June Bernicoff
When Leon Bernicoff – the lovably blunt Liverpudlian from Channel 4’s Gogglebox – died last Christmas, it made headline news.
With his frog-wide grin and forthright opinions, the big-hearted granddad had earned himself national treasure status. And by the very nature of the show, he and his wife June had spent so much time in our living rooms – and us in theirs – that his death felt like losing one of the family.
‘Leon was always full of fun. His favourite thing was to wind somebody up and then say “I’m only joking!”,’ recalls June. ‘There were certain subjects that he felt very strongly about, but generally speaking he’s a very happy person.’
It’s little wonder that June slips into the present tense when talking about Leon. Married for 57 years and together for 62, the couple were inseparable. But the 81-year-old has found catharsis in writing a book, Leon and June: Life, Love and Laughter, in his memory.
‘Leon had always “I’m going to write our story”, but it might have been very different if he’d done it,’ she says, eyebrows raised. ‘It’s been mixed emotions, but it made me feel happy, really, because I was thinking back to things I hadn’t thought about for many, many years.’
A coal miner’s daughter from South Wales, June was 18 when she met 20-year-old Leon during their first week at teacher training college. Attraction fizzed from the start, ‘but I never thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him,’ she says. ‘He was just someone to have fun with. He wouldn’t say that – he’d have said “It was love at first sight! Those green eyes followed me everywhere!”’
Leon had grown up in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, where his parents ran a women’s dress shop. The Bernicoffs were the only Jewish family in the area, and as a child he was teased about his ‘funny name’ and taunted as ‘the Jewboy who lives over the shop’. By the time he met June, he was calling himself Les.
‘He felt he was different. He always said “You don’t understand what racism is unless you’ve experienced it”, and he couldn’t change his surname, but I think he thought that changing his first name would make him more ordinary. Thing is, he wasn’t ordinary.’
The path wasn’t always smooth; June had been brought up in the Welsh Congregationalist faith, and relations between the two sets of parents was initially frosty: ‘He was their only son, so obviously they would have liked him to marry a Jewish girl, just as my parents would have liked me to have married a Welsh rugby player.’ But when both families realised how serious they were, the doubts fell away.
They eventually married in 1960, and June recalls locking Leon out of their honeymoon hotel room for being annoying – the first of a lifetime of good-humoured run-ins. ‘We did squabble: if he was expecting me to say yes I’d invariably say no,’ she admits. ‘But we laughed a lot too. We’re both a bit giggly and silly.’
The book paints an affectionate picture of Leon. It’s no surprise to learn he’s the sort of husband who’d announce his arrival by gleefully parping his car horn. The sort of dad who’d embellish his two daughters’ bedtime stories and have them shrieking with hilarity rather than settling down to sleep. The sort of teacher who, unlike many of his colleagues in the 60s and 70s, refused to cane the boys in his care.
Leon was at his bridge club in 2012 when two women, casting for a new show about people watching television, came in to scout for participants. He rushed home to tell June they were going to be on TV.
‘At first I thought it was another one of his mad hair-brained schemes, and I didn’t think it would ever happen,’ she says. ‘I mean why us? We were pensioners! But he thought he was a star.’
Initially she didn’t want to take part (Leon won her over) and felt ‘quite sick’ before the first episode was aired in March 2013. During that show they watched medical programme Embarrassing Bodies: ‘A shot of a man’s inflamed scrotum popped up, followed by a shot of me covering my eyes,’ recalls June. The episode also saw Leon breaking wind and branding Jeremy Clarkson ‘arrogant and insulting’ – the first of five years’ worth of colourful comments about the nation’s rich and famous.
By the 10th series of Gogglebox, Leon was visibly slowing down. Two days before Christmas last year he died, aged 83, following a short illness that resulted in him contracting pneumonia and sepsis. The only silver lining was that June had her entire family around her, including daughter Julie who lives in New Zealand, ‘and then my granddaughter moved in with me for two weeks because she took her dada’s death quite hard. She was very close to him.’
More than 250 condolence cards arrived, some simply addressed to June Bernicoff, Liverpool, ‘and they got there. Like Santa Claus’.
June admits that the first time she truly felt Leon’s absence was watching the first episode of the next series of Gogglebox in February, which was dedicated to his memory. ‘I turned to his chair and pointed at the TV; I was about to say “Look, Leon!” – and then I said “Why am I pointing at the television?”’ she says, shaking her head.
What would her advice be to newly-widowed people? ‘Keep busy, and have a routine. If I didn’t go swimming, or to Tai Chi, people would ring me up to see where I was. I kept going away at intervals as well, so I had things to look forward to; I gave myself small targets. You’ve got to be positive. Keep interested in things. And think back to the good times.’
The grandmother-of-three admits it’s difficult to remember a time when Leon wasn’t with her, and particularly misses his voice – ‘June!’ – calling to her from another room. But, she says, life must go on.
‘It’s a good idea to write your thoughts and feelings down,’ she concludes. ‘Writing the book helped me tremendously. It’s been very therapeutic, because it’s made me think back and realise how lucky I’ve been.’
Leon and June: Life, Love and Laughter, Blink, £16.99
The Gogglebox phenomenon
Now in its 12th series, Gogglebox’s deceptively simple premise – ordinary people watching and commenting on the week’s TV programmes – has proved phenomenally popular. With more than 5 million regular viewers, the BAFTA award-winning show has sparked celebrity and kids’ spin-offs, as well as 15 international versions, from Belgium to Australia.
One of June’s most cherished moments was watching the film Gladiator, and seeing Russell Crowe’s character Maximus reunited with his murdered wife and child in the afterlife. ‘I could sense Leon becoming increasingly emotional,’ she writes in the book. ‘“I’d like to think that’s true,” he said. Up until that point, Leon had refused to discuss death and yet here he was, doing it in the most public way imaginable. “I’ll join you. You’ll see. Always, June”, he said, as we both wiped away our tears.’
An edited version of this feature appeared in Waitrose Weekend in September 2018. (c) Waitrose