Mention the name Roy Kinnear, and what springs to mind? The vision of a tubby, cheery, diminutive comedian, the life and soul of countless stage productions, films and TV shows. Correct. But did you know there were two Roy Kinnears? Both tubby, cheery and diminutive - and that each, in facial appearance, could easily pass for the other? Well, it is true, but whereas the comedian lived out his life as an actor, his doppleganger was a reporter on the short - lived Evening Gazette newspaper in Reading.
My Friend Harry and the journalistic Roy Kinnear were very good friends. In fact, Harry was sitting beside Roy on the Press bench in Reading Police Court on the first of September, 1939, when Roy got the sack. Not in so many words, you understand, but Roy was covering the court for the Gazette and his practice was not to take down the proceedings in shorthand but to write up the cases as they happened so that when the copy-boy called every 15 minutes, there’d be stories for him all ready to go into the paper.
On Sept. 1, though, when the copy-boy arrived for a ‘take’ at 12.15 pm, he thoughtfully brought with him the first edition of that day’s Gazette. And what did Roy see on the front page of the paper? Why, the announcement that that was the last edition of the paper ‘until the current crisis is resolved’. The ‘current crisis’, of course, was the imminent state of war between Britain and Germany. Roy, naturally, departed for his office at the double - and, as it happened, that was the last time My Friend Harry ever saw him.
But when the war was over and Harry read that Roy Kinnear was appearing on the stage at Stratford, London, he was delighted to think that his old pal was making a success in an entirely new environment. So, he sent him a letter, c/o the Stratford theatre, recalling their days in Reading and asking what he had got up to in the years since 1939.
A mystified Roy Kinnear sent him a reply to the effect that he wasn’t around in 1939 but if Harry was ever in the Stratford area he would be happy to see him and hear about his namesake. Harry didn’t follow up the invitation to go to Stratford but every time, thereafter, that he saw the acting-type Kinnear on the box or in a film, he marvelled at the astonishing likeness.
Harry had another reason to remember the likeable and slightly scatty Roy of the Gazette. In 1938, both were assigned to cover the Oxford Diocesan Conference, that desperately dismal annual get-together of clerics. It was to be held in the magnificent Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, a circular building of dazzling charm. Scheduled time of starting: 11 am.
They arrived in good time, were given armfuls of handouts, including the text of the speech to be delivered by Dr. Kenneth Kirk, the Bishop of Oxford. Roy was all for clearing off right away. “All we want is the Bishop’s speech," he said. “We’ve got that. Let’s push off and go round to the Mitre." Harry was tempted, but still had a sense of duty. “He might depart from the text," he said. “He might collapse at the lectern. There could be interruptions. Anything could happen. And,” he added for good measure, “some bloody-minded parson could phone in to ask why the Press chose to ignore the conference." Roy reluctantly agreed that Harry was right, so they went into the conference chamber.
All the clergy were accommodated around the circular perimeter. Roy and Harry were provided with tables in the centre of the chamber, the pivot of attention, so to speak. So, at 11 o’clock, things got going as arranged. At 12.15 it was announced that the conference would break for lunch and resume at 2 p.m. Harry and Roy gathered up their bundles of papers and shot off briskly for a handy pub in Cornmarket. Harry ordered a couple of pints while Roy, using the phone at the end of the bar, got through to the Gazette to dictate a story for the first edition.
As the subject of Dr. Kirk’s address had been the doctrine of the virgin birth, the customers in the saloon bar of the pub listened to Roy’s bellowed dictation in some disbelief, not at all sure that language such as that was tolerable in a bar on a hot day. Still, Roy’s story didn’t take all that long to send over, and he was then free to descend from theological heights to alcoholic consumption. Which he proceeded to do, readily aided and abetted by My Friend Harry. Beer was, in fact, to be their lunch, for in those pre-war days there were no such delights as pub lunches. You couldn’t even buy a sandwich.
It was with guilty alarm that both of them suddenly realised that they were cutting it very fine indeed for the resumption of the conference, especially as they were located at the very centre of the chamber in splendid isolation. They made a dash for the door.
They were galloping through the streets when Roy suddenly darted into a sweet shop and came out with a bag of Maltesers, those very tasty spherical chocolates. “Must have something to eat," he gaspingly explained. They made it to their seats in the centre of the auditorium just in time, though breathing hard.
The open discussion on Dr. Kirk’s address began. Roy, quietly giggling, pulled out his bag of Maltesers but, a little fuddled, lost his grip - and the whole lot cascaded across the floor. Three hundred clergy watched them cascading merrily away in open-mouthed silence.
Even then, Harry thought, they could get away with it if the bishops had a sense of humour, but Roy put the kybosh on that. He lurched from his seat and proceeded to pick them up.
Harry later wondered If there might be a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the only two people ever to have been chucked out of a diocesan conference ...