How To Raise A Smile

Step 1: The need to laugh:

Since the dawn of time, humankind has felt the need to laugh. To that end, we produce comic styles ranging from alternative to vaudeville, slapstick to satire, and knock-knock to shaggy dog. But a new genre of laughter is pulling into the car park of comedy with it's tires screeching and it's horn honking. It's wit, it's been told by men in white vans, and it's called white van wit.

Step 2: Some jokes:

What did the policeman say to his stomach? You're under a vest. So what's around them bikes? Vicious circle. Why did the biscuit cry? 'Cause it's mum was a wafer.

Step 3: White van wit:

Straight forward, down to earth jokes, told by straight forward, down the earth blokes, and the humour is being compiled in a new book called White Van Wit. The proceeds of the book are going to leukaemia research and the man behind the book is ex-England footballer Geoff Thomas, a man who was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia. Jeff, great to be here with you, now first of all, what exactly happened to you. Probably February 2002 my career finished in quite an up game, actually, in a cup game, and I scored a goal and my knee just totally said, that's enough, at the end of the game. So, carried on trying to sort of stay fit until the end of the season, but my self and crew in football went separate ways.

Step 4: Geoff's experience:

How did you find out that you had cancer? Well probably the following year, about March 2003, I started feeling perhaps a bit, with hindsight, my first symptoms, which were night sweats and feeling out of breath and just not feeling too good, you know. It wasn't until July, where I was convinced I had to go to the doctor by my missus. The doctor poked about in my stomach for a while and just looked quizzical about a few things, what I was saying, and then he said, right, we'll take a blood test. You know, I got the dreaded phone call about four hours later. It was the first time I heard this work, leukaemia, which was like a bombshell.

Step 5: Reaction from the game:

What kind of reaction did you get from people in the game, people you used to play with, managers and things like that? Footballers reacted with humour, it was a combat to the seriousness of the injury, and I think with the illness and with it being life-threatening, because I had a retail shop and I was selling suits, there were questions of can I put a size 42 black suit to one side just in case.

Step 6: How the book began...

So tell me a bit about the book, how did it come about? I think leukaemia research approached me in the first place, and the wits come up with this idea of customers actually going to the retail shops and pointing out jokes into the collection books. And all the good jokes are actually being printed in this book here, so it's a fascinating way of raising lots of money.

Step 7: Why white van men?

Why did you decide to use the white van man as an example of humour? Well I think the white van driver is a culture to themselves, and I think, you know, that they're in a sort of ball park of the taxi driver and they've got their own sense of humour.

Step 8: Favourite joke?

And finally Geoff, the most important part, tell me your favourite joke. Well there's one here which is quite apt, actually, it says, why don't oysters give to charities? Because they're shellfish.

Step 9: Buy the book:

Geoff, thank you very much indeed. So, if you want to impress people with your devastating humour and repartee, and also help save lives, then get yourself a copy of White Van Wit.