Profession? Northerner!

Last time we looked at the early career of Jimmy Tarbuck. We noted his success hinged upon – or was at least boosted by – a cheeky-chappy persona, quick wit, smart suits and a mop-top of hair that eased a pathway southwards (and to riches) on the coattails of The Beatles and other early-sixties Merseybeat artists. A professional Liverpudlian a la Cilla Black, Tarbuck became part of a tranche of northern entertainers who were to live their show biz lives in exclusive parts of the South. For Tarby, home became Surrey’s Coombe Estate, wedged between the golf clubs of Royal Wimbledon, Coombe Hill and Coombe Wood. Richmond Park? A not too hefty four wood drive away.

Below the line, Puffins were iffy about Tarby – a bookmaker’s son – and thought him less funny than he thinks himself – fortunate to be in the right place at the right time as media fashion moved away from deference and received pronunciation, toward irreverence and provincial (and in particular northern) accents. This begs the question, is there such a thing as a professional northerner? Yes, and they’re worth watching and judging.

According to my intern, Miss Chat, the term ‘professional northerner’ is used stereotypically to describe someone from the North of England who seeks to profit from their northern identity. The individual may emphasise or exaggerate northern traits — such as a strong accent, no-nonsense attitude, or traditional working-class values — in environments where such characteristics may stand out, such as the media bubble in London.

They may use their background as part of a personal brand, often juxtaposing their northern roots with the more cosmopolitan, sometimes elitist, culture of southern England and London. Even Collins dictionary slips into the stereotyping: ‘A northerner is a person born in or who lives in the north of a place or country, ‘I like the openness and directness of northerners.’

All well and good, but to judge our contenders we must establish some good old-fashioned no-nonsense common sense down-to-earth rules (delivered in a flat voice that drops aitches and drags out vowels):

• Must make a good living at least in part from being northern
• An exaggerated or fake accent
• Humble start in life
• Live in the South in a big house
• A wafer-thin veneer of up-the-north bonhomie verging on the nasty/dodgy

As such, we can already grade Jimmy Tarbuck:

Good living from being northern: ****
Exaggerated accent: **
Humble start: *
Big house in South: *****
Dodgy bonhomie: ****

As for Cilla…

Cilla Black

Cilla Black (not her real name, Priscilla Maria Veronica Willis) shot to fame in 1964 with number one hit singles ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’ and ‘You’re My World’. Within months, the Scotty Road screamer went from living above a barber’s shop on Liverpool’s Scotland Road to selling 100,000 records a day. At age 27 the artist bought her first family home – a distance away from Merseyside – in the Southern celebrity enclave of Denham.

Besides being the home of the Martin-Baker ejector seat factory, the Buckinghamshire village is a useful base for celebrities as it lies on the M40 and is only seventeen miles from Central London and six miles from Heathrow Airport. Besides Cilla and family, other show biz residents have included Jess Conway and Roger Moore – until the former 007 sold his house to Paul Daniels.

Cilla’s pad sat on a 17-acre estate complete with tennis courts and putting green. The bricks and mortar included a giant conservatory, indoor pool, eight bedrooms, five bathrooms and a housekeeper’s cottage nearby. As Aunty Cilla would have said on Blind Date, in her daft made-up accent, ‘A lorra, lorra real estate!’

After she died in 2016, the property appeared on the market for £4.3 million as part of her impressive £11 million property portfolio. Besides Denham, a £2.5 million sixth-floor penthouse sat beside the River Thames in Westminster. A £400,000 three-bathroom apartment in the Reeds House complex faced a Caribbean beach between Barbados’s Holetown and Speightstown.

However, Cilla died at another of her properties, a villa in Estepona which she bought in 1996. Enjoying four ensuite bedrooms and lying twenty minutes from Marbella, the £2.3 million villa was described by the newspapers as being ‘perfect for all her showbiz pals who would come and visit.’ Despite this and despite suffering ill health, the 72-year-old died alone following a stroke and a fall and lay for some time before being discovered. Not the only chary occurrence at a chez Cilla.

