Viva Brighton Issue #30 August 2015

its and bobs...............................on the buses:spread the word#4 jimmy edwards (No 12)Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.comIn 1944, Jimmy Edwardswas flying equipmentand supplies overthe Netherlands, whenhe spotted a Germanplane heading in his direction.It was firing athim. His first thought,according to his warmemoirs, was: ‘Thiswon’t do. We’ve got a show to put on tonight!’Shot up till his engines failed, despite his evasivemanoeuvres, he had to crash land, and then hide ina ditch till nightfall to avoid getting captured. Hedidn’t make it to the show. But he did win the DistinguishedFlying Cross.Edwards had entered the RAF as an introverted,bow-tie wearing, aspiring poet-and-teacher; he wasdemobbed in 1946 as a ‘hard-drinking, hard-swearing,jocular Jim,’ in his words, who was now beginninga career in comedy.Noted for his bumbling, caricature-English persona,Edwards had a comically large moustache, possiblygrown to cover a scar sustained during his wartimecrash landing. ‘He was a special kind of Englishman,’former Goon Michael Bentine told the Times. ‘A realshooting, fishing and quaffing-of-ale man. At thesame time he was very intelligent and scholarly.’ Hewas nicknamed The Professor.‘Jimmy Edwards was a very funny man, but he wasgay and very troubled about it,’ Barry Cryer has said.Though Edwards married a woman in 1959, he apparentlytold her, on their honeymoon, that he wasgay but ‘trying to reform’. In 1976, he was outed inthe newspapers, which upset him greatly.Edwards lived in Fletching, East Sussex, for 20years; he died in 1988, and was buried in the village.“Here’s my chap, Andy Johnson, on one of themany Rome hop-on-hop-off bus tours sailingpast the Coliseum,” writes Viva reader Anne Dennington.“His ears are plugged into the bus tour’scommentary of the sights, although he is momentarilydistracted by June’s Viva Brighton magazine.These sightseeing buses are a very good way ofseeing Rome and for getting your bearings ofwhere everything is in this fascinating ancient city.”Peter Harold sent this picture from “a lovely littleplace in the mountains of Mallorca” while onholiday at the end of June. “Just thinking aboutwhere to eat and drink when we get back,” hewrites. He doesn’t mention the cat’s name; theyboth look very relaxed.Carry on taking Viva wherever you go, and, viainfo@vivabrighton.com, help us spread the word…....9 ....