Wednesday, 27 September 2023
Web Page 3063
28th September 2023
First Picture: Young Bill Owen
Second Picture with Norah Batty
Third Picture: This is your life
Fourth Picture: Compos grave
Bill Owen.
The career of Bill Owen was an extreme example of how vast television fame in one role - in his case the incorrigibly scruffy Compo, in Last Of The Summer Wine - can wipe out in the public mind a whole lifetime of quite different achievement. As a Christmas show, Last of The Summer Wine once enjoyed higher ratings than Gone With the Wind. Compo had to reply to old ladies who fancied him, and to open fetes. As a stunt, a tabloid newspaper took the disreputable character for lunch at the Savoy. The series ran for more than two decades, and the real Bill Owen virtually disappeared.
Yet as a stalwart player for the radical Unity theatre, he was at ease in Bernard Shaw and was cast by Lindsay Anderson in the first production of David Storey's In Celebration, The Contractor and The March On Russia, the latter being revived at the National in the 1990s.
He was George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, finding inspiration for the necessary domestic venom just before opening night after a row with his wife. In the 1950s, and later, he directed a number of plays.
Though a contract film actor for Rank for several years, Bill Owen failed to find a niche in that over-full stable, where height and looks were the tools of preferment. He composed the lyrics for 75 songs, recorded by Cliff Richard and other popular singers, wrote one-act plays for boys’ clubs and was arts adviser to the National Association of Boys Clubs, for which he was made an MBE in 1976.
Once called by Gene Kelly a born dancer, he wrote musical plays and appeared in others, including The Threepenny Opera, as Mack the Knife.
Radical causes were always close to his heart: he had been born to working-class parents in Acton Green, west London, and fashioned by family history into a firm mistrust of fat cats - especially American fat cats - and any form of pretension.
This mind-set stood him in good stead in playing the foul-mouthed, dirty, smelly and nihilistic Compo - once, with his woolly hat, dirty wellies and holed trousers tied up with string, voted the scruffiest character on television.
Bill Owen was an intelligence and energy at odds with a working-class rut and he remained all his life a somewhat isolated figure, never fitting anywhere except in performance, and in causes. He made few childhood friends, and his view of actors - usually middle-class - was such that only two of them became friends.
He rose socially, once owning an old Rolls Royce, which he would leave outside the Unity theatre near King's Cross. But sentimentality did not spread easily outside the boundaries of people of his origins, a fact that ultimately helped end his marriage to a wife from a well-off family.
It was a copy of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, that classic story of capitalist chicanery and abuse of the working class, given him on his 14th birthday by his father, that first articulated his radical leanings. With another boy as The It Kids: A Song In Harmony, he won a talent competition at a local cinema. Falling in love with an actress in Acton Co-operative Players - amateurs, but specialists in Shaw and Galsworthy - involved him in serious theatre.
As a 20-year-old, he appeared in Cambridge repertory. It was going to a Warner holiday camp in Devon in 1936, when he was drawn into entertaining the campers, that led to Dovercourt Warner's offering him a job the following year. The fact that his parents' lodger was associated with Unity theatre, with a pipeline to all the progressive writers of the period, drew him there.
He got a part in Colony, a play dealing with the oppression of trade unionism on West Indian plantations, but the outbreak of war intervened, and he found himself an officer in the Pioneer Corps, forming concert parties.
His spell as an officer was predictably short. One of his NCOs lost a foot after a grenade exploded, which caused Bill a breakdown that led to his discharge. After going back to Unity, he took over from Alfie Bass as Gunner Cohen in Mr Balfry.
When the war ended, his unhappy military experience came in useful when he appeared as Nobby Clarke in The Way To The Stars, his first feature film, which was to lead to a contract with Rank studios but no great parts: he complained that they didn't know what to do with him.
He was in the first Soviet play to be performed abroad after the war, The Russian Question, about the way British and American journalists had put hostile questions to the Russians after west and east forces invading Germany had met at the Elbe. He appeared as a cockney plumber in the Victorian social comedy Caste, later rewriting it as a musical premiered at the Theatre Royal, Windsor.
Often his line in scatological, devilish comedy offended the rose-tinted spectacles of the time. When he played Touchstone in As You Like It on a US tour, it was not without shouting at the director that he intended to do it his way - which included squeezing a female member of the cast on the inner thigh. The Boston Record commented that he played Touchstone "like the manly wiseacre he is, rather than the uppity-voiced daffodil you usually see".
In Britain, he did not have to fight so hard. He appeared in the grim play about the exploitation of boxers, The Square Ring, and then in the film version with Basil Dearden directing. Peter Rogers recruited him as a corporal in the first of the Carry On films, Carry On Sergeant.
In the early 1970s, Bill Owen received from the BBC a copy of the script of Last of The Summer Wine - as a single slot for Comedy Playhouse. It had helped that he had played a Yorkshireman in Storey's In Celebration. Realising it was unique, he accepted at once. He had also played Thelma’s father in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads.
The three out-of-work Yorkshiremen, now whiling away their retirement as best they could in a Yorkshire village, became more real than reality. The location village, Holmfirth, became a tourist shrine. More than 11 million people watched each episode. For Bill it led to a gap of 21 years in other television work, but the public loved it.
