Benny Hill (21^st January 1924 to 20^th April 1968)

In autumn 2008, the year after my mum died, I went down to London on my own armed with a good pair of trainers and lots of energy. One stop was Benny Hill’s home for bout 20 years. He never married and lived alone in this sparse-decorated flat. There were hardly any books or pictures on the walls.

After suffering a mild heart attack on 24 February 1992, doctors told him he needed to lose weight and recommended heart bypass Benny most have known the end was coming as he declined the operation. A week later tests confirmed he was suffering from kidney failure.

Hill died on 20 April 1992 and lay dead for two days. It was then his producer decided to do something than keep trying to call Benny on the phone. He went round to the flat and climbed a ladder to the balcony of Benny’s 3rd floor flat. He saw him dead in his chair in front of the television (still on), his hair all messed up. Neighbours called the police who came and broke in. Benny was sitting in his armchair in front of the television.

Hill was buried at Hollybrook Cemetery near his birthplace in Southampton on 26 April 1992. In October 1992, following rumours that he was buried with large amounts of gold jewellery, an attempt was made by thieves to exhume his body. When authorities looked into his open grave the following morning they found the vandals had dug down, exposing his coffin. Within two hours of the discovery, cemetery staff had refilled the grave and covered it with a half-ton concrete.

When I first found Benny Hill’s flat I was pushing my nose up at the window of the front door when a man came out. I explained I just wanted to look where Benny had lived longer than anywhere else. He was the porter from the days when Benny lived there and I had a fifteen minute chat with him. He said Benny was very private and, even though he was in the flat, told the porter to tell anyone who called that he was out and not to let them in. The big main palatial room in the flat was virtually empty and unused. Benny used a much smaller room. There was a filing cabinet stuffed with awards and trophies. There were no pictures on the walls nor books on the shelves. He said Benny watched television virtually all day except in summer time when he went to the continent looking for ideas for the next TV series.

He said he only moved out of the flat because there was some building work going on at another flat and the noise was getting on his nerves. Just weeks after the builders had finished they finished. I think Benny would have lived here for the rest of his life if the building work hadn’t happened.

As I spoke with the porter people only Arabic-looking entered the building.

The entrance to the flats….

It was a lovely fairly quiet street….

This is the Fairwater House where Benny died watching television….

This is room Benny died in, poor lad.

Benny’s last place on earth, his grave in Southampton…

Miss you Benny….