Bob Monkhouse - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Bob Monkhouse was born at 168 Bromley Road, Beckenham, Kent, the son of Wilfred Adrian Monkhouse (1894–1957), and Dorothy Muriel Monkhouse née Hansard (1895–1971). Monkhouse had an elder brother, John, born in 1922. Monkhouse's grandfather was a prosperous Methodist businessman who co-owned Monk and Glass, which made custard powder and jelly.

Bob Monkhouse was educated at Goring Hall School in Worthing and Dulwich College, from which he was later expelled. While still at school, Monkhouse wrote for The Beano and The Dandy and drew for comics including Hotspur, Wizard and Adventure comics. He established a comics writing and art partnership with Dulwich schoolmate Denis Gifford and the two formed their own publishing company in the early 1950s. Among other writing, Monkhouse wrote more than 100 Harlem Hotspots erotic novelettes.

Monkhouse completed his national service with the Royal Air Force Regiment in 1948. He won a contract with the BBC after his unwitting RAF Group Captain signed a letter Monkhouse had written telling the BBC he was a war hero and that it should give him an audition.

This anecdote was among many which Monkhouse recalled in the BBC Radio 2 documentary Caught In The Draft, written by Terence Pettigrew and presented by Michael Aspel. The programme took a nostalgic look at compulsory national service, which operated in Britain from the wartime years until the beginning of the 1960s. Taking part in the programme along with Monkhouse were Leslie Thomas, the author of The Virgin Soldiers, and the BBC Radio 2 presenter John Dunn.

Before establishing himself as a successful writer and comic Monkhouse appeared on stage in London, first as Aladdin in a stage show of the same name written by SJ Perelman and Cole Porter. Then in the first London production of the musical The Boys from Syracuse (Antipholus of Syracuse) in 1963 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, alongside Ronnie Corbett.