FRANK SPENCER: SOME MOTHERS DO 'AVE 'EM...

 It’s Rainin’ Outside…

MICHAEL CRAWFORD AS FRANK SPENCER...

The Ridgeway’s dark sodden pavements

Reflected the street-lamps’ grudging light

Adjacent to a cemetery’s grimy wall,

As I trudged along the dull back passage

Between rented houses and into a squall…

The wrought iron gate was leaning

Against its weathered post,

From its hinges roughly wrenched;

Immediately I saw humour in the situation

And wrestled with the gate, hands clenched…

I manoeuvred the freed gate up the ‘entry’,

Through the wooden gate to the house

 And manhandled it onto the kitchen floor;

I propped it against a wall in the lounge

After twisting it through an adjoining door…

The bloke in the corner, fag lit in his hand,

Gawped at me in obvious disbelief:

“What the bloody hell have you brought that in here for?”

He demanded of me,

With a despairing and rasping roar…

I simply refereed back to what we had watched on TV,

When Frank Spencer had done much the same

And Betty’s aghast mother had Frank’s actions decried;

I imitated Frank’s voice as I walked back into the drizzle:

“Well, it’s rainin’ outside…”

Pete Ray

DOING THE VOICE WITH NEPHEW IAN MORRIS, WHO SADLY PASSED SOME YEARS BACK...

This happened in Erdington, Birmingham. 

We had just sat and watched an episode of ‘Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em’ on TV, during which Frank Spencer took a broken gate to the front door of his girlfriend’s house. Her mum asked what he was playing at and Frank responded by saying that it was raining outside…

AUDLEY SCHOOL, STECHFORD, BIRMINGHAM & I'M Frank Spencer IN THE STAFF SOCCER TEAM...

My future father-in-law was incredulous as I repeated the scene for real…

IN ANOTHER GUISE WITH MY IN-LAWS...

My impression of Frank Spencer’s voice was something I often fell back on during my teaching career…