Bobby George: My amputated toe is preserved in vodka – I walk like a monkey!

Telegraph

9 hours ago

We would probably all go a bit wild if we had the money to build our own mansion. Bobby George's lies just outside Colchester, and is the house that darts built. Or, more accurately, that George built. All 18 bedrooms of it.
Before he made his living from sport, George laid concrete floors and dug the tunnels that became the Victoria line. Once he had the cash in the mid-1990s, George Hall took shape and it has all of the essential trappings for a house of its size. Three floors, fishing lakes and a fully-stocked bar behind which is his amputated toe, preserved in vodka. Sorry, what?
'My toe's been on American television, two doctors talking about it,' says George. It has been there for 20-odd years, but there has been a surge of interest since publication of George's new book – Still Here, his stock response to 'how are you?' as he closes in on 80.
Any darts converts from the Luke Littler age would struggle to marry George's renown with his list of honours. He was runner-up in two world championships, both BDO, but was not invited to the breakaway PDC which now dominates. He was a showman in an otherwise dowdy era, but is best known now for his prolific reality TV work, appearing on everything from Celebrity Fit Club to four series of The Real Marigold Hotel with unlikely pal Miriam Margolyes.
George's toe in vodka: Essex's oddest souvenir
The toe had been causing him bother. During the quarter-finals of the 1994 BDO World Championship George won a set, jumped in celebration, and broke bones in his spine upon landing. He had to wear a steel corset to make it through his semi, miraculously won, before losing to John Part in the final.
In the following years his toes began to cross over one another, making it hard to get his shoes on. The first to go now sits in a small glass jar, Essex's oddest souvenir. His doctor would not let him have it in formaldehyde but he was advised vodka would do the same job.
Three more toes have come off since, but tragically George was not allowed to keep them. 'I walk like a monkey now, and when I get out of the shower I look like an orangutan. I wore my body out, I overdid it. But I don't regret it. Touch wood I haven't got any organ trouble, it's all bone structure.'
Is it possible to live in an 18-bedroom mansion and wear so much jewellery your nickname is the King of Bling without being flash? Somehow George is pulling it off. The house is, by his own admission, over the top. But it feels like a home, his grandkids have begged him not to sell it. You do not detect the implied superiority common to many with a massive property.
When I arrive he is down by his lakes, cleaning up after a charity fishing match for Macmillan Cancer Support the day before. His wife of nearly 40 years Marie lets me in, then locates George on the big screen in their kitchen which shows live footage from various CCTV cameras. Bobby arrives a few minutes later and is chivvied along by Marie as he has a cup of tea, rolls then smokes some Golden Virginia and puts his many bracelets and rings on from a bashed-up blue velvet box. 'I'm Robert now, I'll be Bobby George in a minute.'
He is a equally irritated and invigorated by the constant to-do list. Cleaning pumps, getting weeds out, cutting trees, trimming bushes. 'It's all got to be done. The maintenance is a lot. Nature doesn't stop. You can do a nice job, leave it a month and it looks like you haven't done anything. I'm not exaggerating, I think I've got 18 hoovers. They're all lined up, like soldiers on parade.
'I've got a cherry picker, I don't go up my ladder, it's dangerous.' I spot a stairlift stationed at the bottom of the grand wooden staircase. 'I don't have to use it, but it takes the pressure off.' He has not made it easy for himself in some ways. There is a wood burner in the 60ft-long living room we sit in, alongside with the bar and full-sized snooker table. 'It's messy, it generates dust but it's worth it. You can sit round a fire and enjoy it, you can't sit around a radiator. I'd rather be f------ dusty than cold.'
'I felt like the Pope'
There is a dartboard here too, does he ever play for pleasure? 'I done loads of that, nearly 50 years. Walking up and down, bang bang bang, nah I don't do that now.' He comes from a darting tradition as much about entertainment as victory. His career was built on exhibitions, nights of fun and trick shots with an MC around the country. Better, he thought, than competing for the era's often measly pots.