As Tarby got into difficulties with Terry Thomas’s diamond-encrusted cigarette holder, the Blacks had trouble with jewels of their own. In the summer of 2003, it was alleged three masked burglars entered the Denham house through an unlocked downstairs window. They beat Jack, Cilla’s son, held a knife to his throat and threatened to kidnap him for ransom.

The 22-year-old talked them out of the plan but was forced to reveal the location of the family safe. Ms Black’s entire jewellery collection disappeared, including a diamond pendant worth tens of thousands of pounds, sentimental gifts from her late husband-manager Bobby Willis, and her mother’s engagement and wedding rings. At the time, Cilla commented, ‘Now I’ve lost everything I will not be replacing them. You can’t replace sentimental value.

You bet she wouldn’t be. *Cilla voice* Surprise, surprise, *end of Cilla voice* the insurance company were not happy with downstairs windows sans locks and refused to pay out her £1 million claim.

Good living from being Northern: *****
Exaggerated accent: *****
Humble start: **
Big house in South: *****
Dodgy bonhomie: *****

Brian Glover

Born in Sheffield and brought up in Barnsley, Brian Glover was more northern than ice, snow, polar bears and a sextant reading of 90 degrees of latitude above the equator. A grammar school boy and son of a grocer-cum-amateur-wrestler, school fellows included Michael Parkinson (more of whom later). Brian, also a wrestler, took a teacher training course and went on to teach English and French. Coming to prominence through a bit part as Sugdeon the PE teacher in Ken Loach’s 1969 film ‘Kes’, Glover found himself in demand as an actor and voice artist.

Heading South, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared in TV’s Porridge sitcom. On the big screen, he starred alongside John Wayne and featured in Aliens 3. The voice of Tetley Tea commercials, people who understand the dark arts of perception management describe his voice as ‘brown’, meaning ‘rugged, reliable, honest and natural.’ In keeping with the northern stereotype and ideal for reassuring existing customers they’ve made the right choice and for encouraging other consumers to try a new brand.

However, despite looking the part, Brian is disqualified from our professional northerner competition for being too nice. His 1997 obituaries recalled a down-to-earth hard-working actor, friendly towards all he met. A characteristic of the simple northern soul, but not of the professional northerner transplanted South.

In an attempt to be readmitted from beyond the grave, Brain lies in Brompton Cemetary, which sits only 51° 29′ north of the equator and is both a Royal Park and a neighbour to Chelsea FC’s Stamford Bridge ground.

Good living from being northern: *****
Exaggerated accent: *****+
Humble start: **
Big house in South: **
Dodgy bonhomie: Disqualified

Dickie Bird

Another son of Barnsley, and also disqualified, is umpire Harold Richard ‘Dickie’ Bird. However, Dickie tells a good tale and therefore is allowed a footnote or two. First the disqualification. Dickie still lives in the North and during the lockdowns was photographed at his pleasant four-bedroomed house at the edge of the Barnsley metropolitan area in the commuter village of Staincross. Plus, although he’s very northern he hasn’t made a living from it, rather from being a cricket umpire.

Now the good story. The son of a miner, Dickie grew up in the terraces close to the town’s Church Street. After he achieved fame, the proud but down-to-earth burghers decided to erect a statue close by to celebrate their famous son. According to Dickie, after installation, his likeness had to be given a higher plinth to stop local ladies hanging their telephone number-embossed underwear on the statue’s trademark outstretched umpire’s ‘out’ arm. It must be said, this is not born out by the Wikipedia photo but Puffins are encouraged to believe Dickie before trusting t’internet.

Good living from being northern: *
Exaggerated accent: ***
Humble start: ***
Big house in South: Disqualified
Dodgy bonhomie: ** (can be a bit grumpy, apparently)

As there is a famous photo of John Lennon, Jimmy Tarbuck and Peter Sissons as school boys, so there are endless pictures of Dickie Bird, Michael Parkinson and Geoffrey Boycott together. All played for Barnsley Cricket Club and all were miners’ sons.