His domestic life was not untroubled. The fact that his first wife, Edith Stevenson, offered him £1,000 so that for a year they could be seen in places where he might make fashionable professional contacts, and he indignantly refused, was a pointer to the difficulties that would end the marriage in 1964.
They had one son. His second marriage was to Kathleen O' Donoghue, who survives him, with his son and stepdaughter. William John Owen Rowbotham (Bill Owen), actor, director and writer, born March 14, 1914; died July 12, 1999.
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Wednesday, 20 September 2023
Web Page 30961
21st September 2023
First Picture: Young Max Jaffa
Third Picture: Sheet Music
Thursday, 14 September 2023
Web Page 30959
14th September 2023
First Picture: The Kings Langley factory
Third Picture: Ovaltine advert
Wednesday, 6 September 2023
Web Page 30957
7th September 2023
First Picture: Skein of wool
Second Picture Typical greengrocery
Third Picture: The New Inn
Fourth Picture: Lights
Shopping
Having read Richard, Griff's and Mary's memories about shopping it made me remember shopping with my parents. I remember going to Mrs Moffits wool shop with my mum. The shop consisted of a wood and glass porch attached to her hallway off of which was the front room stuffed high will bales and packets of wool, buttons and zips. Somehow Mrs Moffit always knew where mums wool was it was amazing. With all the wool in such a confined space the shop was always very warm and stuffy.
Next door in the other side of the semi detached house was the workshop of Hiram Levy the Jewish Taylor. I remember my father taking me there to have my first suit made. Like next door all the bolts of cloth stacked high made for a warm and stuffy atmosphere. The place was very dusty and appeared to me to be in a total muddle. Hiram did make me a suit but I have to say I never liked it.
Next door was Nappers the ironmonger where we bought our paraffin. I remember my mum handing over a paraffin can and it being filed using a hand pump connected to a large tank out the back.
Further along the road was Mugfords the grocer and green grocer, my mother would never buy anything in there as she had convinced herself that between weighing up dirty potatoes and weighing up loose biscuits he never washed his hands. Strangely she never bought anything in the shop she was good friends with Mr Mugfords wife Mary.
Further along was Streets the butcher a shop that had an enormous clock at the back of the clock but it was never right. My father always said that this clock ran on shirt buttons, whatever that meant.
Then there was Harry Marchments butchers shop next to the Institute. Harry was a tall sandy haired man who for a long time tried to get me to become his apprentice. I never took him up on the offer. Actually, the shop is now a very nice coffee shop.
On the other side of the Institute was Smeeds the wine merchants. Here the manager tried hard to persuade me to take up the wine trade. I cannot understand how this came about as far as a family we only used Smeeds at Christmas, all other wines and sherries were bought loose in Pinks.
Over the road was the New Inn and I like many other young lads had their first experience of drinking in a pub.
Then there was the chip shop run by |Fishy Francis and a little further down Chapman Laundry run by Barbara , this was the only laundry that could starch my Chefs hats to the required stiffness. to go to Her
I remember visiting Trail the opticians, Sidney Slape the fishmonger, Mrs Brown in the Post Office plus also a walk along the Havant Road to go to Herbert’s market garden to buy tomatoes.
But as a young lad my favourite shop was Wynns the toy and cycle shop which was situated in the building which was used as a British Restaurant during the second world war.
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Peter
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Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Web Page 30951
3rd September 2023
First Picture: In Fishing Mode
Second Picture: In the shed
Third Picture: How
Fourth Picture: Out Of Towm
Jack Hargreaves OBE (31st December 1911 – 15th March 1994) was a television presenter and writer.
He is remembered for appearing on How, a children's programme, which he also conceived, about how things worked or ought to work. It ran from 1966 on Southern Television and networked on ITV until the demise of Southern in 1981.
He also was the presenter of the weekly magazine programme Out of Town, first broadcast in 1960 following the success of his series Gone Fishing the previous year. Broadcast on Friday evenings on Southern Television the programme was also taken up by many of the other ITV regions, usually in a Sunday afternoon slot. In 1967, with Ollie Kite he presented Country Boy, a networked children's programme of 20 episodes in which a boy from the city was introduced to the ways of country. Two further series followed in 1969 and 1970.
He was involved in the setting up of ITV, and a member of Southern's board of directors, and was employed by the National Farmers' Union, serving on the Nugent Committee (the Defence Lands Committee that investigated which parts of the Ministry of Defence holdings could be returned to private ownership). He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1972 New Year Honours.
