Blast from the Past: Jimmy Young's characters still resonate today

Our Jimmy was a genius. Of that there is no question. The Ballymoney-born comedian popped into my head recently as I watched coverage of all the industrial action taking place across Northern Ireland and the UK by nurses, train drivers, teachers and civil servants.

It is a terrible situation for sure, but it brought to mind Jimmy Young’s wonderfully funny character Billy Hulk, the donkey jacket-wearing union rep...never too far from a brazier, a picket line or other stereotypes.

There’s one hilarious skit entitled ‘I’m no mug’ where Billy Hulk, supposed lefty and man of the people, arrives in a Rolls Royce smoking a cigar.

Speaking to a journalist he explains that his job title in the engineering factory is a “strike starter….a man what starts strikes”.

The factory, we learn, is on strike because management haven’t supplied utensils for the workers’ tea-break. An outraged Billy Hulk says they were given "big mugs with no saucers and nowhere to rest your piece!.”

Young takes the caricature of a strident union rep and runs with it, championing his members’ ire over a lack of decent crockery.

Even though Billy Hulk is an absurdly exaggerated character, elements of him still strike (pardon the pun) a chord.