'There's two roads in darts, if you go down the tournament road there's only one winner. You'd go to Denmark for a tournament, pay for a flight, pay for a hotel for three nights and if you win you'd get £300 and a bunch of flowers. Who wants a bunch of flowers? I'd rather have £310. All that work to get a title, but you can't go in a shop and pay for something with a trophy, you've got to have the bees and honey.'
'I don't think Littler has much personality'
These days he wonders if players feel the same duty to entertain. 'The fun has gone out of it a bit, 180 bang, boom boom boom. I think it's boring.' He also fears the presentational flair he brought to darts has spiralled. 'The crowds, it's horrendous the noise. But without them you're not going to have the prize money. The players have learnt to play under those conditions.
'It's probably my fault, I invented the music for walk-ons, dressing up with glitter and all that. It changed the game. I didn't think it would, I wouldn't have believed it. But without it now it would be boring. A lot of players didn't like it, they said it was a circus. But it is, it's a show. You don't want it to be like the military. So I wore sequins, and I got that from the ice skaters, I made a cloak. They gave me the candles. I felt like the Pope.'
There is no posturing about the standard of darts in his time compared to now. 'The players of today would slaughter me. They're a good crew of young men, not big-headed, not show-offs. Michael van Gerwen calls me 'grandad' and 'silly old b------'. [Luke] Humphries is a lovely bloke.' What does he make of Luke Littler MBE? 'Good luck to him, it doesn't make you a better person though does it? You've got a handle behind your name, I want the handle in front of mine. Did you get that?'
'Sir?,' I ask. George pauses to shake my hand for understanding his joke, bracelets clinking rings in a golden jingle. 'I don't know the boy but I don't think he has got much personality yet. But I can't be nasty about him. It's a lot of pressure for a young man.'
'Farage ain't no mug'
Nigel Farage invited George onto his Talking Pints series, seemingly forgiven after he backed Remain in 2016. He is a convert now. 'They think he's a drink, a laugh but he ain't no mug. He's sharp as anything. I'll vote for him. I think he'll get in, he might do alright, he can't be any worse than what we're doing now.'
When Telegraph Sport last spoke to George three years ago he said he hated kids, but it may have been an exaggeration. There is obvious pride in how his sons with Marie, Richard and Robert, are forging their own path and delight that the grandkids have reached bantering age. Richard's son Edward wanted his chain fixed on his bicycle 'I said I'll do it in a minute. 'When are you going to do it?' I said look, I'm just having a cup of tea, I'll do it when I'm finished. 'When?', I said why don't you go and play with the buses on the A12? He's 10 now, he said 'grandad, there's no buses on the A12,' he done me up like a kipper.
'They're monkeys with no hair, anything that's breakable they're breaking, mate. Don't worry about that, they find a way. If you've got a hole in a chair they put a finger in and make it bigger. But the worst thing you can do is give them everything because they grow up thinking they're going to get it all the time. They've got to work.'
'Be lucky'
He is philosophical about his advancing years. 'I'm getting near to the gates aren't I? I know I'm a nice bloke, coz I say to everyone else 'go on you go first,' and push them in front of me. I feel like sometimes I'm f------ worn out here. Then I look out there and it's f------ lovely. All the trees, all the wildlife, I've got goldfinches, linnets, jays, jackdaws, deer that run through the forest.'
It is a vast difference from his upbringing by a single parent, his father, who was also blind. His mother died in George's infancy, but his is no hard-luck story. 'When I was young and we were really, really cold my grandad used to make us sit around a candle. When it got really really cold he used to light it.'
It has been nearly 90 minutes but feels like it could go on in this vein for another 180. I have a (smaller) home to go to, so make my excuses. George shows me out, stressing that whatever I write must contain humour. I tell him it would be difficult for it not to.
He waves me off towards the remote-control gates, swinging open as I approach with his farewell ringing out across the driveway: 'Be lucky.'