He was born in London in 1911 to James and Ada Hargreaves, Jack (christened John Herbert) was one of three brothers. The family was rooted in Huddersfield but James Hargreaves based himself partly in London for commercial advantage and to allow his wife the benefit of the capital's midwifery. The brothers attended Merchant Taylors' School, after which Edward and Ronald Hargreaves pursued successful careers in medicine while Jack went to study at the Royal Veterinary College at London University in 1929. On leaving university he earned a living as a copywriter, journalist and script writer for radio and films, and by the late 1930s he had established a reputation for his pioneering approaches to radio broadcasting.
the outset of the Second World War, broadcasting was recognised as part of the war effort. His talents in this field meant that he faced being recruited to a restricted post in radio, a reserved occupation. Instead, he joined the Royal Artillery as a gunner, quickly became an NCO, entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment. Even so, his reputation as a communicator went ahead of him. He was recruited to the staff of General Montgomery to play a role setting up broadcasting services to allied forces before and after D-Day. He left the army in 1945 with the substantive rank of major, having briefly held the acting rank of lieutenant-colonel.]
After the war he worked on Picture Post where his brilliance as a communications manager led to his being recruited to the National Farmers Union, he organised and developed the NFU's Information Department, founding the British Farmer magazine,
He loved angling.
As an independent member of the Defence Lands Committee 1971–73, Hargreaves made key contributions to the Nugent Report, 1973, reviewing the use of land held by the armed forces for defence purposes. He became of the opinion that one of the best ways to reserve the countryside for its proper purpose was to keep most people out of it. He believed that although agriculture would be preferable, military exercises seemed less harmful in their impact on the environment than its use for the recreational choices. This he shared with his audience, gently repeating that the countryside, insofar as it had a purpose for humans, was to grow their food in sustainable ways.
Jack Hargreaves was married, in 1932, to Jeanette Haighler. They had two sons, Mark and Victor; then, after divorce, he married Elisabeth Van de Putte. Two more sons were born – James Stephen in 1946 and Edward John in 1947. That marriage ended in 1948 when he began a relationship with a journalist from Vogue, Barbara Baddeley
Living with her until 1963, He became a stepfather to Bay and her brother Simon, Barbara's children. He also had a daughter Polly, born in 1957 as a result of a six-year relationship with his secretary Judy Hogg.
In 1965, he married Isobel Hatfield who died four years after her husband on 5 February 1998 and her ashes were scattered with his on Bulbarrow Hill in Dorset, near their home.
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Thursday, 24 August 2023
Web Page 30949
26th August 2023
First Picture: Album cover
Second Picture: Cherry Wainer
Third Picture: DVD Cover
Fourth Picture: Jack Good
Lord Rockingham's XI
Lord Rockingham’s X1was a group of British session musicians, led by Scotsman Harry Robinson (1932–1996), who had a No. 1 hit on the UK Singles Chart in 1958 with "Hoots Mon".
The group was created to perform as the resident band on the pop TV programme Oh Boy!, which was produced by Jack Good, and shown nationally on Britain's ITV network during 1958/59. They were fronted by Harry Robinson and also included jazz baritone saxophonist (later well-known writer/broadcaster) Benny Green, and organist Cherry Wainer. Other members were Cherry Wainer's husband Don Storer (drums), Reg Weller (percussion), Red Price (tenor sax), Rex Morris (tenor sax), Cyril Reubens (baritone sax), Ronnie Black (double bass), Bernie Taylor (guitar), Eric Ford (guitar). Joining the group later were Kenny Packwood (guitar) and Ian Fraser (piano). In addition to backing the singers of the day such as Marty Wilde and Cuddly Dudley, they recorded several novelty rock instrumentals for Decca Records, the first being "Fried Onions", which fa iled to chart in the UK but did slip into the US Billboard charts for a week at No. 96. The second single, was HarryRobinson's "Hoots Mon", a rocked-up version of the traditional Scottish song "A hundred Pipers", featuring Scots phrases like "Hoots mon, there's a moose loose aboot this hoose!", it rose up the charts supported by weekly TV exposure, and stayed at number one for three weeks.
Following a legal case brought by descendants of the real Lord Rockingham, which was settled out of court, the group toured and made several less successful follow-ups, including "Wee Tom" (#16, 1959). They disbanded with the end of the TV show in 1959, although the name was revived for a couple of albums in the 1960s. Harry Robinson's career in TV and music continued, one notable credit being for his string arrangement on Nick Drake's track "River Man".
"Fried Onions" was used in a television advertisement for Options indulgence chocolate drink, first shown on UK TV in December 2011.
Cherry Wainer, probably the most well known member of the group, died in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 14, 2014, at the age of 79.
Mary Writes:-
I read your blog with great interest. My parents were just the same as yours. After seeing 1 episode they refused to watch it saying it was disgusting & an insult to the country. Some years later I was with my parents at a charity cricket match held at the Bat & Ball Inn. David Frost was there, & I was quite shocked to see him. On TV he appeared to be quite a good looking man. He didn`t look very nice at all, & was quite unpleasant to members of the public who tried to speak to me. He just totally ignored them. After that I never took any notice of what he had to say!
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Wednesday, 16 August 2023
Web Page 3097
19th August 2023
First Picture: Radio Times Cover
Second Picture: The Team
Third Picture: Millicent Martin
Fourth Picture: The most well known sketch
That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme that aired on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost.
The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through to late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring David Frost.
Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy.
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report and led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy'
The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong”.
TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. David Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Ned Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, at the end of each episode David Frost read out a brief summary of the plot of the episode of The Third Man that was due to follow the show, spoiling its twists, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Hugh Greene
David Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job".At the end of each episode, he usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and Millicent Martin performing the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics".
TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".
The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.
My parents refused to watch the programme and went to bed when it came on!!
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Wednesday, 9 August 2023
Web Page 3095
12th August 2023
First Picture: What’s My Line Board Game
Second Picture: Pinky and Perky
Third Picture: Jeremey Hawk
Now to get those memories working here is a quiz about some early television programmes.
1/
Can you identify this British television series for pre-school children which was developed from an earlier programme called "For The Children" and which appeared for nearly thirty years on BBC TV before disappearing from our screens in 1980?
2/
Can you identify the original panellists of the Britsh TV series "What's My Line?" which first appeared on UK Television in 1951?
3/
This family were featured in the first British TV long running soap series aimed at the younger viewer. The series was broadcast for five years from 1952 and the family consisted of Father, Mother, and four children. Can you please identify this programme?
4/
This British TV family drama series had plot lines aimed at the adult viewer. It ran for five years in the 1950s. Can you name this programme named after the featured family?
5/
And now for something a little more cerebral. This quiz programme had previously been broadcast on BBC Radio and was brought to BBC TV under the chairmanship of Professor Glyn Daniel. It ran for seven years from 1952. What was the programme called?
6/
In the US this TV programme was first broadcast by NBC (1956-1959) and called "Tic-Tac-Dough". What was the British version of this TV quiz show called?
7/
A change of mood for this question. This pair of porcine puppet pals first appeared on British TV in 1957. You've probably guessed the names of the characters were "Pinky and Perky" so I want to know which of the two little pigs wore a hat?
8/
Another change of genre for you. This British TV programme, usually shown late at night, was first broadcast in 1957 just six months before the launch of Sputnik. Can you identify the name of the presenter of this programme, one of the longest running TV series surviving from the 1950s?
9/
Broadcast since 1958 this was another long running British TV series for children to survive from that time and into the twenty-first century. To describe it as a flagship would give you a nautical clue to the title of the programme. Can you name the programme?
10/
This was one of my all time favourite programmes broadcast during my formative years. "Noggin The Nog" first appeared in 1959 and was broadcast on BBC TV for the next six years or so. Can you name Noggin's wicked uncle?
Answers
1.
"Watch With Mother" was a composite series following a rigid schedule with "Picture Book" on Mondays, "Andy Pandy" on Tuesdays, "The Flowerpot Men" on Wednesdays, "Rag Tag and Bobtail" on Thursdays, and "The Woodentops" on Fridays.
2. Gilbert Harding, Barbara Kelly, Lady Isobel Barnet, David Nixon
It was derived from a US CBS TV programme and was one of the very first British TV panel games. The first Chairman was Eamon Andrews. It was later to appear on ITV although first broadcast by BBC TV. 3.
3. The Appleyards
Mr and Mrs Appleyard were played by Frederick Piper and Constance Fraser respectively. The children were: John, Janet, Tommy and Margaret played by David Edwards, Tessa Clarke, Derek Rowe and Pat Fryer respectively.
4 The Groves
Many a viewing teenager cringed with fear at the pronouncements of the character "Granny Grove". "The Groves" was scripted as a twenty minute series edited by Phillip Burton. A Christmas Special was also broadcast in 1960.
5 The Brains Trust
Panellists were drawn from the academic world and included: Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Dr W E Swinton, Professor Thomas Podkin
6: Criss Cross Quiz
The British version of this quiz programme was originally hosted in the UK by actor Jeremy Hawk.
7 The correct answer was Perky
Pinky and Perky were much loved and readily recognized throughout the UK. They were manipulated by Czech puppeteers Jan and Vlasta Dalibar. The dancing pigs returned to British TV on BBC TV in 1963, 1967 and 1968.
8 Patrick Moore
Dr Patrick Moore presented "The Sky At Night" - he had several honorary doctorates
9 Blue Peter
"Blue Peter", a magazine of activities and interest reports aimed at children, was originally presented by Christopher Trace and Leila Williams.
10. : Nogbad the Bad
Noggin was one of several illustrated creations produced by Oliver Postgate and drawn by Peter Firmin and broadcast by BBC TV.
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Wednesday, 2 August 2023
Web Page 3093
5th August 2023
First Picture: Alexandra Palace
Second Picture: Richard Dimbleby
Third Picture: Richard Baker
Fourth Picture: Hugh Greene
I expect that most of you remember sitting in front of your black and white TV set to watch the BBC News with the rest of your family. I am also sure your remember the title screen of the words BBC NEWSREEL overlayed rotating around the aerial cluster on top of the tower at Alexandra Palace along with its distinctive theme music.
Television news, although physically separate from its radio counterpart, was still firmly under radio news' control in the 1950s. Correspondents provided reports for both outlets, and the first televised bulletin, shown on 5 July 1954 on the then BBC television service and presented by Richard Baker, involved his providing narration off-screen while stills were shown. This was then followed by the customary Television Newsreel with a recorded commentary by John Snagge (and on other occasions by Andrew Timothy).
