The Last Days Of Ian Dury

It was the cruellest blow of all. After a life-time coping with polio and having been treated for colon cancer more than two years earlier, Ian s doctors told him that the tumours had spread to his liver. They couldn t predict how long it would take to kill him, but they warned him that it could take as little as eight months. After two tabloid newspaper reporters knocked on his door and confronted him in May 1998, he went public in the Observer and his fans responded with shock and disbelief. Matters were not helped when, acting on a tip-off from a listener, Bob Geldof announced Ian s death during his XFM London radio show. Geldof was mortified over the error and made a public apology. Ian laughed it off saying, Luckily, no one listens to XFM.

With characteristic bullishness, however, Ian refused to take on a mantle of self pity and in September went off on the gruelling UNICEF mission to Sri Lanka and, on his return to England, embarked on an eight-date tour to promote Mr Love Pants.
I don t really spend a great deal of time thinking about it. I only get upset when I look at my kids, thinking that I might not be there to see them grow up. That does me right up, he said.
Billy and Albert are the young children of Ian and his partner Sophy Tilson, whom he married at Camden Town Hall in April 1998, three months after he found out he had secondary cancer. The 35-year-old sculptor is the youngest of Joe and Joss Tilson s three children. Like Ian, her father had studied at The Royal College of Art and was at the forefront of the Pop Art movement in the early sixties. She inherited his artistic talent and made sculpture her livelihood after studying at several art colleges, including the RCA. She and Ian had actually met at a gig in Chippenham in the eighties, but it was not until the early nineties that they grew closer. Ian, having watched his first two children grow up, found himself experiencing fatherhood all over again in his mid-fifties, with the arrival of Billy in January 1995 and then Albert in August 1997. Billy was one year old when he inspired his dad to write You re My Baby , a song included don Mr Love Pants, an untypically sentimental piece and one which prompted Ian to break his life-long moratorium on using the word baby in his lyrics.
Proudly at your beck and call, I ll make sure that love is all around you/Loving you is purity, blankets of security surround you You re my baby, he wrote tenderly. But while Ian celebrated the new life of his son, this period of introspection also led him to write about the loved ones he d lost over the years The Passing Show . I wrote it before I was ill. It s about friends, he said. That would include Ronnie Lane, and my late wife, and Charley. The former Faces songwriter and bass player Ronnie Lane died from multiple sclerosis, while in August 1996 cancer killed his long-time friend from Dagenham, Alan Ritchie.
Ian s mum also died in 1995 and he registered her death and Billy s birth on the same day. She had lived for many years in a small hamlet near Barnstaple, in Devon, together with her sister Betty. For almost their entire lives they had been inseparable, living in Cranham and then Upminster before moving to the west country. It was only when Betty died that Peggy moved into the flat in Hampstead which Ian had bought for her. She had chosen the flat because it had a large dog-door into the garden, although Ian had indirectly influenced the location. The copy of the London A-Z which he had given her had a bookmark in the Hampstead page.
Says Ian s friend and former lover Denise Roudette: It was hard for him to take all that really. His mum was with him, no matter what. She collected all the articles on him and all the photos. She sent him stuff that he d never even seen and was very supportive. She would go and visit on a Sunday when he was living in Hammersmith and when his mum got sick, he would come up and visit her every day. When she had to go into a home, he would take her out for walks and they got on really well. The way he looked after her was a repayment, in a sense, for what she had done for him.
After she died, he was clearing out her papers and found these wonderful photo albums of him as a baby: Ian with his first lollipop; Ian says his first word; Ian feeds himself for the first time. Here was this incredible story of his life in pictures. I think she suffered tremendous loss, but I never heard her talk about how difficult her life was. And I have never heard Ian say how traumatic or hard things were for him or Why did I ever get polio? or talk about Poor me . He is not that sort of person and he has always made the most of his situation.
