Paul Elliott spent 55 years in the Chuckle Brothers making people laugh in pantomime, on TV and most recently in nightclub appearances performing To Me, To You, Bruv, an unlikely collaboration with Tinchy Stryder which set his duo’s catchphrase to grime music. But now he wants you to cry.

Last August his brother Barry died after two years with bone cancer, and Paul Chuckle, as he is known, is fronting a national campaign to break what remains one of Britain’s last taboos: grief.

Around 13,000 people a week die in the UK, plunging friends and loved ones into a sea of often painful emotions. Chuckle said he wanted to encourage a country whose attitude to death remained clouded by awkwardness to open up about grief and share memories of loved ones they had lost.

“When it comes it hurts badly,” Chuckle said. “You must grieve and get it out of you. Talk to your close ones and don’t let any of them keep it bottled up either. Tell them to grieve along with you. Let it all out. If you need to talk to somebody talk to them. Do not keep it to yourself if you feel bad. Have a good cry. Talk to God, whoever your god is.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Chuckle Brothers in 1965. Photograph: None

The comedian’s decision to speak out, on behalf of Marie Curie, the charity for the terminally ill, comes amid warnings that “society as a whole has never been less exposed to death”.

Almost half of people polled by Dying Matters, a coalition of organisations including hospices, care homes and charities focused on bereavement, said talking about death scared them and 15% thought talking about death might make it happen.

“It is rare now for anyone to experience being with someone who they know is dying let alone anyone who has recently died,” said Toby Scott, head of communications at Hospice UK, a charity for end-of-life care. “We used to be much better than this, when death was more familiar to us. We want to regain the sense that we can’t escape death.”

Declining death rates have left what academics studying death at Bath University have described as an “enormous first-hand experiential gap”, leaving us unprepared for death’s social and economic consequences.

Campaigners for a more open approach welcomed the 2017 TV documentary made by the former footballer Rio Ferdinand about handling his own grief as a breakthrough, but as Paul Chuckle said, for most people: “The only time people think to talk about death is when they lose someone close to them.”

During a career that took off in 1985 when he and his older brother Barry created the ChuckleHounds using dog costumes from It’s a Knockout and peaked with the 22-year run of their TV show ChuckleVision, Chuckle has experienced more grief than most.

“I lost a baby girl at three months old back in 1974 in my first marriage,” he said, “I lost my dad in 1982, my mum in 1999, my sister in 2008, and Colin, another brother, I lost four years ago.”

When Barry was ill and died, Paul said he was struck by simple thoughts such as they would never do their “To me, to you” catchphrase again. Six months on, he still hates the thought of never again taking the stage together.

“It is good to cry,” he says. “It really gets it out of your system. Just let it out.”

At their peak, the brothers would film in Manchester in the mornings before driving to Blackpool to perform two shows a day at the Tower Circus and then drive back to Manchester and do it all again, week after week. In later years they would be driven around in a motorhome, lying flat out on the sofas playing cards as they were driven to gigs across the UK. The relationship between the married brothers was itself “like a marriage”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The brothers in costume for the pantomime Snow White at the Grand theatre, Wolverhampton in 1993. Photograph: David Bagnall/Rex/Shutterstock

After Barry died, star comedians such as David Walliams and Jack Whitehall were among those who paid tribute. But Paul struggled with people offering condolences as it brought the emotions forward. So a few days after Barry’s funeral Paul and his wife went away for a fortnight in Shanghai.

“It’s like when you are a kid and you fall over and you think it’s all right and then your mum comes and says, ‘Are you all right, love?’ You burst into tears,” he said. “It was the same when Barry died. Everybody was saying sorry about your brother.”

Even at the airport a pair of armed police officers approached him and said they were sorry for his loss and he choked up. The fortnight in China – where he could not access Google or Twitter – helped.

He enjoyed a recent weekend touring the North Yorkshire moors in a Mercedes minibus with friends including Adam Woodyatt, who plays Ian Beale in EastEnders and Nick Thomas, the UK’s leading pantomime producer.

“You have got to allow people to support you,” he said.

He said he also found comfort in belief in an afterlife.

“I was thinking he’s going to be there [in heaven] before me,” he said. “It gave me a lot of comfort knowing he was there.”

Preparing for death and grief: some practical advice

Jason Davidson manages the bereavement service for Marie Curie’s Hampstead hospice in north London. He shared some practical advice about handling the end of life and grief:

If you are dying, make sure to write a will, consider who could advocate for you if you are incapacitated and if you want to give someone power of attorney. Let your loved ones know your likes and dislikes – perhaps in writing – about anything from food and drink to whether you like the duvet tucked in. Consider potential treatment options and what you want or don’t want to happen to you. This is called advanced care planning. Do you want to make a do not resuscitate order with the help of a doctor? Make your online passwords for things such as utilities accounts available to the right person.

If you are a friend or loved one of someone dying, talk about the impact you anticipate from their death and think about the person not being around. It might be distressing, but research suggests anticipatory grief can improve the experience of grief after death. Talk about your feelings with your own friends and family. If you get support for yourself you can provide better support to the person who is dying. Eat and sleep well because supporting a dying person can be exhausting.

After a loved one’s death, for some seeing the body can help. Take part in the rituals around the funeral and reach out to family and friends. Ask for help with practicalities and friends of people grieving should make sure to offer help. Be around people who knew the deceased and look online at different support options. If you are highly distressed, not eating or sleeping for more than a week or two, speak to your GP about further support.



