Pat Ingoldsby: 'I loved appearing on TV with a chicken on my head'

The TV presenter and poet has been hammered by polio-related health issues in recent years, but is delighted to be the subject of a new documentary, writes Esther McCarthy

Tue, 01 Nov, 2022 - 21:00

To an entire generation of Irish people, he will be forever remembered as the colourful TV presenter with a telephone on his head. In the 1980s, Pat Ingoldsby delighted young viewers of RTÉ shows like Pat’s Hat and Pat’s Chat with his offbeat sense of humour.

The poet and playwright has long since withdrawn from a TV career - but now returns to our screens in a new documentary about his remarkable life. The Peculiar Sensation of Being Pat Ingoldsby sees the Dubliner join forces with filmmaker Seamus Murphy as he reaches his 80th year.

After years of rejecting the idea of a documentary - or the very idea of fame - he found a kindred spirit in Murphy.

“Light years ago, overnight, I gave it all up. I stopped everything in RTÉ that I was doing freelance,” Ingoldsby says of stepping back from the public eye. “I gave it all up for health reasons, because I wanted to become whole and healthy and fulfilled, without needing the approval of others and that’s what it came down to. That was the reason I gave up the fame.”

For the next couple of decades, Ingoldsby focused on his writing and became a familiar character on the streets of Dublin, selling his books and chatting with passers-by. Every so often, he recalls, filmmakers would approach him.

“I didn't want to do it because it was just going back to what I had given up - and then I met Seamus on the street. And he was the same healthy feet-on-the-ground person as myself. I thought maybe it would be a good idea to try it with Seamus,” he says, adding with a chuckle that he did so on condition he wouldn’t have to talk about himself.

He looks back fondly now on the TV shows that became part of the fabric of Irish childhood. “The reason I did what I did on television, was I truly believed that life doesn't have to un-absurd. There are millions of ways that things that are regarded as boring can be absurd and great fun.

“I just loved the idea of appearing on television with a chicken on my head and the phone on top of the chicken. Then it would ring, and I’d pretend I couldn’t hear and it would be so real to the children. They’d be roaring: ‘Pat, your phone!’ To them, it was real.”

By that time, Ingoldsby was already a well-known playwright and columnist, and on leaving TV focused on his writing. He travelled the country with his poetry books by his side, and has especially fond memories of his time in Cork.

“Are you from Cork? You lucky thing. When I was on the road performing I used to love getting the train to Cork and I’d be booked into the Imperial Hotel. Then I’d walk the beautiful walk with my books under my arm down to the Triskel, over the bridge, down Patrick Street and around the corner and down the lane. The most glorious performing nights I ever had in Cork were in Triskel. It was always jammed and I always got such a response. Then the next day I'd be in the Lobby Bar and the Lobby Bar was a hard one to do because it was kind of pointing in two different directions at the same time.

“I was in the Lobby Bar one night and I’d nowhere to stay and I finished up at an all-night party. That was Cork! The next night I’d be in DeBarras in Clonakilty, it was bloody great.”

The polio that blighted his childhood has impacted on his body later in life and curtailed his ability to enjoy such adventures. “The polio has shut everything down now and it’s broken my heart. All the things that energised me, thrilled me, challenged me, frightened me, adrenalised me, I can’t do them any more.”

Imelda May with Pat Ingoldsby at the launch of Seamus Murphy’s The Peculiar Sensation of being Pat Ingoldsby at the Lighthouse Cinema, Dublin. Picture: Brian McEvoy

Ingoldsby first contracted polio in his infancy, and as his loved ones cared for him in the seaside town of Malahide, his father, a keen writer himself, fostered his love of literature.

“When I started learning to walk it took a long time and Daddy carried me down the stairs every morning from the bed, over his shoulder in a blanket, with love. He’d put me on the sofa for the day. I should have been going to school then because my brothers and sisters were but I couldn’t. Thanks to that, my dad enriched me with books and encouragement to read. When I was five or six years I was au fait with Riders to the Sea, and Thomas Hardy.

“Dad was a primary teacher but also we’d be sitting down in the heart of Malahide village beside the estuary in the little old house where I was born. There’d be a storm raging outside and we’d be all clustered like every other family around the wireless - there was no TV then. And then we’d hear a voice coming from London introducing a play written by Patrick Ingoldsby. Da! His name coming across the sea from London into our house.

“When I’d be in bed at night, the one remaining sound of the house would be dad downstairs at the dining room table and he’d be tip tapping his stories on his typewriter. It was always there.”

Realising that there were things he couldn’t do like other boys his age, Ingoldsby reveals that he dreamed of playing soccer for Ireland. The inclusive nature of sport now is one of the greatest developments he has seen in his lifetime, he says. And during impromptu Sunday afternoon matches in Malahide, he honed his goalkeeping skills. That a neighbour remembered his determination to do so years later moved him.

“Anybody who wanted could play - you’d put the coats down to make the goals. Within that, I reached the stage where they always picked me to be goalkeeper, even though I couldn’t use my left arm. I worked on developing extraordinary responses on my right side, and used to make miraculous saves on my right side.

“Of all the fan mail that I got during my time as Pat’s Hat and Pat’s Chat, there was one letter that appeared in the RTÉ Guide that has meant more to me. This letter was from a little girl who said: ‘Dear Pat, my daddy says you are a great goalkeeper’.”

The documentary is set to introduce Ingoldsby’s quirky sense of humour and love of life to a new generation, and give fans the chance to revisit childhood memories. They include Imelda May, who along with Brush Shiels and Don Baker, contributes to the film.

What is his hope that audiences will take from the documentary? “That they have a warm feeling afterwards. I don't see any point in any life activity unless you get a lovely feeling when you’re doing it.”