‘John Sullivan was the Dickens of our generation’ – Mark Freeland, BBC Head of Comedy
John Richard Thomas Sullivan OBE, creator of the comedy sitcom Only Fools and Horses, was born in London on 23 December 1946, son of plumber John Patrick Sullivan (1908-1993) and charlady Hilda Clara May Parker (1907-1992).[1]
His father was one of eleven children of Thomas Sullivan and Ann Miles. This branch of Sullivan hailed from Mitchelstown, Co Cork.[2] It may have been Famine or the political state of Ireland that caused John Sullivan’s ancestors to emigrate, a state of affairs hardly recognised more than a century on in the scripts of their award-winning descendant.
John Sullivan grew up in Balham where his family lived at Zennor Road. An incident that occurred there before he was born reads like a scene from Only Fools and Horses. In 1939, his mother fell outside a fish shop on her way to work and injured her ankle.[3] She received treatment at the Weir Hospital and was unable to work for almost two months, with the loss of a weekly wage of 17s 6d.
Mrs Sullivan sought damages from the fishmonger, and the case was heard in Wandsworth County Court. She claimed the pavement was wet and slimy after the unloading of fish outside the shop, but the defence argued that she tripped on a flagstone. The exchange in court was like a scene from an Only Fools and Horses script:
Counsel: What is there in these boxes of fish to make the pavement slimy? Witness: Only skate Judge Haydon: It sounds slippery[4]
John Sullivan left school at age fifteen with no qualifications and worked as a messenger, carpet-fitter and second-hand car dealer. He began writing scripts while working at a brewery but they were repeatedly rejected. He got a job as a scenery shifter at the BBC and approached a producer in the BBC bar about Citizen Smith. It was screened in 1977 and was an immediate hit. One of the episodes, shown in 1979, was called Only Fools and Horses.[5]
In 1981, a new sitcom with the same title was produced, though Sullivan had to convince the powers-that-be to adopt it:
I liked the idea of calling the show Only Fools and Horses from the old expression because Del’s main aim in life is not to work and yet he scurries around till eleven at night working his socks off not to work … Jimmy Gilbert said: ‘What does it mean?’ ‘Oh, it’s a London saying.’ In the end we found out it was an American saying from Vaudeville theatre days that came over here through music halls.[6]
John Sullivan went on to entertain audiences with the Trotter family for over twenty years, and in 2004 was awarded an OBE for services to drama.
John Sullivan OBE died on 22 April 2011:
The death of John Sullivan this week deprived television of one of its greatest comedy writers. In Only Fools and Horses, Sullivan, who passed away from viral pneumonia at the age of 64, created TV’s most beloved and successful sitcom. He was working as a scenery shifter in the BBC in 1977 when he showed the pilot script to legendary producer Dennis Main Wilson who loved it … He will be remembered by classic scenes such as Del falling through the bar or grandad loosening the wrong chandelier, or all the countless other moments of pleasure he gave viewers.[7]
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[1] John Patrick Sullivan was born in Bermondsey, London on 17 March 1908. [2] Holly Bough, 25 December 2022, ‘Lovely Jubbly! We trace TV writer’s family links to Cork.’ Genealogy given by Sullivan’s first cousin, Catherine O’Brien, Glounthaune. It is worth noting the death at Mitchelstown on 8 March 1938 of one Thomas O’Sullivan, Campaign House, Mitchelstown, who was laid to rest in Brigown graveyard. [3] The incident occurred at 287 Cavendish Road, Balham on 29 June 1939. Mrs Hilda Sullivan lived at 35 Zennor Road, Balham. In 1922, coal porter Richard Parker was resident at 35 Zennor Road (ref: IE CDH 200). [4] South Western Star, 15 March 1940. Mrs Hilda Sullivan was awarded £50 damages. [5] Series 3, No 17, ‘Only Fools and Horses’ aired 27 September 1979. ‘Wolfie is outraged to learn that the local council are going to demolish an old gipsy’s stables to develop the site.’ [6] Only Fools and Horses – The Official Inside Story (1998) by Steve Clark (‘Why Only Fools and Horses?’). A chapter in the book, ‘The Writer – John Sullivan’ discusses the development of Sullivan’s career. The last episode of Only Fools and Horses was aired on 25 December 2003 with more than 15 million viewers. In 1881, 30-year-old George Williams, known as the ‘True Briton’ was charged with vagrancy, having previously been convicted 25 times and imprisoned in Coldbathfields and Holloway Prisons. The court heard how on one occasion in 1877, when sentenced to 12 months with hard labour by Sir Robert Carden, he had told the court that only ‘Fools and horses worked. He had never worked, and never intended to work’ (South London Observer, 9 July 1881). In 1880, Sir W Harcourt gave a history of a criminal who had been subjected to the punishment of flogging, and among other things read a declaration of this worthy which is likely not to be forgotten. ‘Only fools and horses work,’ he said, ‘and I’m neither a fool nor a horse.’ The Home Secretary added that if ever there was a case in which flogging was deserved this was one, and Mr P Taylor who put the question had nothing to say for his often-convicted and finally-flogged client. Reference Belfast Morning News, 23 July 1880 and Reynolds’s Newspaper, 25 July 1880. In the same year, at the Surrey Sessions, a professional beggar named Newman, who had been committed nearly twenty times, was sentenced to twelve months’ hard labour. He had told the arresting officer that ‘only fools and horses worked’ and that he always had a ‘home’ at Wandsworth prison (Birmingham Mail, 7 July 1880). [7] Evening Herald, 30 April 2011.
