“YOU’LL never get me to cry,” chuckled Sir Michael Parkinson in his dressing room as we prepared to lock horns for my Life Stories show. “I’ve seen you do it to so many people, but we’re made of tougher stuff in Yorkshire.”
I believed him.
In his entire career as one of Britain’s finest broadcasters, Parky had never shed a public tear.
But then a remarkable thing happened.
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Half-way through the interview, I asked him about his father Jack, a pit miner who died in 1975 from the lung disease, pneumoconiosis.
Given that 45 years had elapsed since then, I mistakenly assumed Parky wouldn’t still feel overly emotional about the loss of his dad, and I think he assumed that too.
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We were both very wrong.
“I’d never seen anybody I loved die and I saw my dad die,’ he recalled.
“You could see him withering away.
“For a man as vigorous as he was, it was like watching leaves fall from a tree.”
As he remembered seeing undertakers removing his father’s body from the family home, Parky’s face suddenly began to crumble.
“I see the image very clearly, and I thought he’s got to be worth a lot more than that… carrying him out in a little plastic bag.”
And then Parky, this incredibly tough, thick-skinned, and proud Yorkshireman, began to sob, uncontrollably, for several minutes.
In fact, we had to stop recording so he could take time to compose himself.
It was a startling moment, without a doubt the most surprising and emotional in the whole 100-guest history of Life Stories.
Afterwards, I went to see him in his dressing room again.
“You b*stard, Morgan!’ he exclaimed.
“You got me blubbing like a baby.”
He couldn’t explain it.
“I’m so sorry for losing it,” he said.
“I must have been storing away all the grief for over 40 years.
“I thought I’d got rid of it, but I hadn’t.”
Parky was so amazed by what happened that he decided to write a whole book about his dad, entitled “Like Father, Like Son” – which he co-authored with one of his own three sons, Michael Jr.
“Breaking down like that made me wonder, what was it about this man that made him unforgettable in my life?” Parky explained when it was published.
I suspect Michael Jr and his two brothers, Andrew and Nick, are feeling very similar thoughts today following their dad’s sad passing.
For he too was simply unforgettable, not just in their lives – they were all incredibly close – but to the lives of millions of people in Britain, and Australia, where he also became a huge chat show star.
I was flying from LA to New York when I heard the news that he’d died, after a brief illness.
And it hit me hard.
Parky, along with another legendary sportswriter Ian Wooldridge, was one of the reasons I first wanted to be a journalist.
As a kid, I gorged on his incredibly entertaining sports books and newspaper columns, especially those about cricket and football.
He was a vivid, evocative, and extremely humorous observational writer, especially when waxing lyrical about stuff he loved.
He also made the profession of journalism seem such bloody good fun!
When I became a newspaper editor myself in the mid-90s, I tried to hire him, but he was – entirely justifiably – too expensive.
However, during the wooing process, conducted over several long, very boozy lunches at some of London’s best restaurants, a friendship was forged that was to endure for nearly three decades.
We connected over a shared love of media, sport, fine wine, jazz, many of the same mates, and family.
Parky was a devoted dad to his boys – I, too, have three adult sons who are also my best friends – and a devoted husband to his wife of over 60 years, Mary.
They were all with him when he died at home, peacefully, just as he would have wanted.
The great thing about Parky was that what you saw on screen was what you got off it.
He was that rarest of breeds in television, somebody truly authentic.
For 11 long years, I had tried everything to get him to appear on Life Stories.
Each new series, I’d put in a new bid.
And each time, he’d very graciously, but equally firmly, decline.
Finally, I decided the only solution was to take him for a lunch so long that he’d eventually crack and agree.
Originally, he wanted to take me to his private members’ club the Garrick, but then he emailed to suggest a change of plan.
“Dear Piers,’ he wrote, “unless you particularly want to go to the Garrick, I would dearly like to go to a sexier, newish restaurant I haven’t yet sampled.
“I just feel stuck in a rut with my choice of restaurants, and I would like to freshen up my taste buds.
“I am paying so go for it. Introduce me to something new, vibrant, exciting, like a pie and mash shop or a chippy.’
I opted for my favourite eaterie, Cambio de Tercio in Chelsea, which is where new tennis superstar Carlos Alcaraz dined five times during the recent Wimbledon tournament he won so thrillingly, and where other sporting greats like Sir Ian Botham love to let their hair down.
For four hours, Parky and I devoured delicious Spanish food and wine – and chatted about life.
It was honestly one of the funniest lunches I’ve ever had.
Parky was always hilarious company, and brutally honest.