Ian s positive approach to life was perfectly captured when he was asked about his illness during a 1999 BBC documentary. I ve had a major crack at life and more than most people get, so I wouldn t feel that I ve been hard done-by, he said. A very close friend of mine who lived in Dagenham [Alan Ritchie] died about two years ago, Charley our drummer died, my wife Betty died, so I ve known a lot of people who have passed away through cancer. Somehow their strength and their bravery, if it is bravery, their logic I call it, does help me deal with it, it really does. If I was feeling frustrated and unrecognised or unfulfilled or anything like that, I m sure it would be much more difficult, but I don t. I feel very lucky, almost as if I d had a blessed life really, because nobody has ever been horrible to me ever, and everyone s been very nice to me, very helpful, very encouraging and still are.
Ian added: I don t worry about it, I don t think about it, I don t think it goes on afterwards. I don t care if I m immediately forgotten, I don t care if my work floats down the tubes, I don t give a shit. I m not here to be remembered, I m here to be alive.
Blockhead Chaz Jankel says of Ian s attitude towards his cancer: He s got the spirit of a bulldog, he is a fighter, he s always had to fight, and to say that he doesn t have moments of grief would be untrue, because he does, I know he does, he has told me. But he has lived by the sword, he has always lived by the sword and his fortitude, I think, comes from his brazen attitude to life. I think he s an inspiration to a lot of people.

Ian began receiving an experimental form of chemotherapy, gene-therapy, which is largely self-administered. Attached to his hip was a holster-style pouch which concealed a bottle of a cytoxic drug and from this ran a Hickman Line direct to his chest. For several days a week, he plugged in to the device to receive the drug and occasionally travelled to Cairo to check in with his specialists. At his side at all times, at home and abroad, was the mysterious figure who has brought him on stage for every gig for the past eight or nine years Derek Hussey.
Derek The Draw an amateur guitar player and a loyal ally cut a strange figure beside his friend and confidant. Standing tall, with white hair and a handlebar moustache, and usually dressed in a long overcoat, Derek met Ian through a mutual acquaintance in the early nineties and soon became a regular visitor to Digby Mansions. When Ian s mother went into hospital and Ian moved permanently into her Hampstead flat, Derek would arrive on Sundays and take Ian to see her. Derek s close friendship with Ian took him almost everywhere with him; to Shepperton Studios for the filming of Judge Dredd, for which he helped to make props and costume accessories; Sri Lanka for Ian s UNICEF mission; the Irish Republic for the BBC documentary; and Egypt, where Ian went to see his specialists. An unflappable, comforting presence, Derek also became part and parcel of Blockheads gigs. When Derek appeared from the wings, it was his imposing presence that announced Ian s arrival on stage.
Derek, who took to wearing a fez-style hat adorned with stars, said of his cameo role: It s a reassurance really because there are wires stuck down all over the stage and he doesn t want to take a tumble. He has always had somebody helping him and it has become a bit of a ritual. But in a hundred gigs, I have only lifted him off the floor once, so that s not much work.
Off stage, he was a side of Ian s personality which was rarely seen by the public. He, like other close friends, knew Ian as an emotional person whose love for others ran deep.
Ian s got a very hard exterior, which he has obviously had to develop to get by in many respects, but he is also the most generous, giving person I have ever come across, says Derek. Money and possessions really don t mean a great deal to him, almost nothing. I have only had two arguments with him in all that time. It never turns into malicious confrontation, but the fact that Ian stands up for himself and takes no prisoners means I never have to stick my oar in at all. I can just stand back and chuckle and if it all goes a little bit awry, I will sometimes try to smooth it out, but he can look after himself. There hasn t been a person born yet that could get the better of him verbally, he is electric on the verbals.
He is a notorious tough guy, but underneath that toughness there is an emotional side to him which can surface in a split second. In public he is very hard, but he s never annoyed for long. You think, Christ, how is he going to come back from this, but just as quickly as he can get the hump, he can go the other way. He is not ashamed about showing emotion either, he doesn t keep it locked away, in fact he is quite ready with his emotions.
Ian operated an open house policy at his ground-floor flat in Hampstead village, particularly on Sundays when he played host to friends. Here, he lived as he always had, playing his old records, smoking joints, drinking cups of tea and talking, always with an eye on the future. He kept in touch with most of his old friends from college and Kilburns days and visitors included long-term cohorts such as Humphrey Ocean, Denise Roudette and members of The Blockheads. The phone and the door-bell rang constantly.
