Do you realise
that it is now 18 years since the big reunion in Havant and that this week this
blog is 18 years old!!! Came as a surprise to me!!!!
Web Page No 2684
8th May 2020
1st Picture. Cyril
Fletcher
4th Picture. That’s Life
chair
Cyril Fletcher
Cyril Fletcher was born on 25th
June 1913 and died on 2nd January 2005 was known as a comedian, actor and
businessman, however he was best known for his poetry or Odd Odes. His
catchphrase was 'Pin back your lugholes'.
He first began performing the Odd Odes in 1937, long before they first
appeared on television in the That’s Life show with Ester Ransen (though he did
appear on pre World War II television).
He came up with the idea when he was short of material for a radio show.
The first, Odd Ode, was a comic, yet sentimental, reading of Edgar Wallace's
war poem Dreaming of Thee. Following this broadcast, he was given a regular
programme on Radio Luxembourg; it was this show that brought him to national
attention. He called himself "the odd oder".
He also appeared as a panellist on the popular panel show on BBC, What's
My Line?, that ran from 1951 to 1963. He was the presenter of Central TV's
Gardening Today for fourteen years, and Channel Television's Cyril Fletcher's
TV Garden, and ran from 1990 to 1992, for two years.
He was born in Watford, the son of a solicitor, who was the Friern
Barnet town clerk. He once joked on radio that
he had been born under a whelk stall in Watford market: his mother was furious.
Following schooling at Woodhouse School, North Finchley, where he first began
to entertain by composing witty poems about his schoolmasters, he graduated
from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. in the evenings, paying the fees
by performing in cabaret.
He wrote his first poem, on King John, when he was seven. By the time he
was 14, he knew he wanted to be an actor partly because he so admired John
Gielgud.
His first job, however, was as an insurance clerk. The work, he later
complained, consisted of pushing a trolley between a broker's office and the
post office. But he entertained his colleagues with his funny verses about the
boss, just as he had entertained his fellow pupils at Friern Barnet grammar
school with funny verses about the masters.
The Fol de Rols connection, which did so much for his career, came about
by accident. In a 1936 concert at the Prince of Wales Theatre, he recited an
Odd Ode when Greatrex Newman, who ran the Fol de Rols, was in the audience. He offered
him £7 a week to join the Fol de Rols at Hastings. It was when that show was
broadcast that he read the decisive ode. He was offered his own show on Radio
Luxembourg
A Freemason and a successful businessman, he believed it important to
diversify in such a fickle business as show business. He founded Associated
Speakers, an agency for after-dinner speakers, on whose books were the likes of
the Duke of Bedford and Lord Longford, as well as himself.
He and his wife, Betty Astell, were married from 18th May 1941 until his
death, she died just under seven months later. The couple had a daughter, Jill
Fletcher who is an actress and comedian.
Betty
Julia Hymans was born in Brondesbury, Willesden the daughter of Herbert Hyams and Estella
Oppenheimer Hyams
She
was a child performer, trained as a dancer. She sang on BBC Radio programmes
in the 1920s, and met her husband while making recordings for radio in Bristol
during World War II. In
1956 and 1957, they playing a married couple in a radio comedy, Mixed
Doubles, written by Bob
Monkhouse and Denis
Goodwin.
In
1931 and 1932, she sang and danced in John Logie Baird's
experimental television programming, on the BBC's 30-line shows, making
her one of the first people to perform on television. That same year, she
played Alice in Dick Whittington, the first televised
pantomime. She starred with her husband on an early sketch show for
television, Kaleidoscope (1949), and on his television series, The
Cyril Fletcher Show, on ITV beginning in 1959.
She
made her London stage debut in John
Galsworthy's Escape (1928) and performed in
revues through the 1940s, including Magic Carpet (1943)
and Keep Going (1944)
Her
first film in 1932, in A Tight Corner with Frank Pettingell.
She stayed active in film through the 1930s, appearing in two dozen films. In
1942, the Fletchers were familiar enough to a wide audience to make a wartime newsreel clip
together, honouring farmers.[Her
last film role came in 1948, when she returned to the screen in A Piece of Cake, co-starring
with her husband.
She
also wrote and produced pantomimes at the Ashcroft Theatre in Croydon,
including Dick Whittington, Mother Goose, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella,
and Aladdin. She
died in a hospital near her home in Guernsey, aged 93 years, nearly seven months after the death of her
husband
Cold not end without an Odd Ode:-
The Operation by Cyril Fletcher
My friend Theopolis
Carnation
Would talk about his operation
And gaze upon with
such delight
The scar of his
appendicite.
The surgeon had so
neatly put
A row of stitches
sewn with gut
That Theopolis with
half a whirl
Loved every stitch,
both plain and purl.
One day as he sat in
his tub
He gave his favourite
spot a rub
To his surprised
delight he found
The catgut made a Crysler
sound.
And so next day he
bought a bow
And started playing
sweet and low
And in a week could
play the air
Of 'Deep Purple' and
'The Maidens Prayer'.
The BBC soon got to
hear
And called for Theo
to appear
And said that he and
his incision
Must both appear on
television.
He learned the new
swing music gait
He'd drop a stitch to
syncopate
With his dance band
became the new sensation
'Theopolis and his
Operation.'
Theopolis got quite
wealthy soon
Each stitch in time
could play its tune
Although he grew a
trifle gummy
Through rubbing rosin
on his tummy.
Stay in touch
Peter
grseditor@gmail.com
You Write:
News and Views:
On this day 8th May
1860-1865
On 08/05/1860 the number one single was Cathy's
Clown - Everly Brothers and
the number one album was South
Pacific Soundtrack. The top
rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68
and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The
big news story of the day was Contraceptive pill becomes available in US.
On 08/05/1861 the number one single was Blue
Moon - The Marcels and the
number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was No
Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was One
Hundred and One Dalmations. A
pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way
to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 08/05/1862 the number one single was Wonderful
Land - The Shadows and the
number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation
Street (Granada) and the
box office smash was Lawrence
of Arabia. A pound of today's
money was worth £12.88 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the
Season's Division 1 champions.
On 08/05/1863 the number one single was From
Me To You - The Beatles and
the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The
top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the
box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth
£12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1
champions.
On 08/05/1864 the number one single was Don't Throw Your Love Away - Searchers
and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated
TV show was Conservative Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box
office smash was Dr
Strangelove. A pound
of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the
Season's Division 1 champions.
On 08/05/1865 the number one single was Ticket
to Ride - The Beatles and the
number one album was Beatles For Sale - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation
Street (Granada) and the
box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth
£11.68 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division
1 champions.
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