FOR THE HELL OF IT     Vol. 3  No. 3             

Where’s Cockup?

Being A Celebration of the Life and Times of An Unsung Audiobook Pioneer.

It is easy for we lucky few in the Audio Narration business to forget our forebears.    Why, in these heady days that social pundits are already calling the golden era of audiobook narration, what care we for those whose hard work and dedication to the craft of not spitting while speaking made our magical lives possible?  Sadly, it is too easy for us to forget the early pioneers of our industry.

Yet who can blame us?  We get invited to the best parties where hosts lure us with promises of cheez whiz on Ritz crackers and champagne cocktails made with ginger ale and Yellow Tail chardonnay.  We fight off paparazzi sometimes two people deep snapping away with their smart phones like we were prize heifers.  And the sex! Every night! Sometimes with other people involved. And, of course, the money. The huge sums that are lavished upon us and sent to us within mere months of narrating the work of an author who will never know of our love for her words – especially the adjectives.

We congratulate each other over twitter and facebook – “far too busy to pick up the phone, Dahlings”. Why, Peter Berkrot came to New York City and we didn’t even have time to share a cocktail! Tavia Gilbert threatens to move here now that she is a big muckety muck in the industry and the beautiful Colleen Marlo and the lovely Anne Flosnick and the sultry Xe Sands are simply too busy to do more than tweet every few moments about their latest audio conquests.

(Writer’s note: I promised to get some more names of swell people into this column and by god, I did it. I couldn’t work in more in the actual story line so here’s a shout out: Diane Havens, Jeffery Kafer, Karen White, Cassandra Campbell, Orlagh Cassidy, Robert Fass, Michele Ford, Dustin Ebaugh, John Pruden, Mark Turetsky, Hilary Huber, Stina Nielsen, Amy Rubinate, Heather Henderson.  I missed many – I will try again next time!)

But we must give credit to the man who made all of this possible.  I speak, of course, of the late great inimitable Quentin Cockup – the man who first impregnated the pause and put the “action” into action verbs.  Here, for the first time in print, is his story.

Quentin Cockup was born to an aristocratic and well off agricultural family in the south of England in a little hamlet called Liverwurst on Rye.  (The original family name of Penishead was changed to Cockup in 1660 when Charles II returned from exile to rule England.  The reasons given for the family name change were threefold:

1. It was thought that “cockup” – a name commonly given to various blunders – would be less embarrassing to the future children of the Penisheads than would Penishead.

2. It was also a friendly little joke at the expense of Oliver Cromwell and the Rump Parliament (which all of England thought was a much funnier name than either Cockup or Penishead), whom the Penisheads felt had cocked things up royally.  It should be noted that poking fun at Cromwell in 1660 was far easier than it would’ve been in 1658 when he was still alive.  The returning King, Charles II also had fun at Cromwell’s expense going so far as digging up his body and “executing it” which, at the time was hilarious.

3. It was also changed in order to confuse future historians.

At any rate, the Lady Cockup of Liverwurst on Rye gave birth to Quentin in 1930 after a very difficult pregnancy and horrific delivery.  Quentin, at first, refused to come out.  “He’s coming!” shouted the nurse.

“Am not,” replied Quentin – which was quite shocking.  Not only was he speaking before leaving the womb but he, on closer inspection, was in a smoking jacket and reading Punch.

Quentin was lured out by a promise of suet which to this day is disgusting.

Young Cockup was a cowlicky lad from the start.  And by cowlick, I mean, of course that he could frequently be found in the barn licking the cows.  This led to a lifelong interest in leather hide and teats.  Imagine Quentin’s great happiness when asked to join in his very first game of “hide and seek” only to encounter huge disappointment when he realized he had misunderstood the game’s name.  After his first “hide and teat” debacle Quentin was very rarely asked to join in games played by his peers.

