The Bushy Bikers are having a troublesome time. David Myers has no hair and Si King has no bike. It feels like an existential disaster. King’s drawback is definitely fastened as a result of he's “in between bikes” and may’t wait to get his leg over the saddle once more. However Myers is 14 classes right into a course of chemotherapy, with six to go, and his 12 months “hasn’t been regular” to say the least. He prefers to not specify the kind of most cancers“as a result of everyone then goes Googling, everyone turns into an novice physician … And I don’t wish to be judged – but,” he provides. “An enormous inconvenience,” he says ceremoniously, “is the easiest way to explain it.”
Some festivals cancelled their bookings, not wanting only one furry biker. Others invited King to gig solo whereas Myers stayed residence, testing recipes from their new ebook, Sensible Bakes, and “consuming prefer it’s been going out of trend, to get the energy in me”. Below this type of duress, some double acts may query themselves: who they're, how they work, whether or not they are going to work once more. However King and Myers know that what makes them who they're isn’t actually hair or bikes – it’s one another.
“We're like a cog and a wheel,” King says. He's the youthful one, at 55, with a silvery mane whereas Myers, 65, is famed for his handlebar moustache, although in fact the chemo has put paid to that. Folks muddle them up, however “we associate with it, or inform them our identify’s Brian”, Myers says. He at all times stands on King’s left. It has been that manner since they acquired out of a raise of their first present practically 20 years in the past and frightened about continuity between cuts. “It’s acquired to the purpose the place it feels uncomfortable the opposite manner spherical,” Myers says. Even “simply as mates strolling down the highway, we maintain our correct sides”.
For King and Myers, there isn't a such factor as on- and off-camera selves. “As Dave typically says, we’re not sophisticated sufficient to be anybody else,” King says.
Though their Agony Uncles podcast has continued and Myers has labored on the ebook, this dialog represents a uncommon joint look – albeit on a video name. King is talking from the Northumberland/County Durham borders, Myers from his residence in rural Staffordshire. They've saved assembly in individual, Myers says, “for when it’s been actually helpful”. For example, when he and his spouse, Liliana, moved not too long ago, Liliana rented an Airbnb two doorways down, “and principally put me in there with Kingy” whereas she sorted their home. And, earlier than that, when the chemotherapy began, “issues had been actually fairly tough” for Myers. “It's important to have a port put in your chest. It’s the place they put the stuff in slightly than opening up your arms. However Si was there for that entire week till issues had been below management.”
“We’re brothers to one another, actually,” King says. “It transcends friendship.”
Brothers? Actually? They appear to get on a lot better than siblings.
“Like siblings in the way in which that you just settle for one another’s faults and transfer on, slightly than bitch,” Myers clarifies. They do have occasional spats, such because the one final week when Liliana was away and King got here to take Myers to hospital. It was the morning earlier than chemo. “I used to be actually nervous, like you're,” Myers says. “And he made me porridge. And he noticed within the cabinet these seeds. Superseeds,” he whispers, “that my spouse tries to get down my throat. So what does he do? He places a handful in my porridge. Oh! I used to be like a parrot!” pecking at them. “It’s all proper! I’ll make you one other!” King stated. (He ate the seeded one.)
As bust-ups go, this appears fairly delicate. Particularly as they pottered fortunately all week: a go to to the Nationwide Motorbike Museum, and a pottery the place they “purchased pots and drank tea canalside”. And so they cooked each night time, Myers says – dishes “going again to our youth”. King made savoury mince and potatoes, and collectively they made Lancashire hotpot. I’m questioning if they're getting nostalgic,as a result of Sensible Bakes is all about baking from their childhoods.
“I definitely am now, given the hand that’s been dealt me this 12 months,” Myers says. “I take into consideration the previous with enormous, nice jealousy, and affection. Watching a few of our previous episodes on the telly after I’m sick, I don’t appear like myself. And I have a look at myself there with my finest mate, considering, … I bear in mind I stated to Lil, ‘That was once me.’ ‘No,’ she stated. ‘That is you.’” However over the seven months since his prognosis in late March, it will need to have been arduous to maintain his previous self in thoughts.
“We’ve acquired rather a lot to be nostalgic about,” King says.
They met 30 years in the past, whereas engaged on a TV adaptation of Catherine Cookson’s The Playing Man. King was second assistant director – he later turned location supervisor on the Harry Potter movies – whereas Myers was a make-up artist. He had began as a BBC trainee after graduating in high quality artwork from Goldsmiths, College of London, and labored on all types, from Des O’Connor’s highlights to Adam Ant’s stripe. The night time they met, Myers walked into the pub in Newcastle the place a lot of the crew had been “on a spritzer and sandwich”, noticed King on the bar ordering curry and a pint and stated: “I’ll have what he’s having.”
It’s simple to think about the night unspooling as they found their widespread floor – there may be a lot of it. Each had been bullied as youngsters: King for his weight, Myers for alopecia. Each got here from households of “grafters” – King’s dad engaged on ships, Myers’ on the paper mill in Barrow-in-Furness.Each had a lot older siblings, and severely sick mother and father: King was eight when his father died,whereas Myers’ mom was recognized with MS when he was seven. However, no, they are saying, they didn’t discuss any of this. That was the beauty of writing their 2015 autobiography, Blood, Sweat and Tyres, King says. “We discovered quite a bit about one another.”
“What’s the purpose of mulling over the previous shit that’s induced bother?” Myers provides. “If we acquired collectively, are we going to take a seat there, and I’m going: ‘My mum had MS,’ and also you, your dad with kidney failure? No, we’re going to go fishing and get drunk and have a very good time. Collectively, we’ve introduced one another fairly a little bit of happiness.”
