I had a meeting with my bank manager in December 2005 and I opened by saying, “Look, I'm nearly 50. I'm coming towards the end of a seven-year contract with ITV. They're not begging me to stay, nor are there a host of other broadcasters kicking my door down. You know how much money I've got. You know how much money I spend. How's it looking?” He smiled. The pause that followed seemed momentous. “In my professional opinion,” he said, with some gravitas, “if you never work again, and don't suddenly switch to a more extravagant lifestyle, you will probably remain financially secure for the rest of your life.”

Admittedly, he could have been a bit pithier in his delivery, but it was still quite a moment. I have always considered myself to be a non-materialistic person; but the bank manager's smile was not in the same league as the one creasing up MY face. It was the best news I'd ever had. “Fuckin come on!” I said as I punched the air. The bank manager and his assistant both smiled. “Well,” I said, having somewhat calmed, “that really is splendid news.” Then, in a second wave of excitement, I burst out laughing and spontaneously applauded.

Those born into money will never know the very special pleasure derived from having none and then having plenty. Likewise, the lottery winner, while obviously thrilled by a sudden windfall, cannot enjoy the added pleasure of having worked for it: the nights sleeping in cars; the unpaid gigs; the humiliations of failure; the early hours writing stand-up while still holding down a full-time job ... it had all paid off.

Anyway, this news had a surprising effect on me. Throughout my comedy career, I'd always sincerely believed that I was very much NOT in it for the money. Now, however, I wondered if, by continuing my career, I would lump myself with those idiots we used to take the piss out of when I was a young man: those knobheads who won the football pools and then said, in the local paper, “It won't change me. I'll carry on being a lathe operator.” Someone would read that out loud, in the factory or the pub, and we would fall about laughing. Rarely has the word “twat” been delivered with such vim. I know being a comedian is not quite the same as being a lathe operator, but nowadays, when the alarm clock goes off because I have to get up to film something or have a meeting, the ringing sound always seems to have an echoing chorus of “twat” at its core. Happily, it doesn't seem to echo quite so loudly when I'm getting up early to write stand-up.

I remember, during the last series of my chat show, leaving the office one Sunday night. I said goodnight to the security guard, a devout Muslim who often sat in reception reading the Koran. The security guard returned my goodnight and added, “You work a great many hours, don't you?” I agreed but explained that I wanted to do the best show I could. The guard looked at me with a degree of concern in his eyes and said, “There is a saying in Arabic: ‘When a man has a mountain of gold, he wants to build another one.'” The phrase played on my mind. “Is that what I'm doing?” Anyway, I didn't want another mountain of gold; I didn't want to waste my days and nights working for that.

But then I too fell into the greed-sweet trap. I had an offer from Tesco to voice-over an advert for their new slim Christmas tree. In a way, it was the memory of my factory workmates' derision that made me do it. You're a twat if you've got money and still work, but surely, I reasoned, you're an even bigger twat if you say no to fifteen grand, just to sit in a sound-studio for 30 minutes, reading a one-page script. So I did it. Twelve days later I was sitting home alone, watching Sky TV and reading the newspaper, when I became aware of my own voice. I looked up from the paper, just in time to hear myself say, “Tesco - every little helps”. Now, don't get me wrong, Tesco is a perfectly fine supermarket chain that sells nice things at reasonable prices, but I must have washed my hands ten times before I went to bed that night, like Lady Macbeth trying to scrub away imaginary blood. At least she had only been party to murder; I had done an advert for a slim Christmas tree.

In my defence: I did, a couple of months later, turn down good money to be the voice of an interactive comedy pub-game called Jokey-Cokey. And, a few months after that, David Baddiel and I turned down even better money, when McCain's wanted our permission to change the lyrics of the football song Three Lions so it could be used in an advert for oven chips. They wanted to take part of the original song, a couplet which combines nostalgia for England's 1966 World Cup triumph, with great hope for the future ... “I know that was then/But it could be again” ... and rewrite it in a more, well, oven chips kind of a way: “Less than five per cent fat/Who can argue with that?” I'd have still been washing my hands now.

©Frank Skinner 2008

Frank Skinner on the Road: Love, Stand-up Comedy and The Queen of the Night by Frank Skinner
Century, £18.99 Buy the book here

The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival: Frank Skinner discusses his life and work with Mark Lawson: October 10, 8.45pm
cheltenhamfestivals.com

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