Slide Away, Captain Nimmo

My good chum Moz pointed out to me only yesterday that the BBC (where in iPlayer have a link to the historical spy-thriller One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing) have used a picture of a young Derek Nimmo, or to give him his full stage name, Derek Nimmo Gallagher. Late uncle of the Manchester rapscallions and pop-guitar playground toughs Noel and House Party Gallagher his resemblance to the fighting-sibling front men of Blur is clear in this early picture.

Nimmo falling to his death at the end of the previous century after seeking to adjust an alarm (though his own or otherwise records do not show) was long notorious for playing almost exclusively the sort of bumbling clerics that probably had your Capri up on bricks whilst stuttering away at how they were ‘M-m-m-m-m-mad forrit’. But this was his stage role, the mask to hide his earlier life still.

For Derek Nimmo was born and raised a Prince of Dakkar, his father the Rajah of Bundelkumo in India. Angry at the loss of his family to the British Empire Derek ran away to sea where he constructed a magnificent underwater boat he came to term the Nautilus. Classically educated (‘Nimmo’ is the Latinised Greek ‘Outis’, or ‘Nobody’- used by Odysseus to the Cyclops, whom he blinded most heroically after breaking into his house and becoming angry at it being the one island he had ever visited not up for a definite shag) Nimmo spread destruction to all colonial powers through his incredible gift with engineering and the new-electric. Also his barrel organ.

Nimmo well known for his personal bravery despite his disregard for due democratic process famously fought giant squid, destroyed ironclad warships, and suffered the falling down of his trousers just as the Bishop came round.

It is singularly worthy then that his nephews, Noel and Zippy, maintain the late Captain Nimmo’s memory through their Beano-quality punch-ups and the habit of their trousers inadvertently falling down when Paul Weller comes round for tea.