It’s the laugh – think Sid James guffawing into a bucket – that gives it away. Ricky Tomlinson, whose heroically slothful character Jim Royle from the Royle Family has become a national treasure, is in town.

See also – Ricky’s fight for justice 

“How are ye lad?” asks Britain’s most unlikely superstar as though he’s known you for years. Then he laughs that laugh, and you laugh at him laughing. That’s the way it is with infectiously funny people.

Ricky might be better known for his trademark chortle and for making the nation roll around their living rooms in fits of the giggles, yet his return to the county is really no laughing matter.

He is at the Shropshire Star offices in Telford, followed by a BBC film crew, in an attempt to clear his name after the former plasterer was jailed at Shrewsbury Crown Court for his part in a flying picket during the builders’ strike during the summer of 1972.

He was convicted by a jury of conspiracy with fellow union man, the late Des Warren. In a fashion normally reserved for infamous criminals, they were collectively labelled The Shrewsbury Two.

However, for the past 35 years Ricky has protested his innocence. Now aged 67 and entitled to a bus pass, he wants the Government to officially pardon workers jailed for their activities as flying pickets in strikes.

He is calling for a public inquiry into his and other workers’ sentences and hopes that his documentary on the topic for the BBC One Life series will help.

Skimming through the Shropshire Star archives which take him back to the day he was jailed, Ricky doesn’t look like the type who’s done porridge.

Wearing jeans and a sports jacket with an Amnesty International badge pinned to the lapel which reads “Protect the Human”, he is dressed like Jim Royle at a job interview (heaven forbid).

“I’ve been back to the court in Shrewsbury – this time they let me go,” says Ricky before turning to more serious matters.

“Prison was dreadful. I was from a working class background but it was a hardship. I would not wear clothes for a lot of the time and we were on hunger strike for a month.

“But I learned a lot about myself because I was married with two small boys and in the building game you’ve got to work all hours to earn a living.

“I had time to myself and I learned to read properly, read proper books, and listen to classical music – it completely changed my life, aye.”

For years MI5 even had a file on him and Ricky says that it was only in recent months that he was granted a visa to travel for the first time to America.

Today he is a national celebrity, albeit a reluctant one, who plays the banjo at every given opportunity and laughs at his own jokes . . . chiefly because they are very, very funny.

He has superstar friends and was recently awarded a Bafta Legend award for his contribution to the world of entertainment.

But it wasn’t always thus. Ricky was born in Blackpool in 1939 during the first month of the Second World War. His childhood was hard: “I’m not getting the violin out, but there were six of us in a two-bedroom house.”

The son of a baker, early hopes of a career as a footballer – apparently he was offered, but turned down, a trial for Scunthorpe United – took second place to playing the banjo in Liverpool’s pubs and clubs.

Working on building sites he became interested in politics and was active in the trade union movement. In his autobiography he also admitted joining the National Front – a terrible mistake

“I believed certain things in 1968 and I don’t believe them any more. I was wrong. I was politically naive and poorly educated,” he wrote in the book, Ricky.

Then came his infamous imprisonment. But when Ricky was released from prison in 1975 he was blacklisted from the building trade and reverted to his banjo, setting himself up as a professional entertainer and also working as a theatrical agent and pub landlord.

He recalls performing stand-up in Shrewsbury some time after his trial.

“Someone shouted out ‘do you think you should’ve gone to prison Rick’ and before I had chance to say anything someone in the audience shouted ‘yes he should have gone to jail’.

“I said why and he said ‘because your acting is criminal’. I had to laugh, it was a lovely line.”

In terms of acting, Ricky was a late starter but the Scouse comic’s life would be transformed in 1980 when, at the age of 41, he landed a role in the gritty Alan Bleasdale drama Boys From The Blackstuff.

Two years later he was among the first people to appear on the newly launched Channel 4 when the Liverpool-based soap Brookside marked the television station open for business.

His character, the bolshie trade unionist Bobby Grant, was married to Sheila Grant played by Sue Johnson who would be reunited with Ricky in the Royle Family.

Following his tenure in Brookside his star continued to rise. After appearing in a series of gritty low-budget films for respected directors such as Ken Loach of Kes fame, he appeared in films and television dramas working largely in the area of black comedy until more recent breakthroughs with the movie Mike Bassett: England Manager.

But the Royle Family sealed his status as one of the nation’s favourite comic actors.

He smiles. “Jim Royle has been great for me and I love him. He’s about 95 per cent me. But it’s all down to Caroline Aherne, she’s brilliant.

“I go to some of these celebrity bashes and I just walk in my Jim Royle gear and the place erupts.”

What would Jim Royle have said about his conviction and trying to clear his name 35 years on?

Says Ricky: “If he’d known me he’d have said ‘it’s about time you cleared your name you softie’, but if Jim didn’t know me and he’d read those newspaper reports he’d have said ‘him, he should be locked up for life, he’s worse than Crippen, that feller’.”

At the end of the interview Ricky’s mobile phone goes off with the ringtone of a cockerel crowing. “Hang on, it’s my cocker”, he laughs before answering to his wife Rita. His entourage fall about the place in stitches.

The Ricky Tomlinson story:

1939: Born in Blackpool.

1958: Worked as a building site plasterer in the Liverpool area, before becoming involved in trade union politics and activism.

1972: Joined the flying pickets in a building workers’ dispute in Shropshire.

1973: Jailed for 15 months after being found guilty of conspiracy to intimidate as one of the “Shrewsbury Two”.

1975: Disrupted the TUC conference by shouting from the wings after he had been prevented from speaking from the stage.

1977: Blacklisted by the building trade, he set himself up in business as an entertainer, theatrical agent, and pub landlord, with varying levels of success.

1980: Acting career began with a small role in the acclaimed drama Boys From The Blackstuff.

1882: Cast as bolshie trade unionist Bobby Grant in Channel Four soap Brookside, a role he played until 1987.

1988: Made his movie debut as a decorator in the film Out Of Order.

1994: Played Robbie Coltrane’s boss, DCI Charlie Wise, in seven episodes of TV crime drama Cracker

1998: After a series of other supporting roles, finally became a megastar with TV’s Royle Family, which earned him £700 per episode. He made 21 episodes

2001: Transferred his success to Hollywood with a £2 million salary for his role as Mike Bassett: England Manager.

2002: Signed an £800,000 deal for his autobiography with Time Warner.

2003: Married his second wife Rita Cumiskey.

2006: Returned to his most famous role is a 90-minute special of the Royle Family.

2007: A member of the hall of fame in “Michael Parkinson’s Greatest Entertainers” show.

See also – Ricky’s fight for justice 

By Ben Bentley