On-screen newsreaders were introduced a year later in 1955 – Kenneth Kendall (the first to appear in vision), Robert Dougall, and Richard Baker—three weeks before ITN's launch on 21 September 1955.
Mainstream television production had started to move out of Alexandra Palace in 1950[ to larger premises – mainly at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush, west London – taking Current Affairs (then known as Talks Department) with it. It was from here that the first Panorama, a new documentary programme, was transmitted on 11 November 1953, with Richard Dimbleby becoming anchorman in 1955.
In 1958, Hugh Carleton Greene became head of News and Current Affairs.
On 1 January 1960, Hugh Greene became Director-General he made changes that were aimed at making BBC reporting more similar to its competitor ITN, which had been highly rated by study groups held by Greene.
A newsroom was created at Alexandra Palace, television reporters were recruited and given the opportunity to write and voice their own scripts–without having to cover stories for radio too.
On 20 June 1960, Nan Winton, the first female BBC network newsreader, appeared in vision. 19 September 1960 saw the start of the radio news and current affairs programme The Ten O'clock News.
BBC2 started transmission on 20 April 1964 and began broadcasting a new show, Newsroom.
The World at One, a lunchtime news programme, began on 4 October 1965 on the then Home Service, and the year before News Review had started on television. News Review was a summary of the week's news, first broadcast on Sunday, 26 April 1964 on BBC 2 and harking back to the weekly Newsreel Review of the Week, produced from 1951, to open programming on Sunday evenings–the difference being that this incarnation had subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. As this was the decade before electronic caption generation, each superimposition had to be produced on paper or card, synchronised manually to studio and news footage, committed to tape during the afternoon, and broadcast early evening. Thus Sundays were no longer a quiet day for news at Alexandra Palace. The programme ran until the 1980s – by then using electronic captions, known as Anchor – to be superseded by Ceefax subtitling (a similar Teletext format), and the signing of such programmes as See Hear from 1981.
On Sunday 17 September 1967, The World This Weekend, a weekly news and current affairs programme, launched on what was then Home Service, but soon-to-be Radio 4.
Preparations for colour began in the autumn of 1967 and on Thursday 7 March 1968 Newsroom on BBC2 moved to an early evening slot, becoming the first UK news programme to be transmitted in colour[– from Studio A at Alexandra Palace.
However, much of the insert material was still in black and white, as initially only a part of the film coverage shot in and around London was on colour reversal film stock, and all regional and many international contributions were still in black and white. Colour facilities at Alexandra Palace were technically very limited for the next eighteen months, as it had only one RCA colour Quadruplex videotape machine and, eventually two Pye plumbicon colour telecines–although the news colour service started with just one.
Black and white national bulletins on BBC 1 continued to originate from Studio B on weekdays, along with Town and Around, the London regional "opt out" programme broadcast throughout the 1960s (and the BBC's first regional news programme for the South East), until it started to be replaced by Nationwide on Tuesday to Thursday from Lime Grove Studios early in September 1969. Town and Around was never to make the move to Television Centre – instead it became London This Week which aired on Mondays and Fridays only, from the new TVC studios.[29]
The BBC moved production out of Alexandra Palace in 1969. BBC Television News resumed operations the next day with a lunchtime bulletin on BBC1 – in black and white – from Television Centre, where it remained until March 2013.
This move to a smaller studio with better technical facilities allowed Newsroom and News Review to replace back projection with colour-separation overlay. During the 1960s, satellite communication had become possible; however, it was some years before digital line-store conversion was able to undertake the process seamlessly.
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Wednesday, 26 July 2023
Web Page 3091
29th July 2023
First Picture: Farlington Naval Estate
Second Picture: Farlington Race Course
Third Picture: The Marshes
Forth Picture: The George
Sitting in the sunshine in my garden in Gosport the other day I thought back to the days when I grew up in the Drayton/Farlington area, the days when the sun always shone and the biggest problem that we had was what to spend our pocket money on in Mr Shaws’ corner tuck shop in Highlands Road and Solent Road.
Our play area when we were kids was enormous stretching from Portscreek to way over the hill to Widley, from Forty Acres tM Cosham High Street also taking in the Highbury estate.
Farlington Marshes was always a favourite area for us, especially the bit of derelict land, where the Farlington Racecourse used to be before the war, between the Eastern Road and the Cosham Railway Triangle. Here we could explore the area which,, by that time was covered by bracken and brambles. Here we would make dens, float home made rafts and of course go fishing after having dug up the lugworms from the mud to use as bait. I only ever remember catching crabs, never ever a fish.
The other side of the Eastern Road, which is now the nature conservation area, was also a favourite. Here we could discover abandoned military buildings and various other items of wartime use. Here we could dig up the underlying cordite and blow large holes in the mud. Highly dangerous but very enjoyable.
Another source of enjoyment was the number of chalk pits which could be explored. Our favourites were two, the one at the top of Gillman Lane, this had some very strong vegetation through which we could climb across the chalk face of the pit and the pit at the top of Drayton Lane. This last one was rather overgrown and was a great favourite with most of us providing we did not upset the elderly gentleman who lived in a green painted corrugated iron hut in the neighbouring pit on the other side of the Lane.
