Every time I hear that song ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’ played on the radio, I think, Lord, how I miss Ian Dury. Then I wish they’d play something other than that plodder, especially when there are so many great songs of his to choose from. Some people knew all the words to Dark Side of the Moon; others to Sergeant Pepper; but we knew all the words to New Boots and Panties!!. And what words! He was our poet laureate. Put that record on and everybody would sing their heads off, especially to ‘Billericay Dickie’. ‘I bought a lot of brandy/ when I was courting Sandy/ took eight to make her randy/ and all I had was shandy/ another thing with Sandy/ what often came in handy/ was passing her a ‘Mandy’/ she didn’t half go bandy.’ (Mandy is Mandrax, an illegally traded sedative and muscle relaxant.) I recognised the hilarious Saturday-night music-hall qualities in a song like ‘Billericay Dickey’, but at 18 I also thought those lyrics were philosophy. The man was a hero to us.
Twenty years later I went with him to Zambia. He had cancer by then and had put on weight. He went there to publicise a polio vaccination campaign and I was one of the journalists sent to write it up. I couldn’t believe that I was even on the same plane as Ian Dury, let alone that I would get to swap pleasantries with the guy for nearly a week. After we’d spoken a few times, he couldn’t believe it, either, that a bloke like me wrote for the Sunday Telegraph. He thought someone was pulling his leg.
At the Zambian immigration desk there was a delay because his entry visa wasn’t in order, and there was a further delay because he offered the official a bribe to forget about it, and the official had taken offence and made a scene.
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