My Haven, Maurice Gran in the front room of his home in Cheltenham

1.  DOUBLE ACT 

My writing partner Laurence Marks and I grew up in Finsbury Park in north London, and have been friends since we were 11. He took this photo of me when I was 21.

After university I joined the civil service and Laurence became a journalist but we began writing together in the 70s. After five years of rejection one of our pilot shows got the green light … and the rest is comedy!

2. A GOOD BELT

I saw this beautiful shirt at Gieves & Hawkes 25 years ago, but it cost about £150, a preposterous amount of money in 1997. Then a couple of weeks later I put a bet on Arsenal (I’m a fan, hence the scarf on the sofa) to win the double that season, and lo and behold they did, netting me £150. 

The shirt was still in the shop so I bought it – and it still fits after all these years.

3. STATESMANLIKE

Laurence and I had great respect for The Young Ones’ madcap star Rik Mayall, and after meeting him for lunch one day we came up with the idea for The New Statesman, about dodgy Tory MP Alan B’Stard. 

Working with Rik was exhausting – ‘There are only ten jokes on this page!’ he’d complain – but the show was a big success and won us a BAFTA. His death at 56 after a quad bike accident was a tragedy and we still miss him.

4. FEATHERED FRIENDS

Maurice cherishes a plaster sheep he bought from a gift shop in Devon in the 90s

The script on the table is for the last-ever episode of Birds Of A Feather, the Christmas 2020 special. I got the idea for the show in the late 80s after spotting a couple of women in a Kensington restaurant who were spectacularly overdressed – I fantasised that they were gangsters’ molls, and when the husbands turned up they looked the part too. 

Laurence said it would make a great TV show and the script almost wrote itself, so we knew we had a hit on our hands.

5. SHEAR PLEASURE

This plaster sheep tickled me when I saw it in a Devon gift shop in the 90s – and I got it because my wife Carol and I’d recently moved to the Cotswolds, which means ‘sheep hills’.

Carol made the toy rabbit and mouse in front of it for our granddaughter, to give her something to look forward to on Zoom chats during lockdown rather than just talking to her boring old grandparents

6. WEDDING BELLE 

Carol – pictured here in a flapper-style 1920s dress with me on our wedding day in 1994 – and I met when she was the production secretary on Shine On Harvey Moon, the TV comedy I wrote with Laurence. 

We were torn between sneaking off and getting married quietly with strangers as witnesses, or having a big party… so after tying the knot at a registry office in Oxfordshire we had a big party. We’ve now got a grownup daughter and son, and, of course, our granddaughter. 

As told to York Membery. Shooting The Pilot, by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, is published by Fantom, £19.99. Visit marksandgran.com