Merseyside Mirth Makers - Tommy Handley

Tommy Handley

Thomas Reginald Handley was born at 13 Threlfall Street, in the then named Toxteth Park, on the 17th of January l892. His father, John, a cow keeper, died soon after Tommy’s birth. As with so many performers before and since, he discovered a talent at school for making people laugh and took part in concerts at St. Michael’s school in Aigburth, and at Toxteth Congregational Church. He had a fine baritone voice and also sang in the choir there.
He was fascinated with disguise and spent what money he might have on moustaches, masks and make up. Ventriloquists and magicians were food and drink to the young Liverpudlian, who practised throwing his voice and springing tricks on unsuspecting neighbours and fellow pupils. Holidays in the Isle of Man were Tommy's first exposure to 'showbusiness' watching the "end of the pier" acts. Back home on Saturdays he would take the ferry across to New Brighton to visit their theatre and would be aware of the one legged man who would dive from the pier to recover pennies thrown by the crowd and this character would be revived later in his career in the persona of Deep End Dan the Diver - and ITMA’s famous catchphrase - 'Don't forget the diver sir; don't forget the diver'.

Tommy Handley - It's That Man Again

Leaving school at the then late age of 14, because education was important to his mother, he started work in a stationers and then, more famously, selling prams at a shop in Duke Street, Liverpool city centre for the princely sum of 8s.6d. a week. He was there until 1917 when he was called up for WW1 service but by then he had already joined the Aigburth Amateur Dramatic Society, and the Wellesley Society, based in Dingle and had decided to turn professional. He auditioned at the Royal Court, Liverpool, for a part in a musical comedy, and began touring with 'The Maid of the Mountains'. Going on to work in variety he was there in the infancy of radio, broadcasting regularly and working with people such as Arthur Askey. He also wrote many radio scripts and eventually devised and starred in a music-hall sketch, 'The Disorderly Room', a skit on army life. This proved to be a great success and remained in his repertory from 1921 to 1941, but it is the BBC comedy series ITMA,  a format  devised with his friend Ted Kavanagh over some pints of beer, for which he is best remembered, together with the many still remembered catchphrases :-
'Can I do you now, Sir?' - 'After you, Claude - no, After you Cecil' - 'I don't mind if I do.' - and 'TTFN' (Ta ta for now).

From left to right,  Producer Francis Worsley, Tommy Handley and Ted Kavanagh

ITMA was indeed a radio cartoon of daily life in the war years and, week by week, it relieved the tension of the times by the fun it poked at the common hazards and endurances of the British public. Tommy's style was that of an opportunist, quick-thinking man of affairs, surrounded by a gallery of odd and eccentric characters but he was also the benign master of ceremonies whose crisp delivery and immaculate timing kept the show at the peak of professional excellence.

Tommy died suddenly on 9 January 1949 from a brain hemorrage and only three days after the last ITMA was shown by the BBC and just eight days before his 57th birthday. He was cremated and his ashes placed in the rhoodendron bed at Golders Green Crematoriume.
In a eulogy at his memorial service at St. Paul's Cathedral, the Bishop of London, John W.C. Wand said "he was one whose genius transmuted the copper of our common experience into the gold of exquisite foolery. His raillery was without cynicism, and his satire without malice".
Tommy Handley has been described as undoubtedly the greatest British radio comedian of his generation, as unique in radio comedy as Charlie Chaplin was in silent film.

See next :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2018/06/merseyside-mirth-makers-charlie-higgins.html?q=Tommy+Handley