In the 1950s, Parkinson and Bird opened the batting for Barnsley while a bespectacled Boycott, several years their junior, fought hard to get into the first team. At the time, Bird played senior cricket for Yorkshire while being a regular 50-batsman in the local game. Boycott’s career became legendary and included 151 first-class hundreds, but…

Geoffrey Boycott

According to a blue plaque on the gatepost, Geoffrey’s old Grade II listed house was a company headquarters from the late 20th century until 2013 when Boycott converted it into a substantial eleven-bedroom home. Unfortunately for our purposes, it’s located in Boston Spa near Weatherby and not in the South. Worse followed, in 2019 the Boycotts relocated a bit further south but only to the Cheshire area to be closer to their daughter.

Good living from being northern: **
Exaggerated accent: ***
Humble start: **
Big house in South: Disqualified
Dodgy bonhomie: *****

Michael Parkinson

We’re on firmer ground with the third member of the triumvirate. After his trial with Yorkshire CCC, cub reporter Michael Parkinson was told to stick to journalism. Which he did, with another legendary career taking him south to the Daily Express, the BBC and a house in Bray, Berkshire. A mansion next to the River Thames with its own jetty with a motorboat moored alongside and at the end of a private road, it was also close to a Michelin-starred restaurant that Michael once owned. A family home, Parkinson married a Doncaster girl, Mary, in 1959. In keeping with the stereotypes, they met on the top deck of a Donny double-decker bus.

Good living from being northern: *****
Exaggerated accent: *****
Humble start: **
Big house in South: *****+
Dodgy bonhomie: *** (could be difficult – they say)

Here’s an interesting point. Tarby has been married to Pauline for 65 years. Michael Parkinson was married for 64 years. Cilla for 30 years until husband Bobby’s passing in 1999. It’s only contestants who are disqualified who’ve: never married (Dickie Bird), divorced then lived with a partner (Brian Glover) or eventually married a ‘long-term friend’ in among being accused of beating up a mistress (Geoffrey Boycott). Make of that what you will. The exception to our truism is:

Paul Daniels

Although a one-time neighbour of Cilla in Denham, Paul’s (real name Newton Edward Daniels) better-known house is seven miles along the Thames from Michael Parkinson on the other side of Maidenhead. A waterside home at Wargrave, Berkshire, sometimes in the headlines as prone to flooding (‘Flooded? Not a Lot! Defiant Paul Daniels Tells Fans’), it also featured on TV in the Loius Theroux documentary ‘When Louis Met Paul and Debbie’. The Debbie in question being second wife Debbie McGee, a dancer, famous for being 20 years Paul’s junior.

Telling against the magician, who died in 2016, is the lack of an accent. Or rather, a clipped Teesside accent which people from outside of the area don’t recognise as being northern. Might he be helped by being a nasty, dodgy man beneath the bad toupee and slick magician’s patter? At one time he drove a Ferrari, registration MAG1C (Jimmy Tarbuck had COM1C). Better still, he was one of those celebrity tax-payers who rant about leaving the country after the election but then never do. However, should we cut him some slack?

Having moved mother Nancy down to a neighbouring property, canny Paul kept her house in his name, perhaps in anticipation of complications arising should the sweet-looking window do a Brian Glover. However, upon her passing, tax-averse Paul was hit with a surprise rabbit-out-the-hat monster Capital Gains Tax bill which saw him ranting to the newspapers once more.

Good living from being northern: *
Exaggerated accent: *
Humble start: **
Big house in South: *****
Dodgy bonhomie: *****

Drum roll…

Having completed our lineup of contestants, and without even needing to take evidence from cabin crew, *Graham from Blind Date voice* Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Professional Northerner, and here is your winner, Miss Cilla Black, *End of Graham from Blind Date voice*.

Unless, of course, Puffins know better. Feel free to make your own suggestions below the line.
 

© Always Worth Saying 2024