With little to do and time on his hands, Quentin spent his time in his father’s library.  His father was considered by many to be much taller than those half his size and was a voracious collector of the works of philosophers like Locke, Rousseau, Nitchze, Hobbes, Dr. Phil and Kant.  He was also keen on literature focusing on laundromats, the history of sewing needles and early American hat blocking techniques.  The elder Cockup had enjoyed a life in the Queens service and had risen to the rank of Major General in the Colchester Garrison’s Royal Horse Artillery, before it was discovered that he did not like horses or artillery but only enjoyed playing dress-up.  He was reduced to the rank of Major and sent home to spend his retirement designing decorative tea cozies.  Yet Major Cockup was a great inspiration to young Quentin.

“Father –“Quentin would say.

“hyup?” Major Cockup would answer.

“I’ve no idea what I want to do with my life.”

“Well you’ve a nice speaking voice, have you considered clown school or becoming a mime?”

“Mime?”

“It’s half past 10. Why do you ask?”

“Pardon?”

“What?”

“I – er…”

“Yes. Well.  Good talk. Good talk. Why don’t you go read a book or something?”

And Quentin did go read a book.  Several in fact.  And while he read he decided that reading aloud – to others – might not be a bad idea.

“Hmmm,” thought young Cockup, “I’ve a lovely voice and many people don’t.  In fact, many people sound just awful and no one would ever want to hear them speak aloud.” (This, of course, was long before we became less annoyed by people with horrible lisps and grating voices….long before Sylvester Stallone starred in Judge Dredd and tried to say “stop in the name of the law” and failed miserably.  This was before Barbara Walters became less and less impossible to understand whenever the letter “s” appeared in an uttered word.  This was certainly before Mob Wives and Jersey Shore brought strained grating mispronunciations and poor grammar to our ears so regularly as to sound almost normal.)

“I think,” thought young Cockup, “I shall follow the advice of my father, Major Cockup, and do something with my speaking voice…like speaking.”

And so Quentin Cockup went to the BBC and began reading aloud from the works of Shakespeare, Dickens and Ernie Bushmiller.  He was frequently booted from various offices before he even started to read from the bard.  This was due to the fact that he loved to dress in Shakespearean costume and knew very little about “codpieces”.  Cockup’s cod pieces would frequently move about while the poor fish flailed to and fro – frightening all and sundry and resulting in Quentin being shown the door in rude fashion.

One day, however, Cockup was able to do a reading and, once started, he electrified those in hearing distance.  So velvety smooth was his voice, so perfect his diction, so beautiful his tone that those lucky few who heard him said things like: “what a velvety smooth voice,” “wow guv’ bloody perfect diction,” “posh tone chap!” and assorted other swell things.  Cockup was signed to a contract to read The Pickwick Papers on BBC 23 radio.

This was to be the first audio of a written book ever recorded and it surely would’ve been an amazing treasure for the ages.  Sadly, while Cockup gave his heart and soul and one of his kidneys during the performance, the engineer forgot to hit the record button.  (It was one of those crazy machines where you have to hit “play” and “record” at the same time and the engineer was a recent hire who would be known forever after as “one button Freddie” – not at all a bad thing for a one-handed ex-mariner who had been known previously as “one-handed Stanley”.)

Cockup was crushed to learn that his reading had not been recorded and the BBC was crushed to learn that for 23 hours it had broadcast dead air – and they were further crushed to discover that no listeners had bothered to complain – leading to the end of BBC 23 Radio for all time.

To make matters worse, Cockup lost more than his heart, soul and a kidney. He lost his will to read aloud ever again.  It would be wonderful to say that scholars still debate whether his malaise was due to his sad experience or the fact that his producers never paid him for his efforts, but there is no such debate. No one cares about most Cockups and Quentin was no exception.

It is believed that Cockup retired to the family estate and spent his remaining years in silence – spending his dotage writing critical comments on Amazon and Audible about various narrators – especially Simon Vance and Simon Prebble.

Sadly, very few people remain who ever heard the dulcet tones of Quentin Cockup but we who toil in the audio recording industry would do well to remember his sacrifice.  As for me, whenever I win praise or and award for my work, I always say, generally just before everybody else does – “Heller wins? That’s a cockup.”

Long way to go but nobody forced you.  See you back here again soon!