Landing the role of Boycie in Only Fool and Horses would take John Challis to the pinnacle of his career. Yet his achievements were fueled by a desire to impress his father. Chris Price found out more

The successful car salesman with that trademark mocking laugh, Boycie was top of the pile among Del Boy’s pals in Only Fool and Horses.

Yet actor John Challis is nothing like the character who made him famous. Instead his life has been shaped by a chronic inability to settle down and longing for his father’s acceptance.

The first instalment of John’s autobiography, Being Boycie, covers his life and career up to 1985, just when Only Fools... really took off and when John was in the third of four marriages.

The account is as frank as it is gripping, detailing disappointments, near misses and conquests with a self-depracating manner, underlined all the way by John’s difficult relationship with his civil servant father Alec, who disapproved of his decision to pursue an acting career.

“He never looked at it as a proper job,” said John, who will celebrate his 70th birthday in August. “That was a job for drunks and slackers in his opinion and to a certain extent that was true.

“My mother always flirted with the idea of acting. She was very theatrical and did some amateur stuff and I suppose I took after her.

“My father was more of a self-made man and a proud worker who had dragged himself up by the boot straps. I am not like that and he found that hard to come to terms with. That generation wanted their sons to have that work ethic and the trouble is, I never did. I tried to avoid it at all costs.

“I found I had the ability to entertain people but he thought that was irrelevant. He kept saying I would give it up one day.”

Alec died in 1990, having largely ignored his son’s success as a part of Only Fools and Horses, which started in 1981. Although they did not know it for a long time, Alec was ill with Alzheimer’s, which saw him decline over a number of years. It left John feeling he had to face up to his feelings for his father.

“He just sort of said he had not got time to watch that rubbish but having said that, part of the reason was because he was ill,” said John.

“It was a gradual decline and then a very accelerated one after that. We had no idea. We just thought he was being bloody minded, which to an extent he always was, but his illness exasperated the situation. I don’t loathe my father. There were reasons for the way he was. I understand him being worried about his only son who was a bit of a waster.

“I saw someone about my relationship with my father who told me to write a letter to him. I was desperate for his approval really and whatever he was like, he was still my dad and I liked him. I set that out in a letter but it never got to him because he wasn’t in a state to receive that information at the time. He was in a home and he did not recognise me.

“All that was so upsetting. I knew I had lost him and I never knew who he was and what he truly thought about anything. By the time I started trying to find out it was too late. That will always be a sadness for me really but by the time he died at least I had written that letter and spent a lot of time with him in the home.

“I think he was a bit of a tortured soul. He wouldn’t release what was in him but I think that was a generational thing. The old British stiff upper lip. You didn’t talk about things like that.”

A message for Aubrey

John does have a favourite scene from Only Fools and Horses. It is the seance scene in Sickness and Wealth, when Boycie reveals his middle name.

“I thought the scene was just brilliantly written and had so many wonderful lines in it,” said John.

“Everyone is sitting around the table and I will always remember sitting in a circle and the medium saying she had a message for “an Aubrey” and everyone stares at each other until Boycie says 'I’m here.’”

Trigger said “You never told us your name is Aubrey.” Boycie replies “Nor would you if your name was Aubrey.”

John Challis will sign copies of his autobiography, Being Boycie, at Waterstones in Bluewater on Saturday, April 14 from 1pm. Details on 01322 624831. Being Boycie is published by Wigmore Books and costs £9.99. The second instalment of John’s autobiography, Beyond Boycie, is due out in September.