Interview with Stuart Hall, The Times, 24 April 1999
Gold watch, gold buttons, gold skin. The voice drips gold, too, a molten flow of sing-song syntax. The 'R's roll richly, the 'C's are clipped curtly and we are told of rutting stags, yaks, snowflakes and, of course, Ozymandias, king of kings.
The match ended as a draw, incidentally. As if we still cared. Stuart Hall is in town and everyone knows it. "Joe, Joe Royle," he shouts as the Manchester City manager gets out of his car. The waiting press corps wants a quote about City's new signing, Terry Cooke. Stuart Hall wants Joe Royle. Stuart Hall gets Joe Royle. "You're late," he admonishes and issues the famous hee-hee, ho-ho chuckle. Royle, a large, pallid man in a washed-out tracksuit, is led to his office by the small chap in a smart suit.
Hall is about to interview Royle for a radio station. "Right, Joe, the
first thing I'm going to say will be along the lines: 'City were off the pace
and crap for a while, but now you're charging towards promotion. What's happened?'
Something like that, anyway. OK?"
"Fine," Royle replies.
Hall claps his hands, then rubs them together, kindling an invisible flame with happiness, sheer bloody-minded happiness; has Moss Side ever seen a sunnier morning? During the interview, Hall draws in close. His nimble fingers tug at Royle's clothing. He wants him to get the joke, share the joy. Royle, since he is a football man, cut from granite and turf, does not reciprocate, but the smile reveals everything. He is thinking: "This man is mad, but I like him." Hall will later say as much himself: "I live in fantasy land, I have a following of fellow nutcases."
City is Hall's football team. "It's in my blood," he says. "I used to stand on the terraces as a boy with my father. I call Maine Road the theatre of base comedy."
A few years ago, Martin Edwards, his tennis partner and the Manchester United chairman, encouraged him to buy shares in United. "I said: 'Martin, I'm a City supporter, what are you talking about?'"
After his interview with Royle, Hall wants a cup of tea. He strides into the canteen at City's training ground. There is no one to be seen. Onwards to the kitchen. Through the swinging doors. "Helloooo," he sings, "Helloooo?" His father told him never to miss an opportunity and this has become a doctrine. Television, radio, corporate parties, business schemes, he doesn't so much run at life as knock it over, pin it to the ground and pose for the victory photograph afterwards. "Everything I do I am enthusiastic about. If I'm bored with something, I don't do it," he says.
Hall is 68 and looking good, not that he would agree. The dashes of gold, the tan and the beatific smile are probably man-made diversions. He has said before that he is not happy in his skin. "I hate my body. I am runty, ill-formed, 5ft 8in and desperately wish I was 6ft-plus." Later, he will joke with our photographer and ask him to super-impose some "thick black hair" on to his head. Health-wise, a recent hospital check-up revealed that he had "the heart of a 10-year-old and arteries like Bentley exhaust pipes."
Every Saturday, he brings a touch of Las Vegas to wet and windy football grounds in the north of England, from where he is asked by Radio 5 Live to file a match report. The station and its listeners know that "match report" is a loose term. Extremely loose. His contemporaries tell us who passed to whom, who suffered a thigh strain, who scored the goal. Hall, in a voice as rich as fruit cake, mixes the profound with the absurd. His surreal monologues have become part of the nation's sporting fabric. The sentences are short and resonant. "Snowflakes. Floated like a gauze. Through the floodlights. Ice, cold, vinegar. Hitting red hot steak and kidney pies. And fresh chips ... I just self-indulge. I make noises in my head. I like to entertain myself."
His father was a self-made millionaire in baking and confectionery. His Irish-born mother cluttered the home with books. He was encouraged to read the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, writers of great eloquence and wit. They have remained with him; they have become him. "We always bandied words around. My mother had a great gift for English," he says. His expressive voice, more Gielgud than Motson, was nurtured at Glossop Grammar School, where he played the piano and was taught to infuse his voice with the same rhythm and melody. He joined BBC Radio in 1959 and became a television presenter six years later on the magazine programme Northwest Tonight. He wore cardigans and sat in an easy chair "to reflect the lives of the people and not talk down to them".
He came to national prominence in 1966 with It's A Knockout, which ran for 16 years. His irresistible, out-to-lunch laughter was the delightful accompaniment to 15ft-high Styrofoam chickens toppling from rope-bridges into over-sized paddling pools. It was Hall's inner world come to life. Millions visited this world on a weekly basis, but, in a moment of unforgivable sniffiness, the BBC axed the programme. Hall did not sulk. He bought the rights and £500,000-worth of props. It is now a successful touring event; MicroSoft has just booked it for a staff party. The chicken is still crossing the rope-bridge.
Hall's life has not been without tragedy. His first son, Nicholas, died in his arms in a hospital waiting-room when he was 3. He had suffered a heart seizure. "It was as if a black hole had opened up in my life," he says.
In 1989, he came close to bankruptcy as a Lloyd's "name" when the financial crisis hit the insurance syndicates. "I was frightened every time I heard the postman. I didn't know what the next letter would say. I nearly lost everything." Two years later, he was charged with shoplifting from his local Safeway. He was acquitted of stealing a jar of coffee and packet of sausages.
There have also been several failed businesses. "I've never been brilliant in business," he says. "If you have an artistic bent, you're never going to be good at the logistics of business. I've no time for all that. I'm the man who ran Shit Travel - what a great venture that was." He is referring to Stuart Hall International Travel, the acronym from hell.
During his shoplifting court case, a procession of Safeway staff - who might have been expected to follow the company line - spoke of their fondness for Hall. He had a word for everyone, he brightened their day. "The girls were lovely for speaking up for me," he said afterwards.
Hall has maintained the common touch. When he visits Bolton Wanderers, for instance, he cherishes his reunion with the club's octogenarian tea-ladies. "They always say to me: 'Oh, you look lovely today'. I say: 'I know'. 'Who got you ready?' they ask. 'Me mam,' I tell them." He laughs, and laughs some more.
He is still giggling when we hit the street. A City fan passes him by on crutches. "All right, lad?" Hall shouts. "Not bad," he replies. "Yes you are, you're on crutches!" They both laugh. It feels momentarily like a politician's walk-about, except there are no votes to be had, our protagonist is doing it just for fun. "Why are you so popular, Stuart?" I ask. "I don't know, I really don't know."