The hill itself was an adventure playground. In the late 1950’s and early 60’s the land was left unattended and so come the summer the whole of the hill was covered in long grass. This was to provide a fun area from the days of riding your bike through the long grass hoping not to hit a rabbit hole right through to our courting days. (You could not beat the long grass!!)
Further along the hill we would explore around the forts and surrounding areas and up into Deadmans Wood, which today is a shadow of its former self as it has been manicured to fit in with the golf course off Crookhorn Lane on which it now stands.
All this seemed to start to come to an end in the early 1960’s when the council granted permission for the Royal Naval estate to be built at the top of Farlington Avenue with the road pushed through to the hilltop road. This was followed by building permission being given for houses and industrial units to be built on a lot of the vacant plots of land on which we played.
Such is progress. But still I have the memories of happy hours spent on the hill and the marshes, around Flint House and the chalk pits and of an evening buying a bag of chips from Mr Francis chip shop in Drayton and eating them on the way home having added the obligatory salt and vinegar and maybe the server would have also have included just a few scraps to help the snack on its way.
I must be getting old.
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Peter
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Griff Writes:- I can't remember if the pet shop in the Drayton parade of shops had a name or not but there is a good chance it was probably called "Drayton Pet Shop". I think it was next door to the Co-op? My memory has faded on the positioning of some of these Drayton shops. Anyway it's a good time to resurrect Tiggy the Tortoise who has just spent his two weeks Summer holiday with us whilst my Son and family went on holiday. Tiggy is still in fine fettle and in the best of health. Fed on the finest wafer thin sliced carrots and cucumber and dandelion leaves and the flower heads. To turn him into a turbo tortoise he gets his sugar rush from a fresh strawberry and then does he speed around the garden lawn. Contrary to popular belief tortoises can move fairly quickly when they want to and they are thoroughly warmed up by the Sun.
I have had Tigs. since I was 10 years old, bought from the Drayton pet shop for 2/6d. He is a Moroccan tortoise and would have been around 3-5 years old when he came to the UK in or around 1958'ish. He does hibernate in the Winter from November to March in his own purpose built tortoise des. res. detached house built by my Son. My two Granddaughter's look after him at my Son's house. Just think he will outlive all of us as a healthy tortoise can easily live to 150 years old.
Regards to all Melvyn (Griff) Griffiths.
Web Page 3089
21st July 2023
First Picture: Start-Rite Poster
Second Picture: Childrens sandals
Third Picture: X Ray machine
Forth Picture: Norwich Factory
Start-rite is a brand of children's shoes that purportedly is Britain's oldest and one of the first shoe manufacturers in the country. The company was established in 1792 in Norwich by James Smith. His grandson, James Southall, gave the firm its current name; and it rose in prominence during the 20th century thanks in part to an iconic poster, reading Children's shoes have far to go, which was displayed on the London Underground for 20 years from 1947. Controversy exists around the origins of the image in this poster. It has been attributed to artists Andy Wood, William Grimmond, Joe Wilkinson of Stanley Studios, Susan Pearce, Nancy Gardner and to the company's own advertising agent.
In 1955 Start-rite was granted a royal warrant by the late Queen Elizabeth II to supply footwear for the young Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. The company was granted a second royal warrant in 1989 by the Prince of Wales to supply children's footwear for Prince William and Prince Harry. This royal warrant was withdrawn in 2003 on production being moved from the UK. In 2016 Prince George was pictured wearing Start-rite shoes in an official portrait taken to commemorate the 90th birthday of the Queen.
In 2003 the company ceased production in the UK, outsourcing its operations to India and Portugal The cost cutting move came amid a £600,000 annual loss, which the company reversed the following year to turn a £1.5 million profit. Sales further increased by 20% to 2007.
The company focuses on correctly fitting shoes to children's feet, and was the first to introduce variable width fittings for children's shoes.
In 1943 the company carried out the first ever nationwide survey of children’s feet, bringing together experts not just in shoemaking, but in medicine and education and the findings transformed the way children’s shoes are designed and fitted.
Startrite stated that they believed small things could make a big difference when it comes to enabling children to move with comfort and confidence, and they took the decision to create their shoes in multi-width fittings and in half as well as whole sizes. As proud experts in children’s foot health they committed to quality of care and supporting children’s healthy foot development and this remains a core part of their product development..
The iconic advertising image of the twins, called by Startrite as their twin adventurers have been at the heart of the Start-Rite brand for over 70 years. The two adventurers represent the journey of a child’s development – with Start-Rite here to support them every step of the way. The twins are the ultimate visualisation of their pioneering spirit.
Start-Rite proudly say is a business built by, and for, families.
I remember that my mother would only ever buy me Start-Rite shoes and sandals when I was a kid. She always bought them from Smith’s shoe shop on the Havant Road in Drayton. The shop was run by a short Welshman, Mr Smith, despite having one of the enormous foot x-ray machine it looked really incongruous set in the rather tatty and dusty shoe shop.
