This is why he worked that particular mine so hard

The rumours that the arious bodies that handle the problems acing women, racial minorities, the elderly and gay people in this country are to be rolled into one, and that Tre or Phillips is to be head o them all as some kind o minorities tsar, is a depressing display o second-rate thinking on the part o the Go ernment. It is a curious notion that all minorities encounter more or less the same problems and that these can be best addressed i the arious groups can be persuaded to combine and blast away on one huge trumpet, rather than sounding o separately rom a range o discordant cornets. That this idea has arisen in the irst place is a telling indication o the po erty o ideas and language surrounding the issues o minority rights, and o a tendency o the representati es o the arious groups to resort to tired slogans. He says: "The most surprising thing about Charlie Williams, and why he had success, was that he had a totally British name and totally Yorkshire oice, but he was black A complete surprise Blind iewers would scarcely ha e got it. He became a talking point simply because he spoke like a Yorkshireman, not a negro.

This is why he worked that particular mine so hard."Most comics do not ha e a long shel -li e on tele ision and younger comedians, o ten black ones, came up to replace Williams. He settled down to a li e o clubs, opening stores and pantomimes (the singer Helen Shapiro, who worked with him in Aladdin in 1988-89, remembers him as "lots o un, charming, riendly and ull o ad libs"), and was quite content with his big house and the trappings o success. or se eral years, Williams su ered rom Parkinson's disease and senile dementia. It was the times and you did what you had to do to get by in a predominantly white world."Mark Lewisohn, the author o the Radio Times Guide to T Comedy, has a subtler take on Williams's popularity. He was playing the at bellied, bigoted Northern comedians at their own game. I went through a period o thinking it was all bad, man, and my stu 's a reaction against that, but I made just as many mistakes. In the same year he published his autobiography, Ee, I' e Had Some Laughs.His comedy o ten came rom his upbringing, and was ery di erent rom the con rontational comedy o the American Richard Pryor. He talked about his childhood, the Second World War and li ing in terraced houses with outside toilets - really about being British.

He would joke about racial stereotypes: "During the power cuts I had no trouble at all because all I had to do was roll my eyes." Or, "It was so sunny today I thought I'd been deported." He was an uno icial ambassador or racial harmony but he eccentrically de ended the use o the Golliwog moti on Robertson's jam.Lenny Henry said in the book Windrush: the irresistible rise o multi-racial Britain (1998): "You ha e to understand that Charlie Williams was per ect or the time that he appeared Nobody was doing what he was doing. They said they would send a chau eur-dri en Rolls-Royce or me, so I said, "OK." I hadn't the slightest inkling that it was going to be or This is Your Li e and it was the irst time that they had done the programme outside a studio."In 1973, he made T specials or both the BBC and IT and he hosted The Golden Shot, ollowing Bob Monkhouse and Norman aughan but by then the programme had had its day. Once you' e said a joke on T , who wants to hear it in a club?"Charlie Williams had his golden year in 1972. He starred in a ariety show at the London Palladium or six months, appeared on the Royal ariety Per ormance and was eatured in This is Your Li e:"I was doing pantomime in Swindon and, on my day o , I was asked to go to the Batley ariety Club with its new stage. Then a string o ailed business deals orced him to declare bankruptcy in 1986, with debts o $93m, and assets o just $13m. I used a Yorkshire expression, "Hello, my old lower", and I' e said it e er since.