Ricky Tomlinson, known to millions as Jim Royle, has revealed that a lifelong phobia of cockroaches, developed during his prison sentence, has cost him around £1 million and forced him to turn down a dozen offers to appear on I'm a Celebrity. The 87-year-old is now making a documentary with ex-Brookside producer Colin McKeown to expose the wrongs of the two-year sentence he served for his role as a flying picket during the 1972 Building Workers' Strike, a conviction later overturned.
Prison ordeal and the £1m cost
Recalling a grim night in his cell, Tomlinson said: “I got up at 4am and saw the floor moving. It was eight inches deep in cockroaches. The cockroaches were up the walls, on the ceiling and on the windows.” He added: “Unfortunately, I have got a thing about it, and I have got to have treatment now. I can't shake it off. I used to have a beautiful house in Spain, but once we saw a couple of cockroaches and I sold it the next month. Rita, my wife, told me to get therapy.”
He continued: “It has cost me about £1m. Every year I get asked to go in the [I'm A Celebrity] jungle. I have been asked a dozen times and I have to turn it down because of that. It has cost me a fortune.”
Shrewsbury 24 and the fight for justice
A former plasterer, Tomlinson was one of 24 trade unionists, known as the Shrewsbury 24, prosecuted for picketing during the strike. He and fellow activist Des Warren, dubbed the Shrewsbury Two, faced more serious charges, with Tomlinson accused of stirring up action as a union shop steward while working on the A483 bypass build in Wrexham, North Wales. Convicted of conspiracy to intimidate and affray, he was jailed in 1973, waiting until March 2021 to have his convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal.
Speaking at a fundraiser for the Chickenshed Theatre children's charity, Tomlinson, who went on hunger strike for 31 days in prison, said with McKeown's help he will make a film that “names names.” He said: “Colin was the brains behind Brookside and Hollyoaks. He is a working class lad and knows all about the case. The trial was a farce. The police presence for six building workers in 1972 was the biggest there has ever been at any trial, and that includes The Krays and the Irish bombers.”
From Brookside to The Royle Family
Despite the ordeal, Tomlinson went into acting, appearing in the BBC Play For Today series in 1981 and landing the role of Bobby Grant in Channel 4's Brookside the following year. Starring in 193 episodes alongside onscreen wife Sheila, played by Sue Johnston, the pair became one of the most famous TV couples of the 1980s. Ten years after his 1988 departure from Brookside, he was reunited with Johnston in the BBC1 comedy The Royle Family, written by the late Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash.
Tomlinson recalled meeting Aherne: “I first met Caroline at a black tie do at Granada Television in Manchester. We were on the way to the buffet and I bumped into a young girl in front of me. She went flying and fell on her back. She looked up and said ‘oh, you're my dad aren't you?’ I said to my wife Rita, ‘this girl has got mental health problems. She thinks I am her father’. That night, when we got home, there was a message on my answerphone, saying ‘can you get to Granada for 9am?’ I got there the next day and Caroline was there, sitting with the rest of the cast. She said ‘I saw you last night. I want you to play my dad’.”
Liz Smith and the catchphrase
First broadcast in September 1998, The Royle Family was an instant hit, regularly pulling in up to 9 million viewers a week until its final episode on Christmas Day 2012. Tomlinson believes late actress Liz Smith, who played the show's loveable nanna Norma Speakman, was the real star. He said: “She was a wonderful actress. She was my favourite character. I used to have a go at her all the time. We used to have our breakfast on set, but they put her up in a five star hotel next to the studio. She used to come in and would dive into our breakfast. I was like ‘Eh! You're staying in a five star hotel and you are pinching ours? You miserable old sod.’ But she used to say ‘you are awful, you are’ and I used to say ‘no I am not. You are a greedy old cow’. But I loved her. She was absolutely fabulous.”
Describing Liz, who died in 2016 aged 95, he said: “She was wonderful but bonkers. She once decided she wanted to buy a house and went past an estate agent in London. She went home, got the money and put it in a bloody big leather bag. She went back to the house that was in the photo and knocked on the door and this man opened it. She said ‘I am buying the house’ and gave him the money. I said ‘are you bonkers?’ But she sorted it out and lived [there] happily ever after.”
On the show's famous catchphrase 'my a***', Tomlinson said: “Caroline came up with it. We were once walking past a school in Liverpool and there were 300 girls outside at playtime. As I walked past, all the girls, at the top of their voice, shouted ‘my a***!’. You could hear it in Chester.”
No plans to retire
Tomlinson has made the most of the catchphrase, using it in his current UK speaking tour, titled Retirement?! My Arse! He has no plans to retire, especially not while his pal Andy Burnham is Prime Minister. He said: “I know Andy Burnham very, very well. He is as straight as a die. He is genuine and real. Andy is a good politician. He is straight forward. He is working class and loves the working class. I tell you what, he will do a good job in Number 10. I am happy to keep working. I would appear in EastEnders. I would appear in anything if the money is right, kid. I certainly will.”