One afternoon towards the end of 1999, Ian picked up the phone and a voice said, Paul McCartney would like to speak to Ian Dury . Well put him on then, said Ian, to which the caller replied, I am on, I m Paul McCartney . The former Beatle and friend of Humphrey Ocean then asked if he could meet up with Ian, a clear indication of the respect he commanded in the music industry. The two later spent an afternoon chatting together at Ian s home. Cabinet Minister Mo Mowlam also spent a Sunday afternoon at Ian s after making contact with him and was a great admirer.
At the Q Awards in November 1999, Ian was given a standing ovation by guests at London s Park Lane Hotel, when he and Chaz picked up the Classic Songwriter Award. Madness frontman Suggs made the presentation and said Ian was a songwriter whom he had striven to emulate.
Speaking from his seat at the dinner table, Ian paid tribute to The Blockheads: I just want to say I m very honoured, very pleased and very glad to get a Q Award for Classic Songwriter, which Chaz and I have become over the years. Spontaneity is the watch word. Hard work is what makes it happen. Thank you very much, it s well appreciated. There s only one thing for me better than writing songs and that s playing them with The Blockheads and they re all sitting here, all of them.
Chaz added: It s really down to the band as much as anything. They give the songs the character they wouldn t have if we d just done them as a duo. Cheers guys.

Ian & The Blockheads continued to play live after he was diagnosed with cancer and despite becoming physically more frail, Ian soldiered on. Several new songs were recorded ( Books And Water , It Ain t Cool , Dance Little Rude Boy and Ballad Of The Strangler ) and following the release of Mr Love Pants changes were made to the band s line-up. Stephen Monti was replaced on drums by Dylan Howe, while accomplished jazz player Gilad Atzmon was invited into the fold following the expulsion of Davey Payne. Born in Israel, and trained at the Royal Academy of Music in Jerusalem, the 37-year-old played live with The Blockheads, but continued to tour with his own jazz trio and quartet. Ian s illness caused him to pull out of the Glastonbury Festival in the summer of 1999 and a subsequent event in Becton, east London, but he then rallied and played sell-out shows in Luton, Blackheath, south east London, and The Shepherd s Bush Empire, in April 1999, and in Cambridge, Croydon and Coventry during December.
He also linked up with Madness to sing on Drip Fed Fred , a song from their comeback album Wonderful. The collaboration resulted from a chance meeting with sax player Lee Thompson, as the group s guitarist Chris Foreman explains.
Lee went to Holland to see Mike Barson, who lives there, and they were writing songs together, he says. He d written this song Drip Fed Fred and was going back to his hotel and bumped into Ian Dury. Lee just thought Ian would be really good to sing it, although he thought it would probably never happen.
It did happen and Madness got to return the favour from Uncle Ian by hosting a fund-raising night at Walthamstow Dog Track for Cancer BACUP, the charity which Ian supported after he was diagnosed. The Nutty Boys headed up the event on November 30, 1999, raised #30,000 for its Living With Cancer Appeal on which Ian was a board member, along with comedian Phill Jupitus.
In February, 2000, Ian played live dates at the University of East Anglia in Norwich and The London Palladium. Audiences were lost in admiration of his resilience as he dug deep into his energy reserves to pull off two extraordinary performances within three days. Physically, he looked thin and weak, but perched on the edge of a box and pulling the microphone backwards and forwards by its cable, he still had the performance skills of old.
Displaying his customary tendency for coarseness, Ian told the audience about how, during his first visit to the UEA in 1977, I looked up into the lights and saw this great lump of green and purple gob flying towards me and do you know what? he said, using his finger to trace the trajectory as the phlegm flew into his mouth It tasted of Tia Maria. The crowd roared its approval and Ian lapsed back into silence, giving way to The Blockheads.
