CHAMPAGNE sparkling translucently. Cigar smoke mingling with a merry babble of conversation. Ripples of laughter.

Three key characters from Crossroads were relaxing over lunch—Noele Gordon, elegant and sophisticated; polished Brian Kent, and enchanting Jane Rossington.

The meal was over and I talked to them about Crossroads, a vital, ambitious series that looks like becoming as much a part of British television life as Coronation Street.

Crossroads … a highly organised routine by a 100-strong production team and a seven-day week for actors to transmit a daily serial.

Crossroads … set around the lives of two sisters, Meg Richardson, who runs a motel, and Kitty Jarvis, proprietress of a general store. And also the human, compelling stories of travellers who stop at Crossroads Motel, deep in the Midlands, where invariably their lives entangled with those of the main regular characters.

Noele Gordon, who plays Meg Richardson, widowed owner of the motel. After eight years and more than 2,000 shows for ITV, you’d think Noele would be blasé about any new series.

But she told me: “Life is dreadfully hectic again now, but I love it. I try to make Meg Richardson forthright and honest. But with a sense of humour. I try to imagine how I would feel if I were a visitor to the Crossroads motel. I know how I would like to be treated.”

In the series, Meg has been widowed for three years. Naturally, she leans on her lively daughter, Jill, who nurses ideas about heading for London to work on a magazine.

The rich aroma of black coffee wafted across the restaurant as 21-year-old Jane Rossington, the Sutton Coldfield girl who plays Jill, motel receptionist and secretary, told me: “You might say I am accustomed to working in a serial. I had a spell in Emergency—Ward 10.

“But it’s very different working in a five days a week programme. Hard work. Very hard. But it’s lovely to be working so near home.”

Beryl Johnstone, who plays Kitty Jarvis, Meg’s sister and proprietress of a local general store, joined us, requesting a light for a small cigar — she has given up smoking cigarettes.

“This is my television debut,” she told me. “And I’m so glad this series is set in the Midlands. I’ve lived and worked here for 25 years.”

“In fact, we’ve frequently worked together,” chipped in her television husband, Brian Kent. Now, as Dick Jarvis, he is an ex-public school man who cannot readily slot into a steady job. In the series he is in partnership with Victor Amos (Anthony Howard) in a car-hire business. Most of his endeavours end in failure; the hire business looks decidedly shaky.

Other regular members of the series drifted over to exchange views. Like Meg’s son. Sandy, played by 18-year-old Roger Tonge, one-time G.P.O. clerk. “Big break for me,” he said, seriously. “Lucky I don’t look much older than the 15-year-old character I’m playing.”

Anthony Morton, who plays Carlos, the motel chef, evidently had appreciated someone else’s cooking. In the series he’s happy-go-lucky, occasionally temperamental, and at times warring with Meg Richardson.

“But I don’t have time to be temperamental in real life,” he said. “In a hectic series like this, we all depend on teamwork.”

Peggy Aitchison, who plays Mrs. Violet Blundell, the daily help, engaged in deep conversation with Christine, the motel waitress. Both are experienced actresses. Peggy has been on the stage 13 years, both in rep and in television.

Alex Marshall, who plays Christine, is 26, from Smethwick, married with a six-year-old son and has also done rep, television and documentary work.

There, too, was the other regular member of the motel staff, Philip Winter, played by six-footer Malcolm Young. In the series, he’s rather the mystery man, a deserter from the Army who works as a sort of general help. He is another actor who has worked extensively in the Midlands.

I also met David Fennell, 20, who plays Brian Jarvis, son of Kitty and Dick Jarvis, who works in a drawing office. David worked as a fashion photographer and even tried his hand a bullfighting before turning to drama. He has worked in a film of the life of Shakespeare and in a teenage pop show.

He presented his “fiancee,” Janice Gifford, a helper in the general store, played by 21-year-old Carolyn Lyster, from Cheshire, and veteran Shakesperean actor George Skillan, the Jarvis lodger Owen Webb.

Harry Shiels, cheerful Birmingham-born actor who plays Harry Leggett, landlord of the nearby “Crown” and unofficial “father confessor” of the neighbourhood, grinned when he told me: “Well at least I’m not doing pantomime this year.

“I used to play opposite the late Vic Oliver in ‘Old King Cole.’ Did it eight times with him.” Main feature that former Navy man Harry likes about Crossroads is the opportunity to live at home.

One by one, the regulars of the series slipped out of the restaurant.

