Robbie Williams has purchased Eric Morecambe's glasses and pipe at an auction for £20,000, and said he saw the comedian as an “uncle of sorts”.
The former Take That singer said he cried “happy, childlike tears” after winning the bidding war last month with a final offer of £20,000, far exceeding the £2,000 to £4,000 estimate.
The thick-framed, imitation tortoiseshell glasses by Metzler – a signature accessory worn by the comedy personality – were sold alongside his Barling briar pipe and two black-and-white photographs of him wearing the spectacles alongside his comedy partner Ernie Wise.
A lifetime of the comedian’s precious showbiz memorabilia and personal items from his former home, Brachefield in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, went on sale in January, almost 10 months after the death of his widow Joan, aged 97, in March 2024.
In an Instagram post shared on Sunday (9 February), Williams shared photos of himself imitating Morecambe’s iconic pose wearing the glasses with a pipe in his mouth, telling fans he treated himself to the items ahead of his 51st birthday on Thursday and after undergoing months of press for his new semi-autobiographical film Better Man.
The “Angels” singer said he appointed a member of his team, called Mike, as “chief bidder” as he was boarding a plane in Los Angeles as the auction got underway.
“As it happens, I got to watch the lot being auctioned live. My iPhone and Mike's iPhone acting like walkie-talkies,” he said online.
Williams said he was nervously asking his wife, Ayda, what he should do – and she advised him to keep bidding.
Recalling the moment, Williams wrote: “‘Keep going Mike' I say. This vignette of conversation would repeat itself several times over the next 10 minutes.”
The singer said his bidding determination became “primal competitive and irrational” and admitted to his wife, “We’re now going through the children’s inheritance”, which she jokingly dismissed.
“In short we Won. Real Digital Mike kept pressing the bid button and the internet responded in kind by logging his request,” said Williams. “Going once, going twice……Sold to the bidder on the internet.”
Williams said we all “need friends we never met from the telly,” calling Morecambe an “uncle of sorts”.
“To the very core of me, Eric Morecambe’s spirit has been salve for my soul. How Eric made me feel is how I want to make people feel. What a gift to be able to create such joy and have that joy be present just by thinking of them,” he said.
“I will commune with Eric’s Glasses, ask questions and maybe get some answers. ‘What Would Eric Do?’ Now I can ask him.
“Eric, you were and are the very best of the very best. That sunshine you asked for. You gave to me,” he wrote, before singing off, “Your fan, Robert x.”
Morecambe was best known for his work with comedy partner Ernie Wise, who he met in 1940 aged 14, and became one of the most memorable British double acts.
After stints across theatre and radio, the duo broke into primetime television in the Fifties in a show called Running Wild, in 1954.
Their show, The Morecambe and Wise Show, was first broadcast in 1966, and by 1977 their Christmas BBC special was watched by 28 million viewers, at a time when there were only three channels in the UK.
The comedian died of a heart attack aged 58 in 1984. His daughter, Gail Stuart, said she and her two brothers wanted to give fans an opportunity to own some of his belongings, with 800 of them going under the hammer.
Speaking to BBC Three Counties Radio's Justin Dealey after the auction, she said: "When mum died, it felt like an end of an era and we decided it could be the start of a new era - and I've had so many fans message me with what they'd got at auction and it's just fabulous."
With additional reporting from agencies.
