16 The Sunday Times April 3, 2022
MONEY
Raised on a council estate, the man behind TV
comedy classics such as Birds of a Feather has owned
a pad in Mayfair, a Swiss chalet and a country estate,and has a thing for flash cars, he tells York Membery
L
aurence Marks is one half of
one of Britain’s most successful
comedy writing duos. The hit
series created by Marks and his
childhood friend Maurice Gran
include Shine on Harvey Moon,
Birds of a Feather and The New
Statesman. The London-born
Marks, 73, and Gran, 72, also
wrote the hit stage musical
Dreamboats and Petticoats. Marks lives
in the Cotswolds with his second wife,
Brigitte. Shooting the Pilot, a collection of
six of Marks and Gran’s first TV scripts —
only one of which never made it into a
series — is out now.How much is in your wallet?
A grand total of £2.25. The last time I
withdrew money from a cashpoint was
in December 2019, and I still have £185
left, because I’ve been using a card ever
since the pandemic struck. I actually
prefer paying with cash, but when I
visited a London deli the other day they
wouldn’t accept it.Do you prefer debit or credit cards?
I pay for most things with my debit card.Are you a saver or a spender?
I was a spender when I was poor, but I’ve
been a saver ever since I’ve had money.
That said, every now and then I have a
splurge and a year ago I bought a new‘My parents’
idea of luxury
was a fitted
carpet on HP’
Contact us Money,
The Sunday Times,
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GFAlmost half the callers to the
national fraud agency
abandoned their calls in
February.
Action Fraud, the crime
reporting service, said that
19,005 callers out of 40,782
could not get through to tell
anyone they had been the
victim of a scam — 47 per
cent. This was up from 24 per
cent in December.
The average time taken toInheritance tax receipts2019 202020 21202 1 2 2202 2 232023 242024 252025 262026 27£5.1bn£5.4bn£6.1bn£6.7bn£6.9bn£7.3bn£7.8bn£8.3bnSource: OBRMore deaths and higher
house prices gave the
taxman a £5.4 billion
haul of inheritance tax
in 2020-21, the second-
largest take after
£5.43 billion in 2018-19.
It is paid on estates
worth over £325,000 —
£500,000 if you pass
on your home to direct
relatives. This year
about £6.1 billion will be
raised, according to the
Office for Budget
Responsibility, and
£8.3 billion by 2027.CHART OF THE WEEK THE TAX GRAB ON INHERITANCE
Too many hang ups on the fraud line
answer a call was 21 minutes
in February, compared with
7 minutes in December.
There were 5.1 million
fraud offences in the year to
September, according to the
England and Wales crime
survey — about 1.4 million
more than pre-pandemic
levels. A quarter of victims
lost money last year that was
never paid back.
Action Fraud will be
scrapped at the end of this
year when its contract withCity of London Police expires.
It will be replaced with a new
cybercrime reporting and
analysis service.
The Home Office said:
“Fraud is a truly awful crime
and we will not allow
fraudsters to line their
pockets with British people’s
hard-earned cash. That is
why the government is
developing a new approach
to tackling the scourge of
fraud this year which will
strengthen our response to
these crimes.”David ByersEarly birds who invest in
their Isas at the beginning of
the tax year make about
5 per cent more than
last-minute investors.
A saver who put £1,000
into a stocks and shares Isa at
the start of each tax year
since 1999 would have made
£65,290 by now if the money
were invested in the average
global investment fund —
£23,000 of their own money,Still time to make the most of your Isa
plus investment growth.
If they put it in at the end
of the tax year, they would
have £62,240, according to
the wealth manager AJ Bell.
“Right now, last-minute Isa
investors will be wondering
what to do with this year’s
allowance, while early birds
will be waiting for April 6 to
roll around so that they can
fill up next year’s,” said Laith
Khalaf from AJ Bell.
“Historical performance
shows that early birdinvesting generates some
extra bang for your Isa
buck, because you are
invested in the market for
that bit longer.”
If you invested the money
regularly at £83.33 a month,
you would have £64,100.
Isas give you tax-free
investment growth, so you
can withdraw any money
held within an Isa without
having to pay tax on it. You
can save up to £20,000
during each tax year.Imogen TewThe number of
gold bars held in the
Bank of England vaultsIf you would like the
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or call him on 07917 598422What has been your
most lucrative work?
Our hit TV shows have all been lucrative,
and at one point we had four running
one after the other. But our most
lucrative collaboration was the musical
Dreamboats and Petticoats. It took six
months to write and the royalties have
been rolling in ever since it debuted in
2009, whereas you’re on a treadmill
with TV series, churning out episode
after episode.How has the pandemic affected you?
Well, Maurice and I couldn’t work
together in person during the first
lockdown, and I didn’t like working over
Zoom, so that broke the rhythm that had
existed for 40 years. But we wrote a new
stage show together in 2021 and we’re
currently writing a film.What’s best for retirement —
property or pension?