I collected my notes thinking that the signposts at the Crossroads pointed very definitely to success.

CROSSROADS IN VIEW

The Midlands. A place of spreading industrialisation, progress. Crossroads, ITV’s new daily serial, draws out the colour and dimension of this new world. And playing one of the leading parts is Noele Gordon. The programme, by its own day-to-day nature, is an immense challenge to any actor or actress. But Noele, who plays a widowed mother of a young family who also owns a motel, is used to long, strenuous, successful runs. Many will remember her in “Brigadoon,” which ran for over a thousand performances.

The post Make a date at the Crossroads appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Then you prepare to spend a five-month summer season, 200 miles from home, in Babbacombe, Devon, launching new talent, cheerfully expecting to end up out of pocket.

That, as they say, is show business!

It is, anyway, for Max Bygraves. Who on Tuesday is in Max Bygraves Introduces New Faces. And today we meet in his business office, amid a tape recorder, television set, piano, and a £175 antique clock, light and airy above London’s Leicester Square.

But there’s much more to this particular show than just another compering job for Max, who has 17 Royal Variety performances behind him.

“I am genuinely interested in sponsoring new acts,” he says, earnestly. “And I believe in doing something practical about it. Next summer I am opening the 600-seater Babbacombe Theatre, near Torquay, for a five-month season, starting in May.

“The plan is simply to give new acts the opportunity to appear — regularly — before audiences. I’m expecting to run at a loss, but it’s a job worth doing, anyway.

“There’s no shortage of show business talent these days; but there is a shortage of audiences. Television is good exposure, but it doesn’t give a new act, struggling for experience and expertise, a great chance to appreciate an audience. Clubs… some of those club audiences are soul-destroying, even to a hardened pro.

“Newcomers need regular audiences. To learn about timing. And that’s what we hope to give them at Babbacombe.“

Max is of the old show business school; inclined to wear his heart on his sleeve and certainly not ashamed of it He

believes show business is a glamorous business; that audiences want to see performers well dressed, with neat haircuts.

He doesn’t go along with the contemporary scruffy image that certain fields of entertainment have adopted. Tuesday’s show will sparkle, be sure of that.

But what has all this to do with Tuesday’s show?

Max explains: “I heard that light entertainment producer John Hamp had launched a drive to find new talent in the North. So I contacted him with the idea of giving his most promising find a spot — if they wanted it — at Babbacombe.

“We met, talked and somehow ended up agreeing to do Max Bygraves Introduces New Faces. The acts will be impressive, believe me: a group from South Wales called The Amen Corner, who have already made an impact on the charts with one disc. A comedian called John Paul Joans, from Halesworth, Suffolk, with a nice comic touch. I liked singer Danny Wilson, too, from Sheffield, who features a Tony Bennett approach to a number.

“There’s a light-hearted flavour to the show which appeals to me, because I still believe that, above all else, audiences want to have a good laugh. I shall be introducing Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band — and I mean, that name is enough for a giggle on its own, isn’t it? The Grumbleweeds group, too, have a comedy act.

“Believe me, I will be one of the most interested spectators, standing in the wings. I shall be talent spotting myself, and might well offer a Babbacombe booking to one of the acts.” Max has recently returned from a colourful one-night stand in Dallas, Texas, which he completed as part of British Week in Dallas.

Incredible and off-beat were his experiences:

In a state that gives up around 200,000,000 gallons of oil a day, he ended up in a hotel bed that squeaked!

He met a millionaire with a three-acre swimming pool who boasted that “there ain’t a living thing in it, either!” Max’s reply: “What did he expect — the Loch Ness Monster?”

He ate steaks so tender that he can’t work out how the steer from whence they came managed to hold together.

And he performed before a diamond-dripping audience of oil tycoons and their wives that included, surprisingly, Princess Alexandra and her husband, Mr. Angus Ogilvy.

He also bought a Texan ten-gallon hat, which has given him troubles he did not envisage. You buy them it appears, undented, looking exactly like the headwear popularised by Hoss Cartwright in Bonanza — remember?

Then you shape to taste. “I’ve massaged, manipulated and mollycoddled mine,” reports Max. ”I even shouted ‘banzai’ and delivered it a deadly karate chop, dead centre. It dented all right, then sprang straight back to its original shape!

“Now I think the only answer is the steam heat treatment. You know, steam it with a kettle, then mould it. It will be very handy if ever I use my horse act again.” (Max is a proficient horseman). “Do you think that might work, Dave?”