After they labored as crew, Myers and King had been conscious of performers as “the expertise”, and I ponder at what level they realised that they had develop into the expertise. “We by no means have,” King says instantly. “By no means have,” Myers agrees. In actual fact, once they filmed one of many first BBC programmes, the crew went for pizza, and “I acquired sort of nervous. I stated to the director: ‘Have we pissed the crew off? No person’s requested us for supper.’ He stated: ‘Usually the expertise don’t eat with the crew.’ It broke the ice. However that wasn’t us in any respect. Crikey, no.”
King, who has been listening quietly, says: “Expertise is what you deliver. Expertise is your character. It’s not simply athing. It’s made up of all types of components of character and character. And the appliance thereof. Can I converse for you?” he asks Myers. “I don’t assume I’ve made it in any respect. I don’t know what ‘made it’ is. Is that materials wealth? Is it enlightenment? What we will say is: ‘I've had – and proceed to have – an incredible life.’”
“I let you know,” Myers says, “I’ll really feel I’ve made it after I get the all-clear from this bloody most cancers. That’s going to be fully life-changing, life-affirming. And life by no means would be the identical once more.”
Myers says he's pleased with King for his work this 12 months, however has King felt much less of a furry biker for being alone? “Wow. No?” he asks, folding his arms. “How do I reply that?”
Just lately, although, he has struck out. He and Myers normally keep away from politics. However simply after our dialog, King joined an Sufficient Is Sufficient rally in Newcastle. As a toddler, he and his mum struggled to search out the following 50p for the meter. “We had been able the place we had been paying greater than anyone else however much less in a position to afford it than anyone else.” Now, he has “buddies who work within the NHS and have to make use of meals banks. Individuals are being thrown into poverty and desperation … My God, man, it’s simply outrageous.”
King has at all times stored his politics “very quiet”. Now, although, “that point is gone,” he says. He selected to deal with the rally “as a result of being silent on that is complicit. And I’m not complicit in that system. I feel you've got a duty to name it out whenever you see it in case you have a profile.” He's at pains to emphasize that this isn't about social gathering politics. “It’s merely about being human and having some empathy … a rallying name to place confidence in us as human beings, that we will make adjustments by the alternatives that we make concerning the those who characterize us.”
Myers can relate. His daughter is within the course of of shopping for a primary flat and confronting the “chance that the mortgage might double”. As a scholar, he used to take a seat in Karl Marx’s chair on the British Library – was that a assertion of ideology? “No,” he says, “it was nothing political.” He simply thought it was cool.
He was learning the pre-Raphaelites on the time, “fascinated by the decadent Victorians”, and craved a lavish cascade of hair, however “I had nothing! I couldn’t get a corkscrew curl to avoid wasting my life!” he says. The alopecia did assist to make his current hair loss really feel livable, although. “I simply stated to my spouse: ‘Oh shit, get the clippers out. I’m performed with this.’ It was more durable for her to do, as a result of she’d by no means seen me with no hair. However she did come out with an excellent line when my eyebrows went. She stated: ‘Darling, you appear like they pulled you out the mould earlier than you’d completed.’”
When Myers started his remedy, did King take into account shaving his head in sympathy? “Er, no. I imply, if he’d requested us, I in all probability would have.”
Myers butts in. “My spouse stated the identical factor. ‘I’ll shave mine out of assist.’ I stated: ‘Don’t try this as a result of, then, you do realise, we will’t exit collectively?’ Not being sexist, however I feel [baldness] is less complicated for a bloke.”
He strokes his scalp. “My little fuzzy hair’s coming again now,” he says. “It’s all on numbers. And the numbers are going the proper manner. So it encourages you to hold on.”
Over time, they've each had sicknesses and accidents: Myers life-threatening pneumonia, King an aneurism. And Myers additionally had the ache of shedding his fiancee, who died of most cancers in 1998. Have these experiences helped him to deal with his most cancers?
“No, I’ve had sufficient,” he replies. “I assumed I’d paid my dues after I was a child with my mom. And I’ve acquired the hugest respect for my spouse for placing up with me. I’m a … what’s the phrase? I get indignant with myself, and I attempt to maintain it to myself, however generally – , phrases spill over, which I really feel responsible about. However no, I don’t assume it helps you cope in any respect.”
“Fairly the alternative, really. Fairly the alternative,” King provides. They've a behavior of reinforcing one another’s phrases, singing one another’s choruses. In some methods, they're extra like a married couple than siblings. When King mistakenly refers to It’s a Fantastic Life as Myers’s favorite movie, Myers tells him: “No, that’s your ex-wife’s favorite movie. Even I do know that. Mistaken spouse, mate!”
However they're cautious of overthinking their relationship. Myers shares a narrative he as soon as heard “about an previous sage” who, appropriately sufficient, “had a giant lengthy beard. And any individual got here to him and stated: ‘Grasp, do you sleep together with your beard below the sheets or over the sheets?’ And from that second on the fella by no means had a very good night time’s sleep.”
King thinks that what they actually deliver to one another is “generosity and kindness”.
“I might say the love. And I recognize your heat,” Myers says. “After we get collectively – there’s at all times the massive man hugs. Typically, when he tries to kiss me on the lips, it will get a bit …” He purses his lips and wipes at them furiously. “However I used to be effectively grateful for it final week, so I’m not complaining. I feel it’s the shared experiences that’s the perfect, as a result of we do perceive.”
Myers desires to return to work subsequent 12 months. “I’m hoping. Hand on my coronary heart, I'm. It’s going to take work and physiotherapy to get myself stronger,” he says. “However that’s going to be a hell of a day. That pizza down the pub goes to be fairly particular.”
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