Peter Cook: HAPPY DAYS ON THE ROCK

Many consider him the funniest man of the 20th Century. The 1960 revue Beyond The Fringe, which he largely wrote and in which he starred with Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett and his future partner Dudley Moore revolutionised British theatre comedy overnight. And nine years after his alcohol-accelerated death in January 1995, he has a flourishing fan club and a following far too large to be dismissed as a cult.

Yetlike many great humorists Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Benny Hill — Peter Cook was es sentially a shy, depressive man, aware of his ability to make others laugh,but forever unsure of him self. Humour was a shield that pro tected him from the pressures of the world,and according to his bi ographer, Harry Thompson, his only truly happy days were spent in Gibraltar.

He was bom into the kind of family that traditionally provided the British Empire with solid,reli able servants, and it was always thought that he would follow his father into the Foreign Office. But Peter's depressive character may well have been inherited. His grandfather,Edward Cook,a traf fic manager for the Malayan state railway,conunitted suicide in 1914 — something his widow kept a closely guarded secret and which Peter only learned in later life while researching his family his tory.

Peter's father. Alec Cook, was eight in 1914, but the man who shot himself in a garden in Kuala Lumpur was a shadowy figure he hardly knew.Such exotic outposts of Empire were not considered fit places to raise English children, and they were generally shipped off to boarding ^oolsin England where they absorbed that peculiar institution's eccentric view of life far away from the strangers who were their parents. When hisfather killed himself,the young Alec was thousands of miles and,culturally, thousands of years away from Ma laya atthe ImperialService College in Windsor.

The experience did not deter him from inflicting an identical fate on his own son. By the time he married Margaret Mayoin June 1936,Alec Cook was firmly estab lished as an Assistant District Of ficer in the Calabar Province of Nigeria.Margaret dutifully moved to Nigeria with her husband, but when she became pregnant a few months later she returned imme diately to England so that her child could be bom in the old country. Peter Edward Cook arrived, safe and sound, on 17th November 1937.

He saw little ofhis parentsin his formative years, growing up in a world dominated by nannies and school matrons in which his par ents were mere visitors who ap peared occasionally out of no where, stayed a while, and van ished again. In spite of this, Peter grew to have genuine, if inevita bly distant affection for his father. In particular,he shared his quirky, surreal sense of humour,though it would be many years before he would admit,or even realise what a profound effect it had been on the development of his own character.

'[ thought he was the best of us, and the only one who came near being a genius.'

peter COOK

Alec Cook left Nigeria at the end of World War II, but any thoughts of settling down to a normal fam ily life in England were soon dis pelled when he was unexpect edly sent to Gibraltar to be come the Colony's Financial Secretary. By this time Peter had a baby sister,Sarah,who accom panied her parents to the Rock. Peter, however, was again left behind. He became a pupil at St Bede's boarding school in East bourne,and it wasonly during the school holidays that he was able to join his parents and sister in their Mediterranean idyll. He had developed a curious obsession with insects and all kinds of creepy-crawlies,and with Sarah at his side he spent hours turning over stones and investigating every crevice of the family's gar den and beyond. One of their fa vourite places was Rosia Bay, where they caught fish with home made rods and unceremoniously fed them to the cat. Their adven tures extended into Spain, where they rescued terrapins from a parched river bed and installed them in a specially dug pond in the garden. In May 1947, the preco cious young matutero was caught trying to smuggle a tortoise across the border inside a teapot.

The highpoint of his time in Gi braltar came when the legendary film star Errol Flynn briefly berthed his yacht in the bay.Peter clenched his autograph book firmly between his teeth and swam out. Flynn was below decks, and stayed there, but his wife took the book to him. Inside, Flynn scrawled,"Hiya Pete",and signed his name.

It was a moment the young Pe ter would never forget.

As Financial Secretary,his father was an important man in Gibral tar. It was his signature which ap- would make him famous.

It all ended abruptly in January 1953, when his father was posted back to Nigeria,to become Perma nent Secretary of the Eastern Re gion.

Peter was fifteen, and although his remarkable comic talent was already legendary among his schoolmates,his eyes were still set firmly on the Foreign Office. Cam bridge University, Beyond The Fringe,the Establishment Club, and an indelible place in British

As Financial Secretary, his father was an important man in Gibraltar. It was his signature which appeared on Gibraltar's bank notes peared on Gibraltar's bank notes, and he was responsible for the Gi braltar Lottery. It is said that he strictly forbade his wife to buy a ticket,not because he disapproved ofgambling,but because he would have been mortified if she had won.He was a man of unimpeach able integrity,and any whiffofsus picion that might have greeted such success in a lottery which he had inaugurated was something he could not bear.

While her husband buckled down to his solemn duties, Margaret, a talented musician, played violin in the Gibraltar Sym phony Orchestra.

There is no doubt that Peter's happiest times were his holidays in Gibraltar. He loved the Colony, and it was only the anticipation of heading for the Rock at the end of term that made his school life bear able, even though he was already showing signs of the spontaneous wit and genius for mimicry which comedy history still lay several years away. His final years were tragic.

Many believe his talents were squandered in an alcoholic fog. How often, we wonder, did he spend a solitary night with a drink in one hand and, in his imagina tion at least, a home-made fishing rod in the other as his thoughts wandered back to the Gibraltar sunshine and the innocent joys of

"There's terrific merit in having no sense of hu mour, no sense of irony, practically no sense of anything at all. If you're born with these so-called defects you have a very good chance of getting to the top."

Peter Cook