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Chic Murray
1919 - 1984
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Chic
Murray was born Charles Thomas McKinnon Murray in Greenock on 6th November
1919, living in Bank Street with his parents.
He
married Maidie from Edinburgh, and they had two children - Douglas and
Annabelle.
He
was an apprentice engineer at Kincaid's shipyard
in 1934. He employed his musical talents in amateur groups such as The 'Whinhillbillies' and
'Chic and His Chicks'.
He formed a double-act with his wife Maidie Dickson.
They
were billed as "The Tall Droll with the Small
Doll" and their combination of songs and jokes made them a very popular
attraction both on television and in theatres throughout the country.
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They
were to appear in the Royal Variety Show
in 1956 at the London Palladium with other stars such as Liberace, Alma
Cogan, Dickie Valentine and Gracie Fields, but sadly this was cancelled
due to the Suez crisis.
Later, working as a solo act, with a forbidding
expression and his omnipresent "bunnet", Chic offered a comic vision
of the world that was absurd, surreal, and absolutely unique.
Much mimicked
and much loved by his fellow professionals, he acted in films such as
Casino Royale (1967), appeared as the headmaster in Gregory's Girl (1980)
and played Liverpool Football Club manager Bill Shankly in the musical
play 'You'll Never Walk Alone' in 1984. He died in Edinburgh in 1985 at the
age of 65. |
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Here are just a few examples of Chic's unique material:
It's a small world, but I wouldn't
want to have to paint it ............
I made a stupid mistake last week. Come to think of it, did you ever hear
of someone making a clever mistake?
So I gave him a wave. Actually, it was more of a half wave, because I only
half know him.
What use is happiness? It can't buy you money.
I met this cowboy with a brown paper hat, paper waistcoat and paper
trousers. He was wanted for rustling.
If something's neither here nor there, where the hell is it?
My father was a simple man. My mother was a simple woman. You see the
result standing in front of you, a simpleton.
I had a tragic childhood. My parents never understood me. They were
Japanese.
I won't say I was slow developer, but our teacher was quite pleased to
have someone her own age in the class to talk to.
If it weren't for marriage, husband and wives would have to fight with
strangers.
After I told my wife that black underwear turned me on, she didn't wash my
Y-fronts for a month.
Kippers - fish that like a lot of sleep.
The boat was so old; it must have been launched when Long John Silver had
two legs and an egg on his shoulder.
It was a pretty posh place. They were so used to fur coats that two bears
strolled in and ordered lunch and nobody even noticed.
I felt as out of place as a left-handed violinist in a crowded string
section.
Get into yourself to get yourself out of your self. Then try to lose
yourself.
I drew a gun. He drew a gun. I drew another gun. Soon we were surrounded
by lovely drawings of guns.
We've got stained glass windows in our house. It's those damned pigeons.
You know what they say about stamp collecting. Philately will get you
nowhere.
There's a new slimming course just out where they remove all your bones.
Not only do you weigh less, but you also look so much more relaxed.
The police stopped me when I was out in my car. They told me it was a spot
check. I admitted to two pimples and a boil.
I first met my wife in the tunnel of love. She was digging it at the time.
I dreamt I was forced to eat 25lbs of marshmallows. When I woke up, my
pillow was missing.
My girlfriends a redhead, no hair, just a red head.
I admit to spending a fortune on women, booze and gambling. The rest I
spend foolishly.
A neighbour put his budgerigar in the mincing machine and invented
shredded tweet.
My parents were wonderful, always there with a ready compromise. My sister
wanted a cat for a pet I wanted a dog, so they bought a cat and taught it
to bark.
I got up this morning. I like to get up in the morning; it gives me the
rest of the day to myself. I crossed the landing and went down stairs.
Mind you, if there had been no stairs, I wouldn't even have attempted it.
We were so poor; the ultimate luxury in our house at the time was ashtrays
without advertisements. It was all the wolf could do to keep us away from
his door. A luxury meal was prairie sandwiches- two slices of bread with
wide-open spaces between them. There were so many holes in my socks I
could put them on seventeen different ways.
She had been married so often she bought a drip-dry wedding dress.
My mother was so house proud that when my father got up to sleepwalk she
had the bed made by the time he got back.
This friend of mine had a terrible upbringing. When his mother lifted him
up to feed him, his father rented the pram out. Then when they came into
money later, his mother hired a woman to push the pram - and he's been
pushed for money ever since.
I went to the butchers to buy a leg of lamb. "Is it Scotch?", I
asked. "Why?" the butcher said in reply. Are you going to talk
to it or eat it?". "In that case, have you got any wild
duck?". "No", he responded, "but I've got one I could
aggravate for you".
I rang the bell of this small bed and breakfast place, whereupon a lady
appeared at an outside window. "What do you want?", she asked.
"I want to stay here", I replied. "Well, stay there
then", she said and closed the window.
A Scot is a man who keeps the Sabbath, and everything else he can lay his
hands on.
I was in London the other day and this man came up to me and asked me if I
knew the Battersea dog's home. I said that I didn't know it had been away.
There are two rules for drinking whisky. First, never take whisky without
water, and second, never take water without whisky.
My wife went to a beauty parlour and got a mudpack. For two days she
looked nice, then the mud fell off.
I don't swim. I can swim. I just don't have much cause to do so in the
normal run of things.
So there I was lying in the gutter. A man stopped and asked '"What's
the matter? Did you fall over?" So I said "No. I've a bar of
toffee in my back pocket and I was just trying to break it."
This chap started talking to me about this and that - about which I know
very little.
My father was from Aberdeen, and a more generous man you couldn't wish to
meet. I have a gold watch that belonged to him. He sold it to me on his
deathbed. I wrote him a cheque for it, post dated of course.
I was out walking the other evening. This fellow accosted me, and asked if
that was the moon up there in the sky. I replied that I had no idea as I
was a stranger there myself.
I was taking my dog out the other day and I met this chap who asked me
where I was going. The dog is foaming at the mouth, so I explained that I
was on my way to the vet to have it put down. He asked if it was mad, to
which I replied that it wasn't exactly pleased about it.
This chap said to me, "If you look over there, you'll see Dumbarton
Rock". Well, I looked for 20 minutes and the thing never moved an
inch.
I met this chap at the Olympics. I said to him, "Excuse me but are
you a pole vaulter?". He replied, "No, I'm German, but how did
you know my name was Walter."
I went to the doctor and he told me I only had three minutes to live. I
immediately asked if there was anything he could do for me, to which he
replied, that he could boil me an egg.
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