Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
Already I could see life wasn’t easy.’ Indeed the reality was even more painful. Even Cooper’s birth bore the stamp of adversity that came to characterize his stage act. In more serious moments he would ruminate on the actual conditions in which prematurely he came into this world: ‘They tell me that when I was born the midwife gave me up for a weakling. Slung me to the bottom of the bed. Gave up on me. If my mother hadn’t kept me alive on drops of brandy and condensed milk, I wouldn’t be here now.’ That midwife was Maud Shattock, although according to her son, Ivor, she was not officially recognized as such, rather the informal pillar of the community whose combined efficiency and kindliness brought upon her the responsibility of delivering babies, laying out the dead, and acting as a Mother Courage figure in the lives of those around her. The arrival of young Thomas would have been one chore among many on a typical day. Ivor says, ‘My mother never went to bed before twelve and was up at four.’ A few days before she had taken pity on Tommy’s parents as they came searching for accommodation.
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