Invisible ink no 272: Jake Thackray

This week we feature a writer with a delicate and very specific talent. In the late 1960s John “Jake” Thackray appeared regularly on the BBC singing topical songs, a lugubrious chansonnier with a baritone Yorkshire accent. “Singing” is probably an inaccurate term for Jake’s style, which might better be described as musical talking. His song-stories were a poetic blend of Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Flanders and Swann, and Pete Seeger – but with a very British sense of seaside postcard humour, mixed in with wistful rural imagery.

A policeman’s son, born in 1938, Thackray became a teacher and spent several influential years in France, where some of his poetry was published. When he returned to Yorkshire, he found that he could gain the attention of disorderly pupils by playing his guitar. Aside from being a television and radio performer, he was also a recording artist in his own right, producing four studio albums between 1967 and 1977. The first was typically titled The Last Will & Testament of Jake Thackray, in which he suggested that his friends should throw a party after his death, then forget about him. More idiosyncratic pieces followed, such as “Isabel Makes Love Upon National Monuments” and “Brother Gorilla”.

His fame increased, although his strange style caused many viewers to demand his dismissal. He was now a national celebrity, making regular appearances (including the Royal Variety Performance), but he hated large audiences, choosing to perform in pubs, and frequently cancelling gigs. As the public lost interest in contemporary satire, he fell out of fashion. His witty, literate stories lost relevance in the Thatcher years, and he suffered a disastrous loss of confidence. Despite making over 1,000 television appearances, he became an alcoholic recluse, was declared bankrupt, and performed only at his local church, dying in obscurity in 2002. Perhaps his chosen form was too limited, and had he translated his tales to books, interest would have remained.

For his album Jake’s Progress he wrote a song taken from a paragraph in the Laurie Lee novel Cider With Rosie. It depicted the unlikely series of events which resulted in a humble blacksmith finding love with an equally quaint toffeemaker. Typically, the song showcased Thackray’s mastery of the English language. He left behind an idiosyncratic body of work and a committed cult fan base. When the British admire someone they name a pub after him. The Blacksmith and the Toffeemaker is now a pub in Islington, London.