Kiddies' favourite crashes off drugs wagon

In a shocking exclusive, The Rockall Times can reveal that Humpty Dumpty, pint-size star of nursery rhyme and television, is addicted to crack cocaine. Speaking from the exclusive Old MacDonald's farm, where he checked in two weeks ago, the diminutive children's entertainer spoke out for the first time about his drugs hell.

"I've spent my entire life falling off walls, but this is the first time I've fallen off the wagon," sobbed Dumpty. "I thought I'd beaten it years ago, but you know how it is, just one puff of the magic dragon and you're back to the old ways."

This is not the first time that Dumpty has been linked to drugs. In the 1970s rumours abounded that the well-padded star was addicted to painkillers, as an unfortunate consequence of his chosen profession. Those closest to Dumpty, including fellow actor "Big" Ted, were quick to dismiss the allegations at the time.

However, Ted, now a reformed Christian living in a council flat near Hackney said of the original rumours: "They were true. We were all doing it. It was the 70s and we were famous. Jemimah used to drop acid in London nightclubs all the time and Little Ted used to turn up for rehearsals completely spaced out on poppers, but Humpty took it too far. He was mainlining heroin by the second series of Playschool and it was all the producers could do to keep him out of the tabloids."

When questioned on the original allegations, Dumpty blamed it on his classic "sad-clown" personality, admitting: "Hey, I was the big, jovial, man about town. Always happy, always smiling: on the outside at least. But inside I wasn't happy. I was overweight and miserable. The drugs let me be who everyone wanted me to be. By the time I realised I had a problem, it was too late."

After a brief spell in rehab in the mid-eighties, under the pretext of a US book-signing tour, Dumpty was given a clean bill of health, however, he soon returned to his old ways after being dropped from Television. Trying to rekindle his fame, Dumpty turned to stand-up comedy in London's East End. It was there that he fell in with Bill and Ben, the notorious Cray twins. "They were old school, but they made me feel like a star again," said Dumpty. "Of course as soon as they introduced me to Weed, that was the end."

Dumpty now says the main question for him is whether he can put his life back together again. Sources close to Buckingham Palace say that both Liz Two and Charles Part III are monitoring Dumpty's progress with regal concern.

Previously

• The war on drugs: Your questions answered
• 'Collapsed from exhaustion' collapses from exhaustion
• Colombia drugs bust threatens UK TV schedules