Hmmm, think I’d rather not comment. Texans might consider an attack on one of their beloved ten-gallon hats by an olde Englishe tea kettle as the greatest humiliation since The Alamo. And I wouldn’t want to upset Texas.

But, while the subject is new acts: Max, wrestling with a ten-gallon hat, armed with a steaming kettle, is one performance I’d love to see…

The post Lanning meets Max Bygraves, talent spotter appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Last year, 84,871,000 records (of all kinds) were sold. In Tin Pan Alley it was chronicled as a “Beat Year.” Golden guitars and all that. In the half-year until July, 1967, 40,800,000 (approximately the same six-month figure as 1966) discs rang till bells. This week on Anglia Television, we have ballad-type singers Gigi Galon, in The Golden Shot, John Walker, in The Eamonn Andrews Show, and newcomer David McWilliams, who sings folksy ballads in About Anglia on Friday.

The pop scene traditionally defies conventional analysis, but the current image has much to do with Mr. Engelbert Humperdinck, who starts his own series on Anglia later this month. He has sold over 2,000,000 records and had three No. 1s. All sentimental ballads.

You could say Engelbert arrives on screen as a pop iconoclast; the quiet revolutionary who stirred it by putting sugar in the charts; the man who got Mums buying hits, influencing the charts.

Say it to Engelbert and he nearly chokes on his cigar — he smokes five a day.

“It’s not Mums who mob me and attempt to tear me limb from limb,” he retorts. “And I don’t honestly think it is respectable suburban mothers who scream when I sing in a theatre or cabaret.

“Dave, today there is a very wide public buying records. There always has been. And the record-buyers choose from a very wide range. They buy beat and ballad.

“Hits aren’t the exclusive property of teenagers, either. And there has always been a reasonable percentage of ballads in the charts.”

The facts seem to bear Engelbert out.

The world’s most successful recording artists are: Bing Crosby, basically a balladeer, who sold 250 million records up to July, 1964; and Elvis Presley, who has blended beat and ballad over the years, with over 100,000,000 sales.

The top selling song is a ballad — a corny one — “White Christmas,” with 44 million sales since first recorded in 1941.

Judging on the half-yearly returns, this year’s record sales are about the same as previous years.

Engelbert’s personal sales (over 2,000,000) don’t suggest the domination that The Beatles enjoyed in their heyday, when they had world-wide advance orders of 2,100,000 for “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

But let’s face it: The Beatles were — and still are — a once-a-lifetime phenomenon. Ballads haven’t ousted beat; the balance has simply returned to the charts.

Today, Engelbert believes people like a good melody and lyrics they understand. “There’s a lot of gibberish written now,” he says. “But I’m not saying kids are buying ballads instead of gibberish. They’re buying both.

“Maybe they don’t advertise they have my records because their Mums enjoy them too. To kids, Mums, inevitably, are square. And the kids hate to think they, too, are the teeniest bit square.

“But I don’t think it follows that they are just because they like what Mum likes. There’s some pretty swinging Mums around.

“It isn’t right to say adults are ruling the Top 10 and music is on the way back, either. Music has never been out of the charts. Look in Top 10’s of five and 10 years ago — you’ll find roughly the same proportion of ballads as you find today.

“I don’t think Mums actually buy many records. But they hear my records on radio and television. Fortunately, they enjoy them.

“I’m thrilled that I have a wide appeal. In show business that usually means you last. And I want to last.”

It’s interesting talking to Engelbert. Last time we met, he’d just arrived in the charts, after years of trying. He was still breathless and school-boyishly excited about the prospect of stardom after all the heartbreak.

Has he changed? Outwardly, not at all. He is still shy, friendly, quietly spoken, anxious to help, genuine. But under the surface, well…

I always called him Gerry (his real name). People around him did; it seemed the thing to do. Now he’s “Engel.”

Even his wife calls him that. He lives in a modest maisonette in Hammersmith, West London. But has visions of a cottage, with plenty of land, down Weybridge, Surrey, way.

Why lots of land — is he a gardener? “No, but I want a dog, a Pyrennean Mountain dog and maybe a horse, and they have got to have room to move, man.”

Carefully groomed, he smokes cigars, drinks champagne. drives the latest model Jaguar, and wears a magnificently elegant watch that cost three figures of £’s.

“But please don’t make me out as a flashy type,” he says. “I don’t throw money about. I don’t drink or smoke for the image bit; champagne is refreshing and good for the throat.

“Cigars won’t upset my health, either. Buying this watch worried me silly. I walked away from the shop once. I still feel a little guilty about spending so much money on myself.

