Louis Barfe (author of Turned Out Nice Again and The Trials and Triumphs of Les Dawson) hails Funny Bones as "a smashing book" in his Radio Review column in The Lady.
The column is a general attack on interviews being split up and intercut with inappropriate music on local radio, with Ingrid Hagemann's interview with Freddie for Radio Newcastle singled out as the most recent example to have assailed Mr Barfe's ears:
While Davies was giving an absorbing potted history of music hall and variety, Hagemann ... cut the interview and said the second half would be after the news.
Mercifully, the interview was pre-recorded, but the 15 minutes before the first segment and the 10 minutes leading up to the news, were filled with duff old music (Whitesnake, gawd help us).
Why not run the piece in full, straight through? To use a Davies catchphrase, it made me ‘thick, thick, thick up to ’ere’. Anyway, I hope Freddie flogged a few copies of his autobiography, Funny Bones, off the back of it. He’s had quite a career – coming to fame in Opportunity Knocks, then dominating TV for years before going into films – and it’s a smashing book.
Talking about his friend, comic Bobby Pattinson turning 80 this year, Davies made a nice observation about radio being kinder to veteran gagsmiths than television. If the voice is still okay, nobody need know how old you really are. If only Radio Newcastle had been kind enough to Davies to let him speak uninterrupted.Mr Barfe and other interested parties can now hear it below - without the music. Links to other interviews, similarly shorn of music and other interruptions, can be found on the Press/Publicity page here
Buy Freddie Davies's autobiography Funny Bones from amazon (paperback) or direct from Scratching Shed Publishing (paperback or limited edition hardback)