Ian s illness without doubt helped reconnect him with many of his old fans and in 2000 his profile had never been higher. His work with UNICEF, television commercials for the Sunday Times and the Halifax Building Society, and guest appearances on TV shows such as Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Later With Jools Holland and The National Lottery Show, on which he performed with Madness, also introduced him to the younger generation. In the audience at his live shows were people of Ian s own age group, thirty-somethings who bought his hit records, accompanied by their own children, and those who missed him the first time and were now discovering Clever Trevor , Sweet Gene Vincent and What A Waste . He was so much part of British culture that even those who had never bought a single Ian Dury record could instantly have identified the gruff voice that helped narrate Channel 4 s recent celebration of Top Ten Punks.
Back in 1984, Ian said: Everyone imagines that people like me really want to be popular and really want to be famous. But I don t. I don t like being popular and famous. I like being a lurker. I like being in the shade, I like being naughty. But although he railed against the establishment, Ian Dury was proud of the respect he commanded in elite circles. He was thrilled when the former BBC director general John Birt personally came to shake his hand in the dressing room at the Shepherd s Bush Empire and he took great pleasure from his involvement in the luvvie world of theatre. Ian always adored attention, but only later in his life did he come to terms with his fame. It s always nice when a mover and a shaker comes along to shake your hand. Anyway I ve always been a bit of a snob! he said.
Ian voiced discomfort that his illness helped generate the ecstatic greetings he received after it was announced that he had secondary cancer. The sight of him struggling on stage, his face drawn and pallid, understandably saddened his fans. But for whatever reason they were there, Ian s relationship with his audiences had always been a deeply personal one.
The show at the University of East Anglia was marked by displays of mutual affection. Before bowing to screams for an encore, The Blockheads surrounded him, hugging and kissing him as he sat beaming at the crowd. Overwhelmed by the delirious cheers ringing around the venue and his voice cracking with emotion, Ian acknowledged the devotion of all around him: When we go home we will feel well appreciated tonight, he said. Thanks, you ve given me another year of energy.

At the London Palladium two nights later Ian paid the audience the same compliment as he left the stage. Sadly, however, it was not to be. At 9am on Monday March 27, 2000, Ian Dury died peacefully at his Hampstead home. He had been surrounded by his family in the weeks leading up to his death and they were with him when the final moment came. He was 57 years old. I was at work when Mickey Gallagher telephoned me to tell me the sad news. I knew Ian s health had declined in the previous few weeks but it still came as a shock. About an hour later his passing was announced on the news wires and on radio stations.
Dury s pal Rainbow George was one of the first to hear that his friend had died: Sophy phoned me up about lunch-time and told me the news and asked me to come over. I made my way over with quite a lot of trepidation because I didn t know what the atmosphere was going to be like in the house. I rang on the door and Sophy answered with Albert and Bill and they re both smiling and saying, Daddy s gone to heaven , so there was a good atmosphere.
I went into the bedroom and Sophy had dressed Ian up smart, with his flat cap and everything, and laid him out on his little bed and he looked absolutely fantastic. Then Bill got his guitar and Albert got his bongos and sat at the foot of the bed playing music it was just a brilliant atmosphere in the place, but that s Sophy. Ian really didn t have any beliefs beyond this existence and it s nice that Sophy was able to get that sort of imagery into Albert s and Bill s minds.
Ian Dury was held in unusually high regard in Britain and the fact that he had reached all sections of society, young and old, was movingly reflected in the coverage of his death. The Daily Telegraph and Independent carried large pictures of Ian on their front pages, it was front-page news in the Guardian and extensive obituaries were published by all the quality broadsheets. The tabloids also ran prominent tributes. The high-profile BBC2 current affairs show Newsnight included a tribute in its programme that evening, while old documentaries were rebroadcast in the days following his death.
Musicians and figures from varying walks of public life paid their respects to a man who had struck a chord with so many people. Jools Holland, the pianist and presenter of BBC2 s Later With Jools Holland, said: I was made an honorary Blockhead, which is one of the proudest accolades of my life. He should be posthumously made our Poet Laureate. Annie Nightingale, the former Radio1 DJ, described him as the most cheerful genius I have ever met . Suggs from Madness added: Ian really was the reason Madness started. He was still giving his all right til the end. He will be greatly missed.