“But I don’t worry about the money I’m earning; haven’t a clue how much I’ve earned. I have complete faith in my handlers.”

He isn’t flashy; but modest and relaxed. I fancy it would take plenty to make Engel lose his head. Recently, one of his infants knocked over and completely wrecked the television. Engel just laughed. “Well, it was funny,” he said. “And, surely, it’s best to see the humorous side of any accident?”

He’s the man who has sold a million records and launched a million theories about changing pop tastes.

The controversy he prefers to ignore; he’s just happy doing what he’s doing.

And the incredible world that Thomas Alva Edison created when he patented the gramophone on February 19, 1878, keeps spinning along.

Hits, misses, or myths, it’s impossible to ignore it.

The post Lanning… pop goes a myth appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

HIT tunes. And The Beatles. They seem to go together like bacon and eggs. But we never seem to hear very much about HOW they write hit tunes.

Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney have been dubbed Britain’s answer to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Together, they have produced 52 successful numbers in four years. How do they do it? That’s what I asked when I interrupted their latest recording session at St. John’s Wood, London. And the answer: while tramping about Britain and the world in transit from one date to another.

“From Me To You” was born on a coach during a one-night stand tour; “This Boy” was originally scribbled down on an Airport Disposal Bag; “Can’t Buy Me Love” happened in Paris; in fact, the lads did most of the numbers from their first film “A Hard Day’s Night” while in Paris or touring America.

See The Beatles in:
Ready, Steady, Go! Friday
Lucky Stars Special, Saturday

Top left: Paul McCartney, bass guitarist. The Brainy Beatle. Speaks three languages.
Top right: George Harrison, lead guitarist. The Artistic Beatle. Teachers predicted he’d be a famous painter.
Bottom left: John Lennon, rhythm guitarist. Playing left-handed? “Well,” says John, “anything Paul can do…”
Bottom right: Ringo Starr, drummer. The Latest Beatle. Joined the group in 1962

No set routine. Sometimes John dreams up the tune and Paul writes the words; sometimes it’s the other way round. Paul wrote “Can’t Buy Me Love” on his own. John was the man behind their latest, “I Feel Fine.” But they always have a joint credit. Because they work together on the final “polishing up” technique, words and music.

They have a knack of knowing exactly what the other is thinking of musically. Call it pop rapport, if you like.

John whipped up “I Feel Fine” in an intense 90 minutes at the St. John’s Wood recording studios just over a month ago. It was waxed inside another hour — swift work by any standard.

Mention of Paris. Know how you say Rolling Stones in French? Thousands of beat-barmy Parisians know. When word spread that these five shaggy-maned laddies were appearing at the Paris Olympia, fans besieged the place.

All seats were sold within 24 hours’ notice that the Stones were to appear there. That’s the best business ever for the internationally-famous Olympia.

France digs the Rolling Stones. Spaniards love Susan Maughan. Slinky Sue spent three days in Spain a fortnight ago, fêted as the Best TV Artist in a nation-wide magazine poll.

When she returned to London, she notched up a motoring landmark, too. Her first parking ticket! Fined £2 [£40 today, allowing for inflation]. And they call her “Bobby’s Girl!”

Françoise Hardy, the 18-year-old French pop-ette who will be singing her latest “Pourquoi tu n’aime” on Saturday is motor-mad, too.

Crazy about cars. Drives a Mini-Cooper at high speed without batting an eyelash. Even in Paris’s traffic jungle. Until last month, when she was filmed driving around for an ITV company.

Françoise told me she was so busy trying to follow the instructions of the cameraman, she collided with SEVEN cars.

The Searchers are off to foreign parts soon. Or rather, a foreign part. Sweden. They’ve never been there before. Told me they were looking forward to smörbröd.

Smörbröd? Not a one-night stand town. It’s Scandinavian for bread and butter. And The Searchers just love freshly-baked foreign bread.

Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas are just back from America. Surprise for them in Hollywood. Had a visit from Chief Shooting Star, 73-year-old head of the Dakota nation and a descendant of Sitting Bull. He wanted to meet the lads who were using his tribe’s name to make heap big music.

Gave the lads beads and handsomely-finished Indian gear.

Also on American pop patrol: The Animals. Their 21-day jaunt had the girls in hysterics. Real, genuine hysterics.

In New York a lass had prolonged hysterics and was carted off to hospital in a strait-jacket! And in Utica, New York State, a theatre safety curtain had to be lowered five times in the same performance to save the Animals from rampaging fans.

