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Tony Hart’s best friend, agent and manager Roc Renals, plans to write a memoir about the much-loved children’s TV presenter who died at the age of 83 last Sunday (18th January).
Part biography and part memoir the book will feature anecdotes about their 30-year friendship, a record of Hart’s early life and prints of the artist’s work. Mr Renals owns many original photographs and illustrations, including a 1968 Hart self-portrait caricature.
Mr Renals said: “I know more about Tony’s history than most people. He has told me over the years so many things about his childhood and early development.” He added that Hart had granted him permission to write a biography.
Now living in Berkshire, the men met at Mr Renals’ exhibition launch of Japanese children’s art in the early 70s and “just got along”. He became his agent in 1974.
“We [became] best friends and he asked me if I would, in his words, ‘look after him’. Whenever the subject of money came up in a meeting he left the room.”
Mr Renals also remembers a time when Hart was “too nervous” to make a public appearance and that he found it impossible to remember lines.
The 86-year-old retiree played a defining role in Hart’s career. He ghost-wrote many of Hart’s newspaper articles, including last September’s feature in the Times when the details of Hart’s two debilitating strokes were made public, and helped think up the BBC hit TV show “Artbox Bunch” (1995-6).
Tentatively titled Tony Hart and Me the book will be “for his fans”. Mr Renals has yet to put pen to paper, as he is looking for a publisher. Following Hart’s death he said: “A part of my life has ended”.