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Peter
gsseditor@gmail.com
Wednesday, 12 July 2023
Web Page 3087
14 th July 2023
First Picture: As Sir Lancelot Spratt
Second Picture: Poster
Third Picture: With Diana Dors
Forth Picture: With Margaret Rutherford
James Robertson Justice was born on 15th June 1907 and died 2nd July 1975. He is best remembered for portraying pompous authority figures in comedies including the films in the Doctor series. He also co-starred with Gregory Peck in several adventure movies, notably The Guns of Navarone. Born in south-east London to a Scottish father, he became prominent in Scottish public life, helping to launch Scottish Television (STV) and serving as Rector of the University of Edinburgh (1957-60 and 1963-66).
His father Aberdeen-born mining engineer James Norval Justice and Edith (née Burgess), James Robertson Justice was born James Norval Harald Justice in Lee, Lewisham . Educated at St Hugh's School, Bickley, Kent and Marlborough College in Wiltshire, he studied science at University College London, but left after a year and became a geology student at the University of Bonn, where he again left after a year. He spoke many languages including Spanish, French, Greek, Danish, Russian, German, Italian, Dutch and Gaelic.
He returned to the UK in 1927, and became a journalist with Reuters alongside Ian Fleming. After a year, he emigrated to Canada, where he worked as an insurance salesman, taught English at a boys' school, became a lumberjack and mined for gold. He came back to Britain penniless, working his passage on a Dutch freighter washing dishes in the ship's galley to pay his fare.
On his return to Britain, he served as secretary of the British Ice Hockey Association in the early 1930s and managed the national team at the 1932 European Championships in Berlin to a seventh-place finish. He combined his administrative duties in 1931–32 with a season as goalie with the London Lions.
He entered driving a Wolseley Hornet Special in the JCC Thousand Mile Race at Brooklands on 3 and 4 May 1932. The car was unplaced. The following year a "J. Justice (J.A.P. Special)" competed in the Brighton Speed Trials: "Justice's machine 'Tallulah' noisily expired before the end of the course, and was pushed back to the start by way of the arcade under the terrace."
He left Britain again to become a policeman for the League of Nations in the Territory of the Saar Basin (a region of Germany occupied and governed by France and Germany under a League of Nations Treaty of Versailles). After the Nazis came to power, he fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. It was here that he first grew his signature bushy beard, which he retained throughout his career. On returning to Britain, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, but after sustaining a wound in 1943 he was honourably discharged from the service with a pension.
He married nurse Dillys Hayden in Chelsea in 1941, and they had a son, named James. On his return from the war, he reinvented himself with stronger Scottish roots, dispensing with his two middle names and acquiring the new middle name Robertson out of his habit of wearing Robertson tartan. Feeling strongly about his Scottish ancestry. He unsuccessfully contested the North Angus and Mearns constituency for the Labour Party in the 1950 general election.
With his earnings from the film Doctor in the House (1954), he purchased a cottage in the Scottish Highlands village of Spinningdale. In 1966 he appeared as a narrator in five episodes of the BBC children's television series Jackanory, telling stories and legends from Scotland.
He pursued acting after joining the Players' Theatre in London. Under the chairmanship of Leonard Sachs, who latterly was the chairman of The Good Old Days, the club would stage Victorian music hall nights.
With his domineering personality, bulky physique (he played rugby for Beckenham RFC First XV alongside Johnnie Cradock who would become the partner of 1950s TV chef Fanny. With his rich, booming voice, he soon established as a major supporting actor in British comedy films
Best remembered as the demanding surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt in the "Doctor" series of film. On 31st August 1957, he helped launch the TV station Scottish Television (STV). From 1957 to 1960, and again from 1963 to 1966, he was Rector of the University of Edinburgh.
After a series of affairs and the accidental drowning of his four-year-old son in 1949 near his watermill home in Whitchurch, he separated from his wife; she eventually divorced him in 1968. He met actress Irene von Meyendorff in 1960 and they remained together, eventually marrying in 1975 three days before he died.
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Peter
gsseditor@gmail.com
Mary writes
I really enjoyed reading today`s blog as it brought back so many happy memories. I remember visiting Dennis the chemists with my mother, who always said what a wonderful couple Mr& Mrs Dennis were. Many yrs later I worked in the pharmacy of Boots the Chemists in Cosham high St & met their daughter in law. I was taken to that shoe shop from an early age for my Startrite shoes. I often bless my parents as I still have nice straight toes! Another favourite place was the ice cream parlour. My mother would buy fresh fish from Slapes. I still enjoy fish today, although it`s quite expensive these days. Fish was considered a cheap meal in those days. There was the woolshop run by Miss Moffat. Apparently aged 3 I told my father we`d been in Miss Mocktit`s shop! He managed to suppress a giggle my mother told me. The fried fish & chip was a favourite special treat & my father had worked for them. Nappers also springs to mind,
Wednesday, 5 July 2023
Web Page 3085
7th July 2023
First Picture: Lights Ironmongery
Second Picture: The Broadway with Slapes
Third Picture: Broadway Garage
Forth Picture: Havant Road
Richard Newman’s Drayton Memories
Part Two
Shopping in Drayton
Shopping was usually in Drayton with my mother. Once Dysart Road had been extended this provided a shorter route to the shops and the west side of Lower Drayton Lane contained Privett’s lorry yard behind a long brick wall, an old barn and a lane to Drayton farmhouse. At the top of Lower Drayton Lane, adjacent to the Wellington Terrace “cut off” a squirrel that lived in the large trees
On a Monday afternoon we would visit Pinks the grocers (230-232 Havant Road) who had stores all over the Portsmouth and surrounding areas. It was very much a typical grocery with a general counter to the left and a bacon/cheese counter to the right with displays in the middle of the shop. At the back was the managers office (Mr Marshall subsequently succeeded by Mr Southern); this was built of a dark timber with plenty of windows to view the shop and there was a clock in the middle of the frontage. The order would be placed on a Monday – inscribed appropriately on a pink carbon form – with delivery of the goods in a cardboard box in their green van on a Thursday. While my mother debated whether she needed jam, marmalade, Golden Syrup or Quix washing up liquid I would clamber onto the round backed chair and wait patiently knowing that in due course we would catch a bus Bedhampton where I could play on the iron rocking horse in the Recreation Ground.
