UNTIL a few years ago, Andrew Sachs was simply Manuel to many, the charmingly hapless Spanish waiter from Seventies sitcom Fawlty Towers.

These days, he’s the man at the centre of voicemail scandal ‘Sachsgate’ but, he tells Later, life is good and he’s looking to the future Until his late seventies, Andrew Sachs was often stopped and asked about his role as Fawlty Towers’ permanently confused Spanish waiter, Manuel. Despite the fact that the series finished in 1979, it remained a firm favourite, often being repeated on TV.

But, more recently, his fictional alter ego has been somewhat overshadowed by other events – the unfortunate, and cruelly named, ‘Sachsgate’.

In an attempt to lay his demons to rest, Sachs has written his autobiography, I Know Nothing.

A private man, part of him wanted to keep as much distance as possible from the scandal, but he says: “I can’t ignore the whole subject, sadly it wouldn’t go away if I tried.”

In writing his autobiography, he wants very much to put the “mayhem” behind him and focus on his and Melody’s future. Sachs had a happy, if tumultuous, childhood. Born Andreas Siegfried Sachs in 1930, he spent the first eight years of his childhood in Berlin, with his Jewish father Hans, Catholic mother Katharina, older brother Tom and “even older” sister Barbara.

But the joyful atmosphere at home wasn’t matched outside their four walls. With the Nazis coming into greater power, the family knew staying in Germany would be dangerous.

Fortunately Katharina, a “tough woman” who “hated Hitler”, rallied the family’s friends, among them a high ranking police officer who “pulled weight” and talked his colleagues into releasing his old associate.

After three months living in London without his family, Hans, who Sachs affectionately called ‘Vati’, the German diminutive for ‘Daddy’, was reunited with his wife and children. Unlike Manuel, it wasn’t long before Sachs had mastered the language – and was chasing the lofty dream of becoming a star.