While The Searchers are in Sweden, they will probably hear the name Lorne Lesley mentioned. She’s a big star there. But this dusky lass from Tiger Bay had language problems out there at first.

Take her first big show in Scandinavia. Didn’t know the Swedish for “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.” So asked her pianist, who was also something of a wag. He told her… how to say:

“Good evening, ladies and drunken dogs.”

Lorne stepped up, was halfway through the greeting, then the audience was amazed when the pianist rushed across the stage and clapped his hand over the mike! Since then she carries an Anglo-Swedish dictionary.

No language problems for Long John Baldry. But he’s got sleeping problems. Especially in this colder weather.

Long John is a lofty 6ft. 7½in. [2.02m] tall. Longest bed he can find is only 6ft. 2in. [1.88m] So five chilly inches [13cm] of Baldry leg, plus the Baldry foot, stick out at the bottom. How does he manage to sleep at all? Easy. Wears football socks!

Finally, back to America. That’s where the Isley Brothers — Ronald, Rudolph and O’Kelly — live. Started early in show business. Brother Ronald was just three years old when he won a £25 War Bond in a song contest at Cincinnati Union Baptist Church!

Who are the Isley Brothers? Group who did the original recordings of “Twist and Shout” and “Shout,” both hot cover discs for The Beatles and Lulu respectively.

TAILPIECE: And don’t forget you can see pop stars Larry Parker and Jan Douglas in Tuesday’s Five O’Clock Club and The Trendsetters in Friday’s Five O’Clock Club.

The post Pop stars unlimited! appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

THE Small Faces will sing these lines during their number “I Can’t Make It” in The Morecambe and Wise Show on Sunday.

Just to print them, as above, costs £1 1s [£1.05 in decimal, £18.50 now allowing for inflation]. When the complete song is sung on television on Saturday the composers and publishers will share a further £53 12s. 7d. [about £53.63, £950] paid by the television company.

There’s money all right in words and music.

And the song-writing season is with us again.

Now, as the evenings draw in, thousands of more active amateurs, are tinkling, one-fingered, at pianos, fiddling with tape, juggling, jiggling and jingling to find that magic permutation of crochets, quavers, that spells … H—I—T.

Dick James is head of Northern Songs, who publish Beatle numbers. His quote: “We get 20 songs a week through the post in summer. Now our mailbag swells to 50 a week.” Multiply that by 400, the approximate number of British publishers.

That is 20,000 hopeful writers each week from now until spring.

You can’t blame them for trying to ring the bell.

Take television this week. Bobby Rydell as well as The Small Faces will sing pop songs in The Morecambe and Wise Show. So will The Dave Clark Five in The Golden Shot. So, probably, will at least one guest in The Eamonn Andrews Show. So will stars on more localised programmes.

Every time someone sings on a fully networked television show, the composers and publishers of that number are paid £53 12s. 7d. by the television company. On local stations a minimum of £6 [£106 allowing for inflation] is shared by the people behind the song.

Ah yes, but how do they keep track of each performance? The writer doesn’t have to bother. It’s done for him by the Performing Right Society. They collect more than £5 million [£88.5m] a year from performances all over the world, even behind the Iron Curtain. Last year from ITV alone they collected £687,950 [£13m].

So you want to be a songwriter? Perry Ford, of The Ivy League, writes about 15 numbers that are recorded each year.

He is one of the elite “in-crowd” among Britain’s song writers. His quote: “My first ever song ‘Someone Else’s Baby,’ in 1960, was a hit for Adam Faith. It just came into my head when I was tinkling the piano.

“The record sold a quarter of a million copies. My cut was £1,500.” [£27,000]

BUT … if someone sings a song by Perry in the Eamonn Andrews Show on Sunday, his share would be £26 16s. 3½d. [about £26.82 in decimal, £475 after inflation]

There are 970 full members of The Song Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, and 890 associate members (the part-time songwriters). A few years ago, the Performing Right Society worked out the average earnings from royalties for a composer was £400 [£7000] a year.

But it is virtually impossible to pin down the “average” in song writing. You can earn a fortune one year (“A Whiter Shade of Pale” could earn £30,000 [£532,000]) and nothing for the next two. Royalties can keep dribbling in for decades.

A high percentage of the songs we hear each week originate from a nucleous of established writers — Perry Ford, Chris Andrews, Graham Gouldman, Les Reed, Mitch Murray, Mick Jagger and Keith Richard (of The Rolling Stones), Tom Springfield.