Edwards the greengrocers (at 157) also offered a similar delivery service and Vivienne, the owner’s daughter would call at the house on her bicycle to collect the order each Tuesday. Another cardboard box containing fruit and veg would be delivered on Thursday. Meat was purchased from Street’s but when this became a motorcycle supplier under the ownership of Doreen, Mr Street’s wife, after her husbands death my mother crossed over the road and shopped at Cooper’s.
As required she would visit Stewart the chemist (at 246) where there was a distinctive blue enamelled weighing machine. Campions (214), Smith and Vospers (228) or Westons, later Greens (256) for bread and cakes; the Post Office which was divided into a stationary shop run by Mrs Brown the postmistress; Slapes for wet fish and Flemings (234) the newsagent usually to pay for the weeks delivered newspapers. My father would buy his pipe tobacco at Jarmans (244) the sweat shop and tobacconist run by Mr and Mrs Keys, While if I needed a haircut I would be take to the hairdressers run by Jack England in a room behind the sweet shop. Occasional visits would be made to Nappers or Lights (129/131) for ironmongery or garden requirements. Mr Smiths shoe shop (260) if I required a new pair of Start-Rite shoes or sandals (Mr Smith was a Welshman and he and he and his wife kept an elderly cat that would be curled up on the shoe boxes). Wynns toy shop in the wartime Nissan hut formerly used as the British Restaurant and in the same building Mr Jones the watchmaker set up business. There was a shop to the front of Herberts Nursery (served by Miss Herbert) for seeds or plants. We also visited Pocklington’s Nursery a few doors down to purchase cucumbers or tomatoes and would walk down the driveway beyond the house to a wooden shed near the greenhouses where the produce was grown. An old school type bell was hung at the door of the shed and when this was rung the late Florrie Smith (whose father was Cosham’s postman when there would only have been one) would emerge from a greenhouse to deal with the order. Florrie had been in the Land Army during the war and could be seen riding her trusty bicycle fitted with a wooden box over the rear wheel. She had lived her whole life in Cosham and was insistent that it was pronounced Cos-ham and not Cosh-am as had been corrupted over the years.
An occasional visit to the doctor would mean a trip to No 183 Havant Road where Dr Ian Partington had his surgery within his house, although he later moved to North End. Dry cleaning requirements were taken to Chapmans laundry (153) the branch being run by a lady called Barbara whilst Denis the chemist a few doors away was sometimes patronised.
I always enjoyed bus travel and the Havant Road was served by twelve daytime services per hour, this would be enhanced by with a further more Farlington - Dockyard Services. The Corporation had in 1947 obtained powers to run trolley buses along the Havant Road but this never came to fruition. Drayton also had its own bus route (N022). This was introduced in 1958 between Upper Drayton (Troon Crescent) and Cosham soon after Lonsdale Road had been metalled and used wartime Bedford OB 26 seater buses which had been reseated with horsehair cushions
Drayton was referred to as ‘the village’ by many people and was a wonderful thriving community you could always meet someone to stop and chat to.
Griff Writes
I see in your latest Manor Court blog the article written by Richard Newman that Flint House has been mentioned again. I have researched in years past for any photo's of Flint House without any success but I believe you had one Peter which you published years ago. If only we had mobile phones in the 1950's fitted with camera's the photo's we could have taken.
Flint House and the grounds were my playground back then and I can confirm that one Charlie Harris and myself both young 10 year old residents of Station Rd. entered into Flint House by gently removing the corrugated iron that was blocking the window off as a security measure. We went all around the floors of Flint House and I have to say it was in very good condition inside from what I remember. The one thing I do clearly remember though was the line of coat hooks with childrens names under the hooks and that would confirm what I discovered many years later that Flint House was used as a temporary children's home during WW2. Charlie and I went inside Flint House many times and we were always very careful to cover our tracks by ensuring that the corrugated iron security panel was put back and looking as if nobody had touched it.
Regards to All Melvyn (Griff) Griffiths.
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Peter
gsseditor@gmail.com
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