With his sour expression and deadpan delivery, joker Les Dawson kept whole generations of comedy fans in stitches.
Now, 21 years after the much-loved comic died of a heart attack at 62, his widow Tracy and their daughter Charlotte have published his best material – including a seemingly endless supply of mother-in-law jokes – in a new book.
“Les left me a cupboard full of fabulously funny material,” says Tracy, 64, “He would spend hours composing new gags, honing old ones and putting together new material.
- I’m not saying my mother didn’t like me but she kept looking for loopholes in my birth certificate.
- When my mother-in-law smiled it looked like a crack across a septic tank.
- Dad didn’t like me. In fact, the night I was kidnapped by gypsies, it was Father who drove the caravan for them.
I’ve had some bad news about the wife’s wealthy uncle who’s ill in hospital. He’s recovering. I went to see him last week. I said: “Is there anything I can do for you?” He said: “Only one thing. Take your foot off the oxygen tube.”
My mother wanted me to be brought up at Eton. My father said: “He looks as if he’s been eaten and brought up.”
My grandfather made money out of the slave trade – he sold my grandmother.
My little lad was saying his prayers last night. Halfway through them he shouted at the top of his voice: “And please God send me a big red fire engine, price £2, from Johnson’s Toy Shop!” I said: “There’s no need to shout, son. God isn’t deaf.’ He said: “I know, but Mother is.”
When I was a lad my teeth stuck out so much Mother rented me out as a till.
Our house was so cold we put the milk in the fridge to stop it freezing.
There was an old farmer from Greece / Who did terrible things to his geese / But he went too far with a budgerigar / And the parrot phoned the police.
I call my wife “Treasure.” She reminds me of something that’s just been dug up.