Ken Dodd, the late, great Liverpool comic was known for many things:
- His buck teeth, frizzy hair and tickling stick.
- The tongue twister ‘Ken Dodds dad’s dogs dead’
- And a court case against HMRC, his barrister freeing him with the dead-pan line:
‘Some accountants are comedians, but comedians are never accountants.’
Doddy was also a very learned comedian, a regular at Liverpool’s beautiful Picton Reading Room, where he created the classic line:
“Freud said that laughter is the outward expression of the psyche. But Freud was never on the Friday night show at the Glasgow Empire!”
And more surprisingly Ken Dodd was also a successful singer, having the third biggest-selling single of the 1960s, ‘Tears’. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10201932
However, it’s another of his songs that careers advisers can adapt as their professional song.
‘Happiness’ peaked at no.31 on the hit parade in 1964.
With the chorus line, ‘Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess’.
Which is also the gift that careers advisers possess.
How come? Well the aim of the careers interview is to enable clients to reach self-realisation.
A state that gives happiness.
Fortunately, careers advisers don’t need to frizz up their hair and wave a tickling stick in the air whilst exclaiming “How tickled I am”, in order for their clients to achieve this state.
Instead they enable clients to assess their values, skills they enjoy using and what they want from life.
Helping them to put these reflections into actions that achieve ‘Happiness.’
However, when the careers profession adopts this song, we will also need a song for clients.
And in anticipation of the happiness they will receive, clients can sing ‘Bring me Sunshine’.
A song popularised by the incomparable Morcombe and Wise.
Whose scouse genius comic writer was Eddie Braben, a man who also wrote Ken Dodd’s early material.
And through it spread Happiness and Sunshine across the land.
Author: Mark Wilkinson, a Diddyman from the Jam Butty mines of Knotty Ash.