“The reason I like you Piers,’ he opined that day as the third bottle arrived, ‘is that you’re proactive, fearless, a very good interviewer… and sometimes you’re a total twerp.’
We both burst out laughing, and I issued no denials.
“What are the three interviews you’d relive if you had the chance?’ I asked.
“The last one of my four with Muhammad Ali,’ he replied, “when we both knew he was on the decline, was a very poignant encounter. Then my first one with Billy Connolly when I knew I’d discovered a comedy superstar. And my chat with Dame Edith Evans when she was in her 80s and flirted outrageously with me!”
And the ones you never want to relive?
“Meg Ryan… and that bloody Emu!”
As we said goodbye, he shook my hand, and said: “OK, I’ll do the show.”
And what a show it turned out to be.
To be able to interview my interviewing hero for several hours was one of the great honours, and challenges, of my life.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing between us over the years.
Like me, Parky could have a sharp waspish tongue, and like one of his cricketing heroes Fred ‘I was the greatest fast bowler that ever drew breath’ Trueman, he fiercely protected his own legacy.
When I first started doing Life Stories in 2007, and he was asked what he thought of it, he replied, witheringly: “I’ve never seen it.
“I’ve got better things to do on a Saturday night, like taking the lady out for a lovely meal.”
The interviewer persisted: “But aren’t you just a little bit curious?’
‘Why would I be?’ he scoffed.
“It’s all tabloid, X Factor people.”
Ouch!
But when I returned friendly fire with my own b*tchy salvo back at him now only making TV commercials, Parky took me out to dinner and apologised.
And his opinion improved to the extent that a few years later, he emailed me to say: “I should warn you that next week’s Radio Times features an article written by me suggesting that you should do a five nights a week talk show – sport, stars, and particularly politics – because no-one has ever done it successfully in this country and that’s mainly because we have never, until now, produced a person capable of fronting such a show.
“I think you are ideal for the job because you have done a bloody marvellous job in ITV, and they owe you the compliment.”
Ironically, I couldn’t think of a better compliment than this, coming from my talk show hero.
Then in typical Parky style, he added: “There should not be anyone else in the studio with you, apart from the guests, because it is not in your nature to be collegiate and that’s part of the attraction!”
When I was Markle’d out of Good Morning Britain, Parky – who regularly messaged me after watching the show to bemoan the ‘strange world we now live in’ or to congratulate me and Susanna Reid for holding ministers to account during the covid pandemic – emailed again to say: “After you have ridden the whirlwind and things calm down a bit we must meet for a report and a talk.
“Looking forward to a lunch when we can trash ‘the woke generation’ for doing you a favour.”
We never did get that lunch in, and now I fervently wish we had, just so I could thank him once again for inspiring me to pursue a career I’ve loved and continuing to inspire me throughout it.
I’ll remember Parky as a wonderful character; a charming, no-nonsense, opinionated, occasionally combative, fiercely intelligent, tremendously loyal, and enduringly curious man.
For me, he was the TV interviewer G.O.A.T.
The Greatest Of All Time.
The Muhammad Ali of chat show hosts.
I’ll miss our lunches, and our days at the cricket, and our email exchanges.
I’ll particularly miss his frequent ‘don’t let the b*ggers get you down’ messages of support whenever I hit a rocky road.
To know I had Parky in my corner was always a rare privilege, and I know there are many other people who can say the same.
If you were his mate, he was all-in, and I loved him for that.
But for the best verdicts on his remarkable life and career, who better to turn to than Parky’s late father Jack, and the man himself.
During the final Parkinson show, recorded at the London Studios in December 2007, Michael revealed: “My father used to love coming to the show, although he was never quite sure that what I was doing was a proper job.
“He wanted me to be a professional cricketer.
“Just before he died, he said to me: ‘You’ve had a good life, lad.’
“I said I had.
“You’ve met some fascinating people and become quite famous yourself,” he said.
“I nodded. ‘What is more, you’ve made a bob or two without breaking a sweat,” he said.
“I agreed.
“Well done,” he said.
“But think on, it’s not like playing cricket for Yorkshire, is it?”
I once asked Parky if he’d have swapped all his media success to play the game he loved for his beloved county, and he didn’t hesitate: ‘God, yes!’
But when I asked him at the end of our Life Stories encounter how he’d like to be remembered, he replied: “I just want to be remembered as someone who had a good time, had lots of good mates, wrote the odd good piece, and did the odd good interview.
“That’s enough.”
You did all that, Parky, and so much more.
RIP, my old mate.