Mo Mowlam, who had come to know Ian personally, said: Those who knew him as a performer and a friend know that the world will be a duller place without him. We have all lost a wonderful man, a real human being. Jo Bexley of UNICEF, with whom he had travelled on polio immunisation missions, said: There is only one word which describes him awesome. He said there were three things on his agenda: his music, UNICEF and cancer, the disease to which he finally succumbed.
Ian had campaigned for the charity Cancer BACUP and throughout his illness attempted to remove the taboos about the disease. A spokesman for the charity said: Ian was a tireless supporter. Even during his illness he raised #100,000 for us. His energy and enthusiasm were an inspiration for all cancer patients.
Baxter Dury, speaking on the day of his dad s death, told The Times: I and the whole family were with Ian when he died. It s difficult to say exactly how we feel because none of us has had any sleep. All I can say is that he did everything that he wanted to in his life and he even died when he wanted to. He was very ill. For the last day and a half he could barely speak. But he was himself he was himself to the very end. He had all his dignity intact, right to the last second.

Bright sunshine bathed the courtyard of Golders Green Crematorium on the morning of April 5, as Ian s kaleidoscopic circle of friends gathered outside the west chapel for his funeral service. A glance at the faces of those who had known him revealed a great deal about his universal popularity and his flair for connecting with people from all walks of life. Celebrity, money and material possessions meant nothing to Ian and he made people feel valued and loved by appealing directly to their human side, communicating in the same robust and ribald manner with one and all.
The invited guests included well-known figures: Mo Mowlam, former Radio 1 DJ Annie Nightingale, Neneh and Eagle-Eye Cherry and Robbie Williams. Also among the mourners were ex-managers, ex-girlfriends, former Kilburns, art college friends, and stars from the heady days of Stiff Records, Nick Lowe, Lene Lovich, Wreckless Eric and Madness. Press photographers perched on the crematorium wall, training their lenses on the motley collection whom Ian Dury had like the Pied Piper led into his distinct and unordinary world. They were all there; friends with stripy woollen hats, Teddy Boy threads, shaved heads, mobster shades, camel-hair coats and trilbys, and others on crutches, sticks and carrying gold-topped canes.
Ian loved life s curiosities and felt an affinity with people who, like himself, knew what it felt like to be on the margins or physically vulnerable. Despite varying degrees of material success, Ian s friends have remained true to themselves; continuing to paint, draw, play music, write songs and put their talents to creative use. There, in the early summer sun, they were united; those who had given Ian so much friendship and who felt they had been repaid in the most handsome way.
The cortege, led by a Victorian glass-sided hearse pulled by two bay horses with black plumes, came from the funeral home in Haverstock Hill, Belsize Park, having stopped outside Ian s home in Hampstead to pick up his family, band members and other mourners. Little Billy Dury waited in his cowboy hat, sheriff s badge and a Blockhead tee-shirt, while Baxter and Jemima wore grey suits and white silk scarves, tied in the way their dad always wore them. The procession snaked through north London, passing within half a mile of Kilburn High Road, towards Golders Green NW11 the final destination in the journey of a performer whose songs were like a poetic London A-Z. From Billy Bentley s adventures in the capital to Fulham Broadway Station ( What A Waste ), Lambeth Walk, Turnham Green and Harold Hill ( This Is What We Find ) and all the stops along the Bus Driver s Prayer , Ian took his followers on a colourful London tour.
A respectful silence fell as the horse-drawn hearse appeared through the crematorium gates and around 250 people filed slowly inside. The same music that announced his arrival on stage a strange mixture of sleigh bells, singing and yodelling was played as his coffin was carried into the chapel by Chaz, Johnny, Norman and Mickey, along with Chris Foreman and Lee Thompson of Madness. A black cloth bearing the Blockhead logo covered the casket, and his old overcoat was draped over one end. Death, for a man who had lived so joyously and who always looked to the future, suddenly seemed desperately cruel and unjust. But this was no sombre occasion. Rather, it was a celebration of Ian s inspirational contribution to The Passing Show , a chance to reflect on the counterfoil he had left behind.