I’d say a pension because you can’t live
off a property unless you own many and
collect rent. I’ve always seen property as
a place to live in.What has been your best business
decision?
Quitting my day job in 1980 to become
a full-time screenwriter with Maurice,
and taking on a financial adviser to
plan my future, good or bad, before I
had any money.What about your best investment?
Wine, largely bordeaux and burgundies.
One of my best buys was a case of 1980
Château Latour, which cost £300-£400.
It would have sold at auction for
£60,000 last year.And your worst investment?
My biggest missed financial opportunity
was not investing in the musical Cats, on
the advice of our accountant. If I’d done
so I could have probably lived off the
royalties for the rest of my life!Your most extravagant purchase?
I’ve spent a lot of money on cars and
bought a Bentley for about £60,000 in- The cost of maintaining it was
murderous, though, and I was presented
with an eye-watering bill every time it
was serviced. They used to offer me a
cup of coffee when I picked it up when
what I really needed was a tranquilliser. I
had to spend £827 on a new aerial alone!
What if you won the lottery?
It wouldn’t matter to me. But if I did I’d
give the money to a cause I really
believed in and endow a university or
hospital. I’ve long given away money
anyway. I think it’s the council flat
mentality kicking in. I’ve got more than
enough so I may as well give some away.What is the most important lesson
you’ve learnt about money?
That need is more important than want.Blokes of a Feather: An Evening with
Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran tours
from April 24. Shooting the Pilot is out
now, Fantom £19.99 (marksandgran.com)FAME AND FORTUNE LAURENCE MARKS
was born after the war, so I guess I was
an accident. I was brought up in a
ground-floor council flat in north
London. My Eastender father, Bernie,
a bookkeeper, was killed in the 1975
Moorgate Tube crash aged 68, and my
Welsh mother, Lilly, who died aged 62,
always struggled financially. Their idea
of luxury was a fitted carpet, acquired
on HP [hire purchase]. Sadly neither of
them lived to see my success.How much did you earn last year?
The royalties arrive in dribs and drabs,
but I suspect it will be a six-figure sum.
What I do know is that Maurice and I pay
a vast amount of tax. Back in the 1990s,
when we were the top comedy writers in
the country, our earnings would have
been a high six-figure or even seven-
figure sum.What was your first job?
I joined a publishing company after
school on £7 a week, but then became
a reporter on The North London Weekly
Herald before working on and off for
The Sunday Times in the mid-Seventies.Back then you made more from your
expenses than you did your salary, and
when I joined the Herald I was told off
for not putting down enough on my
expenses. “Do you want to ruin it for
everyone?” a colleague asked. My
expenses really paid for the deposit on
my first home.
A chance meeting with Barry Took on
a train to Manchester, when I showed
him the spec scripts I’d been working on
with Maurice, helped pave the way for us
writing for Frankie Howerd’s television
show in 1978. We’d been on the verge of
giving up writing altogether at that point
because our scripts were being rejected.When did you first feel wealthy?
About 1980 when I was able to buy my
first dream car, a Triumph Dolomite
Sprint — I’ve always had a penchant for
fast cars.Have you ever worried
about making ends meet?
Yes, times were tough in the early 1970s.
I’d sneak a packet of chocolate digestives
into the trolley when I went shopping
with my first wife, Sue, on a Saturday
morning. And she’d take them out and
ask: “Look, do you want vegetables or
biscuits, because we can’t afford both.”
I even struggled to get the rent money
together on my parents’ council flat,
which I got to keep after they died. My
wife hated it there, because it was a
family home with ghosts.Marks, left, and
Maurice Gran
wrote a string
of TV hits,
including Birds
of a Feather,
belowMercedes for nearly £60,000.Do you own a property?
The first property I owned was a
terraced house in north London that I
bought for £21,000 in 1979. Three years
later, in 1982, I sold that for £30,000 and
traded up to a semi-detached Edwardian
house in Southgate, north London,
costing £60,000. In 1993 I bought a
fabulous country house with five
bedrooms and an acre and a half-sized
garden in the Cotswolds for about half a
million. The following year Maurice and
I bought a flat in Mayfair for £300,000 —
a real bargain — so we had a London
base. We more than doubled our money
when we sold it in 2005. In 2006 I sold
the country house for about three times
what I paid for it because it was too big
for me and my wife, and we needed in-
house staff. We paid a seven-figure sum
for a huge apartment — the size of a large
house but on one floor — in a stately
home in the Cotswolds. Then, in 2007, I
bought a fabulous wooden house in the
Swiss mountains that wasn’t cheap. It
took four years to complete the purchase
and I had to get the canton’s permission.
But I sold it in 2020, tripling my money.Are you better off than your parents?
Yes, incomparably. I was one of three —
my brother and sister, who are both alive
and well, were born in the 1930s and IALAMY400,000