My perfect day: Arthur Smith

Comedian, Radio 4 and Grumpy Old Men regular Arthur Smith tells walk the things that make him happy — and a few that don’t…

On your perfect day, where would you wake up? Next to Julie Christie. Then I’d go off walking with my mates — Julie can stay in bed. Ideally, it would be a clifftop walk, somewhere like Brittany. Julie could join us for lunch, if she liked. After that, I’d have to get the train back to Balham to see my real partner Beth, who’s allowed me time off.

Who’s your ideal walking companion? I have two sets of friends I go walking with. One set is guys I’ve known since university and includes an entertainment solicitor known as Dr Love, and Jon King from rock band Gang of Four. I’m in charge of the route, but they’re very naughty, hiding my map and making navigating as difficult as possible. We play silly games, too, like ‘addressing the gate’ where you have to approach the gate in an impressive way — striding or mincing, perhaps — and whoever’s walk is judged best wins. When I go walking with my brother Richard [former editor of the British Medical Journal] and his medic friends, it tends to be more serious.

So, walking is in the Smith blood? My love of walking comes from my mother, Hazel. She was evacuated from London during the war, and retained a love of the countryside. I walked the Pennine Way at 16.

Is lunch an important part of your perfect walk? When I could still drink alcohol, before I developed pancreatitis in 2001, the pub stop was a big deal. Once we stopped in a really rough lunch joint where the chef had a bad leg, so we cooked our own lunch. My mates still like a pint, but now I’m happy with a sandwich halfway up a mountain.

Any cherished items of kit? I love rambling socks. As a young bloke, all socks are created equal: you never buy them, they just appear as birthday and Christmas presents. I didn’t buy my first pair until I was about 35. Socks are an old man’s game, really.

Does the traffic frustrate you on your regular stroll from Broadcasting House in the West End to your home in Balham, south London? You can’t expect not to have traffic in a city. But I don’t like cars — never had one. Though I did drive a milk float once. It’s great to walk to work. I feel sorry for commuters having to make the same, crowded journey day in, day out.

Do you listen to music as you walk? No. I’d rather listen to the birds or even the traffic. As a rationalist, walking is a way of meeting with the earth, a sort of secular religion. My autobiography, My Name Is Daphne Fairfax [Hutchinson, £18.99], opens with me lying in the high-dependency ward in hospital with pancreatitis — I longed to be well enough to go out walking.

Outside Britain, where are your favourite walking spots? I have a sneaking love of the Spanish: they’re so idiosyncratic, and Spain’s the cradle of Surrealism. But I’ve done more walking in Italy, especially Sorrento. Italian food is better and the middle-class worship of Italy is contagious. As Browning put it: “Italy, my Italy!”

Are you offered material for your comedy act everywhere you go? Yes. Taxi drivers are the worse. They scroll through their phone for texts and thrust the thing at you, saying, “’Ere, Arthur — you can use this! ” And occasionally you can. Everybody in Britain believes they’re a comedian. The worse insult you can pay a Briton is to say he or she has no sense of humour.

What sends you into Grumpy Old Men rage? Too much enthusiasm. It’s rubbish to say if you want something, anything, you can have it — I can’t be an astronaut at my age.

So it’s true, all comedians are sad inside? Performing is an antidote to misery because you really have to concentrate. It’s absolutely live and in the moment. I don’t get nervous going on stage now, I’ve done it so often. But I always have one joke in reserve to keep me going, just in case I ever need to gather my thoughts.

Arthur’s show An Audience with Arthur Smith is on tour until 30 March 2010.

Interview by Susan Gray   Photo by Mark Chilvers / Rex Features