It was a humanist ceremony, in accordance with Ian s wishes, and there was music and laughter as tributes were paid. Tears flowed when The Blockheads, seated around a music stand, played a song Ian had written only a few weeks before he died, You re The Why . The words of his last composition would have moved even the hardest heart and the sight of his group performing without him epitomised the sense of loss. I shuffled through the modes of bad behaviour/And hankered for the desolated dawn/I couldn t cope with yet another saviour/To steer me from the way that I was born, sang Chaz. Then like a ton of bricks the dawn descended/Recalcitrance was hurtled to the floor/The citadel lay breached and undefended/You brought a love I d never known before. I ll want you till the seasons lose their mystery/I ll need you till the birds forget to fly/I love you more than anyone in history/Wherever there s a wherefore you re the why.
When the service was over, the mourners moved past the coffin, some pausing thoughtfully to lay their hands lovingly on the cloth; jazz records and other favourites of Ian s played through the speakers as they did so.
Outside, family and friends admired the extraordinary display of flowers and wreaths which had been sent. Durex read one from Kosmo Vinyl, Uncle Ian from Madness spelt out some bright yellow flowers, while the floral tribute from his friends Jock Scott came in the shape of a pint of Guinness. Say hi to Don read a card from the Cherry family, while other bouquets were sent by Paul McCartney and the kids , Charlie and Shirley Watts, Roger and Heather Daltrey, Chas & Dave and his former neighbours from Oval Mansions. One eulogy simply read Oi Oi .

What was to follow at The Forum in Kentish Town, was the kind of occasion that Ian would have loved a night of drinking, laughter, music and even some fighting. The venue itself was especially appropriate. It sits directly opposite The Tally Ho, the music pub where Kilburn & The High Roads served their apprenticeship, and the scene of the benefit concerts played by Ian and The Blockheads after the death of Charley Charles, who also died from cancer.
A large photograph of Ian used on the 1999 Sex And Drugs And Rock n Roll compilation looked down from the back of the stage, as the booze and the stories began to flow. Ian s favourite jellied eels and pie and mash were served to those arriving from the crematorium and musicians paid their own spontaneous tributes on stage throughout the evening. Some were raucous, such as Wilko Johnson s pulsating R&B and Wreckless Eric s Stiff classic Whole Wide World , while others were heart-rending. Baxter was ushered on stage by Derek The Draw a re-enactment of his father s time-honoured stage entrance and he gave an inebriated rendition of My Old Man , reading the poignant lyrics from a sheet of paper as he tried to keep time with The Blockheads.
Meanwhile, Humphrey Ocean, wearing a flat green cap and a coat adorned with coloured badges from the Stiff tour, led the audience in a sing-a-long of Hit Me and Billericay Dickie for which song sheets were given out. Chas Smash from the Kilburn s tribute band Madness also drunkenly helped conduct proceedings. Saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, one of the last additions to The Blockheads, gave a breathtaking jazz performance, aided by Dylan Howe on drums and Ed Speight on keyboards.
Possibly the most moving contribution of all came courtesy of Ronnie Carroll. He stunned the party into silence when he shambled towards the microphone in his buttoned-up overcoat to deliver an unaccompanied, note-perfect rendition of Danny Boy (The Londonderry Air), changing the words to Ian Boy . For those few minutes, the image of Ian above him seemed larger than ever and a peacefulness descended. It was indicative of the emotional ebb and flow of the occasion; moments later, figures could be seen brawling on the balcony. As the music ended, the crowd called for more, with Chas Smash reminding the guests that The Blockheads had just lost their best friend .
Somewhat curiously, the wake was reviewed in The Guardian two days later, with critic Robin Denselow grading the event, awarding it four stars no less, as if it was a paying gig. The review prompted a letter to the paper the following week to the effect that Ian s wake was probably the first in history to be classified in this way. Ian would have laughed his socks off.
Sex & Drugs & Rock n Roll: The Life Of Ian Dury by Richard Balls is published by Omnibus Press. In accordance with Ian Dury s wishes, 50p for every copy sold will be donated to Cancer BACUP.