my might up to the clifftop, desperately listening out for someone to shout ‘Cut!’ They got me back before I ran all seven miles to Beachy Head.
    â€˜Are there any other joggers who might have seen Billy up here yesterday?’
    As she said this I could see running down the hill the young woman who had stopped Billy Scrivens the day before and asked for his autograph. He had taken her pen and made her giggle by signing his name right across her naked upper arm.
    â€˜What about her?’ they asked me. As she came closer I could still make out the smudge; she’d obviously not washed it off. What a great piece of TV news footage that would make.
    â€˜No. She wasn’t here yesterday,’ I said. ‘Never seen her before.’
    I felt myself shiver slightly. It must have been colder than I thought.
    This is how famous Billy Scrivens was. The flyer outside the newsagent’s said, ‘BILLY IS DEAD’. Not ‘TV COMEDIAN DIES’, and you buy the paper and discover that it was someone who used to be in some long-forgotten American sit-com. Not ‘TOP COMIC DIES’ and you buy the paper to find out which one. Not even ‘TV’S BILLY SCRIVENS DIES’, but just his name, that was enough; they knew you’d be interested. ‘Billy is dead.’ That’s the true definition of fame, when they only have to say your first name when you die. What a proud moment for him.
    Naturally it was the first item on the lunchtime news. Just the way the newsreader said ‘Billy Scrivens’, his voice dropping a couple of notes for the last syllable – that was all you needed to hear to know instantly that this superstar’s life was over. It was all very sad, very shocking and I checked that my video recorder was taping the right channel. There was a photo of him behind the newsreader with the dates of his life underneath and then they cut to the scene of his heart attack: ‘his holiday cottage just outside the Sussex coastal town of Seaford’. Seaford was pronounced slightly incorrectly, like it was a forerunner of the Model T Ford, but there was no time to be annoyed about this because there was Maggie Belfitt talking to camera, describing how Billy Scrivens had suffered a fatal heart attack after going jogging. And then suddenly there was me – jogging down the hill, looking pretty cool if I say so myself, as she was saying that these cliffs were a popular spot for local joggers, which they weren’t, adding that Billy often jogged here, which he hadn’t. Then the whole picture was filled with my talking head. ‘Billy was a great guy. A trueprofessional, but that rare thing, a comedian who was as funny off the screen as he was on it. . .’ I sounded so convincing. Then a caption popped onto the screen. ‘Jimmy Conway. Billy Scrivens’s jogging partner.’
    â€˜And though he will always be remembered for the joy and laughter he brought to millions,’ I continued, ‘we should not forget the tireless work Billy did for charity. We’ll all really miss him.’ But they cut my little sad shake of the head. I couldn’t believe they cut my little sad shake of the head. That was the best bit! Did these people have no idea?
    The phone went immediately. Even though they were still talking about Billy’s sudden death and tracing the early years of his career, an even bigger news story had just broken for