‘God must have smiled at me,’ says Craig Charles. ‘They got me to hospital in time.’ The BBC Radio 6 funk and soul DJ and star of sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf is talking about the heart attack he suffered in his home two years ago, which he is speaking of publicly for the first time.
‘It was very weird,’ he says. ‘I was sweating, but I was also really cold, and my teeth were tingling. My wife Jackie was in Ireland visiting her family so I went to bed and phoned her. Jackie’s sister-in-law is a nurse and she said, “Get him to hospital – now!” But I wouldn’t go on my own. Jackie came back to England the next morning, saw me and immediately phoned 999. They said, “The ambulance is on its way – what colour is he?” Jackie looked at me and said, “Well, he’s brown.” I was having a heart attack and laughing at the same time.’
By his own admission Craig Charles didn’t handle his early success well. ‘I was quite dissolute, drinking too much and eating too much. If you’re working-class no one readies you for that sort of success’
The 55-year-old Liverpudlian likes to laugh. He also has a lot to live for. Charles has three children – musician Jack Charles, 31, from his first marriage, to the actress Cathy Tyson, and two daughters, Anna-Jo, 22, and Nellie, 16, with Jackie. He is working on the fourth of his epic Scary Fairy poems to be performed with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and a new feature-length Red Dwarf, the series that first brought him fame as the space-slob Lister, is coming to television.
His life was saved by micro-surgery. ‘If they’d opened my chest I’d have been sewn up like Frankenstein’s monster afterwards,’ he says. ‘But they went through my wrist into my heart. Put a tube in, then a balloon, pumped it up then put four stents in. The NHS staff were absolutely brilliant. A lot of the surgeons were Red Dwarf fans – “There’s Lister in the bed!” – but I was lucky.’
Just how lucky becomes clear when he reveals that his heart condition is the same one that led to the death of his older brother Dean in 2014. ‘The arteries become squeezed. It creates a blood clot and then the blood clot stops your heart.’
What colour is he?’ the 999 operator asked my wife. She looked at me and said: ‘Well, he’s brown’
In Dean’s case it came after cycling into the school where he taught maths. He was the only male teacher so was by himself in the men’s changing room. ‘He wasn’t found for ages,’ says Charles. ‘If it had been earlier, you never know what might have happened.’
Charles was brought up on the outskirts of Liverpool, one of three sons to an Irish mother and a Guyanese father. ‘I grew up in a parallel universe to my friends,’ he says. ‘Just because of the ethnicity of the house. The first music I recall was my mum and dad dancing around the kitchen to Ray Charles’s I Got A Woman. My dad would play Harry Belafonte and Muddy Waters. When he was cremated we played Hot-Hot-Hot by Arrow.’
Today he lives rather more grandly in a converted mill in Cheshire. ‘We’re in the bottom of a valley, in between Hale and Wilmslow and Alderley Edge. The River Bollin runs through my garden. It’s idyllic, to be honest.’
Cheshire is Premier League footballer country. ‘We live in that golden triangle,’ Charles says. ‘Where the women drive around in Bentleys and the guys have Lamborghinis. We’re definitely the poor relations.’
Charles has owned Rolls-Royces himself and was once so careless with money he found uncashed cheques made out to him for thousands of pounds. ‘I’d get letters from my agent and I’d just throw them in the bedside table,’ he says. ‘I was cleaning it out one day and I opened some and went, What? I went straight to the bank, believe me!’
Charles was brought up on the outskirts of Liverpool, one of three sons to an Irish mother and a Guyanese father. ‘I grew up in a parallel universe to my friends,’ he says
By his own admission Charles didn’t handle his early success well. ‘I was quite dissolute, drinking too much and eating too much. If you’re working-class no one readies you for that sort of success. There was no training at West Derby comprehensive for being famous. I had a major influx in wealth, and nothing to spend it on but partying. I wasn’t prepared for it at all.’
Two major incidents could have ended his career: a rape charge in 1995 – for which he was found not guilty – and a front-page exposé in 2006 apparently showing him smoking crack cocaine. ‘I have had times of crisis,’ he admits. ‘But people rallied around me and helped me get back on my feet, really. It’s my great fortune to have good friends.
‘And I have music. In bad times it’s my go-to, in good times, it’s my go-to. It’s the way I mourn and it’s the way I celebrate. I can’t wait for the Radio 6 festival next month, when you look up and see 1,000 people all going for it, busting moves and throwing shapes. Trust me, that’s a great moment.’
Tune in to highlights from the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival, March 6-8, on 6 Music, BBC Sounds, BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button & BBC4