Jackie McGregor: Bill was a Goodie with a deep fear: a glimpse behind the comedic mask

My generation grew up loving them. It aired from 1970-1982, written and created by its stars Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden.

One of their most famous episodes featured, “Kitten Kong,” a giant white cat that terrorized London and appeared in the show’s opening titles.

At its peak, The Goodies drew weekly audiences of up to 10 million viewers, while their catchphrases like, “Ecky Thump,” and signature dance moves to their hit single, “Funky Gibbon,” became a staple in Northern Irish playgrounds at that time.

A man famously died laughing at an episode. The Goodies were regarded as comedy geniuses.

Sadly, Bill Oddie passed away last week. It felt like the end of an era. He kindly helped me with two charity projects, and a glimpse behind his comedic mask revealed a very different story. He shared with me bleak tales of his uninspiring childhood, growing up in Rochdale.

Reared by his father and grandmother, his mother was rarely seen or spoken of. She was eventually sectioned. He had been told when very young there was, “something wrong with her nerves,” which he came to accept as a euphemism for unstable and sometimes violent, particularly towards his father.

Bill witnessed evidence of this when he came home one day from school to find the kitchen strewn with blood-splattered, smashed crockery. His grandmother was hiding, his father at work and his mother had vanished to “wherever she went to.”

He described his granny as the lady of the house, though she lacked the skills women of her era were supposed to have, like sewing and cooking. His accountant father would make the dinner each night, which consisted of egg and chips, always. He viewed his formative years as traumatic and lonely.

Bill described his childhood bedroom as dimly lit with no toys, it was “less like a kids’ room, and more like Bates’ Motel,” he remarked. To comfort himself, he would arrange three pillows into a pretend dinghy each night, a routine he maintained well into his teens.

Then came the “night of the cat.” He couldn’t remember who had brought the cat into the house or if they’d ever given it a name, but it was huge, white and nervous. He described it as “a sort of ghost cat.” It would hide behind the furniture and detested people – for Bill, the feeling was mutual.

Each night Bill made his father check the room was cat-free, before sleeping. Then one night during WWII blackouts he felt something touch his foot in bed. When he reached down to investigate, the cat screeched like a banshee and launched itself at Bill’s face attempting to suffocate him while tearing at his cheeks with its claws. He said it was one of his life’s scariest experiences, leaving him with a cat phobia that never abated.

He later used this nightmarish event as the spark for their iconic “Kitten Kong,” sketch which went on to win the Silver Rose award at the Montreux Festival.

Reflecting on the incident later in life he wryly remarked; “Maybe my early childhood was more inspiring than I thought!”

And for many of my generation, we will never forget that cat.