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Cannon and Ball are back on ITVX, after an army of fans old and new - the younger generation having found them on YouTube - condemned ITV for omitting them from its 70th birthday celebrations last month. Tommy Cannon, 87, is delighted, saying: “ITV have finally listened. The Best of Cannon and Ball is now on ITVX . It means the world to see me and Bobby back where we belong - making people laugh. This one's for you. Rock on, Tommy." The news coincides with the publication of Tommy’s autobiography, This Is Me, on Friday, which features a tribute from . Still struggling to assimilate Bobby Ball’s death, aged 76, in October 2020 - suffering with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) he then contracted Covid - Tommy says he lost his best pal, his career and his identity. “For a while, Bobby took Tommy Cannon with him, my right arm had been chopped off,” he says. "Alongside the immense grief, having been a double act for 59 years and it being all I knew, my world crashed down around me, my everything was shattered.” At his funeral - restricted to 30 people because of the pandemic - Tommy says: "For the first time, it really hit me, and I thought, ‘Oh no, he's never coming back.’ That was when my heart broke and I burst into tears.” Retreating into his own world for a while, Tommy was taken aback by Bobby’s death as he seldom saw evidence of his COPD. He recalls a performance at Blackpool’s Viva Club the month he died, saying: “He came on one night wearing a face mask. He'd never worn one before. Trying to make light of the situation, I said, ‘What are you doing? Robbing a bank?’ I should have seen the signs.” Sadly, this was their last performance together. The comedy duo met when they both worked as welders in Oldham, Lancashire, back in the 1960s and started touring working men's clubs. Their big break came at the end of the 1970s with The Cannon and Ball Show, which ITV ran for nine years. Tommy remembers: "Our years at London Weekend Television were supremely successful. Week after week we were being regularly viewed by a third of the population. "We were even both voted Best Male Entertainers by the Variety Club on three separate occasions and I still have those awards displayed in pride of place in my living room." But towards the end of the 80s, he and Bobby were replaced by a new wave of alternative comedians - the preferred choice of new LWT boss Greg Dyke, who took over in 1987. Tommy says: "It was his decision to discontinue The Cannon and Ball Show. It was never fully explained to us why we were dropped. At the time alternative comedy was gaining a lot of traction. Bob and I couldn't quite get our heads around it. We were both living in America and began to notice this new era seemed to be characterised by comedians appearing on TV wearing ripped jeans and scruffy T-shirts. At one time you were not allowed to swear on stage at all, now all of a sudden it was open season - and still is.” He recalls working in Cardiff with Bobby and seeing an alternative show, full of swearing. They went backstage after and asked the young comedian why he did it. He replied that if he didn't, he wouldn't get any work," says Tommy. Whatever the whys and wherefores, after 13 years of fame, Cannon and Ball were out of work - seeking their next chapter. Torn between Yorkshire Television and the BBC , they went for YTV. “Although we did fairly well there, with the benefit of hindsight I now find myself wondering whether we made a mistake,” says Tommy. "The Beeb would have allowed us to continue in a very similar vein to all that had gone before, delivering our trademark shoulder to shoulder banter and entertaining sketches, whilst also having special guests." They returned to ITV in 1990 to front their comeback show, Cannon and Ball's Casino, in a gameshow format. Tommy admits: "It wasn't exactly cracking Saturday night entertainment. In fact, it turned out to be one of the low points of our career. "Bobby wanted to get alongside the contestants and have a bit of banter with them, but all he was allowed to do was simply to introduce them, while I had to stand some distance away, behind a podium, from where I would then ask them the questions. That was a bad move too because, being dyslexic, if a question contained a long word, they had to space it out into its separate syllables so I could read it.” One more TV special followed, but that was it. Tommy concedes the duo had fallen out of fashion. This wasn’t the first time working in comedy had been no laughing matter for the pair. Tommy reflects on their naivety when it came to making money when they first hit the big-time. "Others took care of that,” he says. “Looking back, I obviously was too trusting of them, but I was always out of my league when it came to accounting. Throughout the whole showbiz adventure, I have never been in control of that side of things. But in some ways that's just showbusiness. It was never a 9-to-5 job and you did have to rely on so many other people. Bob and I once did a massive tour, sold out everywhere, but didn't get anything from it for months afterwards.” Alleging that while their money was earning interest for others, he and Bobby were not being paid on time, he adds: "I wasn't clever enough to be in control of my finances and nor was Bob a businessman. We were just concentrating on building our comedy careers." Thankfully, the pair's finances improved in 2005, when they made a prime time TV comeback as campmates on ITV’s I'm A Celebrity . Although the winner was Margaret Thatcher's daughter Carol, the jungle show put Cannon and Ball back on the comedy radar, as they regained their place in the British public’s hearts. And Tommy intends to keep tickling the nation’s funnybone for a good while yet, as he considers a one-man show to promote his book to his new generation of YouTube fans. He says: "I absolutely don't want to just fade away. So, for me, even in my mid-eighties now, the main thing is to keep working whenever opportunities come along. "I am resolved that every day I'm going to live my life to the full, no matter what, because there isn't long left. Originally, I thought that was it, I was done, but we met Gary Morecambe, Eric's son, in York, and he told me that Cannon and Ball had 20 million viewers every Saturday night and I had to keep that legacy going, as he had done with Eric and Ernie. "As long as people are happy to keep offering me bookings and audiences still want to come and watch me perform or hear what I've got to say, I'll continue. Right up to the end, I am going to rock on, Bobby." In a foreword to Tommy’s book, popstar Robbie Williams shares fond childhood memories of watching Cannon and Ball on telly at his gran’s. He writes: "There I was in my grandma's terraced house, eating a prawn cocktail crisp sandwich and drinking a cup of tea with three sugars in it. And there they were in the "god box" positioned in the corner of our very small, tobacco smoke-filled room. “Their chemistry is the alchemy that turned their working-class base metal into gold. Others may see light entertainment. I see and feel love. A love made with gentle and kind silliness. Re-watching these gems online, the mind boggles. Cannon and Ball produced an energy that is sadly long gone, but in my humble opinion desperately needed. "All my adult life I meant to reach out to these heroes of mine and tell them how much they mean and meant to me. Then Bobby tragically passed away. Thankfully I've got to express my love and respect to Tommy a few times now. And I'm honoured to call him a friend." Tommy Cannon's new autobiography, This Is Me, is out Friday through www.scratchingshedpublishing.com