And, of course, the pop daddies of ’em all, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Round figures become staggering when you investigate their song-writing activities. By the end of the year, they should have completed 120 numbers.

A recent audit showed, since they started five years ago, 2,921 different versions have been recorded, selling 200,000,000 copies at an iceberg cool £20,000,000 [£355m]. And we’re not counting Performing Right Royalties.

In its first 18 months of existence Northern Songs received £289,292 [£5m] in royalties. A quarter of the holdings were sold when the company went public. John and Paul netted £96,875 [£1.7m] each. Tax free — this was before the capital gains tax was introduced.

Dick James, balding, with heavily-rimmed spectacles, sits behind a huge executive desk around the corner from Tin Pan Alley and talks song-writing amicably, but briskly.

“1 wouldn’t buy a song outright. In the past, hard-up writers have sold their interest for a quick fiver and thrown away thousands in royalties Now we work on a shared basis. It gives the business a better reputation.

“No, I don’t think any intentional plagiarism goes on. But be fair: there are only 13 notes for song-writers, amateurs or professionals, to play with. They’ve been permutated for hundreds of years. There are bound to be accidental coincidences.”

But with pop songs, some people, some of the time, just can’t go wrong. No wonder so many people are tinkering with pianos and fiddling with tape recorders now the darker evenings are here.

You’ve heard Dick’s voice at some time or other. You must have, singing the signature tune of ITV’s marathon series Robin Hood. He recorded it in 1955 a month before ITV started and accepted a £100 [£2,610] flat fee. They used the fifth of 37 takes.

Dick said, ruefully: “If I had had a modest royalty, say five bob a performance, I would have made thousands from it. But I did earn £3,000 [£78,000] from record sales of the same number.”

The post Lanning and the write-price of pop appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

For this is where Wilde held court; here the literary and artistic intelligentsia of the time paid service to his table… George Bernard Shaw, Aubrey Beardsley, Frank Harris, Max Beerbohm. Here the wit, and the wine, flowed.

So where better to meet the lady who is to play one of Wilde’s best-known characters?

“Of course,” muses Barbara, a keen student of Wilde and his work, “this probably isn’t his table. But it is near the door; it is the sort of place where he would have liked to sit. With his vanity, he would have liked everyone to observe him, as they passed to and fro.” Barbara dovetails perfectly into this still-rarefied, refined atmosphere. Tall, strikingly handsome, with marine-green eyes and raven hair, she is the daughter of a Somerset bank manager and never saw a play performed professionally until she was 16.

Now, 20 years later, she is one of Britain’s leading Shakespearian actresses. But, in manner, not in the least stuffy or theatrical. Not a trace of a bluestocking, although one critic described her as “a jewel of loftiness and dignity.”

While on her honeymoon (she is married to actor John Turner) she skipped away to read Browning’s poetry to a student gathering. And, when she played in Shaw’s “St. Joan” she was hailed as “the sexiest Joan of Arc ever to put on armour.”

Yet she is warm, friendly, easy to converse with. Dreamily she contemplates: “There was such an elegance about Edwardian days. It must have been super being ‘the Grand Actress of The Day.’ All furs, jewellery and crinoline, sweeping into places like this, with a wake of anxious footmen and waiters. This is why I love playing Wilde. It has a grandeur. Flair.”

How does life for the modem working actress about-town compare with the old Edwardian image?

“Our life is far more frantic Dashing about to rehearsals… having to find our own taxis. I can just imagine a lady like Mrs. Erlynne having to summon her own hansom! And we have to look after a home and a husband without a servant. Today we’re rather frenzied creatures. Wilde would have been horrified with us.”

Barbara has a large flat in London and a cottage (without a telephone) in Oxfordshire. She appears at the National Theatre; this morning she has been hard at Shakespeare, for a radio programme. Recently, she has been the centre of controversy — and acclaim — for her film portrayal of Molly Bloom in “Ulysses.” And this week: Lady Windermere’s Fan. A busy, yet versatile actress.

“But overall, I’m glad I’m living when I am,” she admits, nibbling scampi. “Those Edwardian clothes were splendid, but terribly restricting. Hot, too. It’s so much better these days to swing around in a skirt and sweater. And an actress today is at least permitted a mind of her own. Views on things. The dashing Madams of the Nineties were simply fanciful figures, something additional to decorate the scene!

“No, it is preferable to act Edwardians, rather than to have been one.”

Are Wilde’s characters easier to play than more contemporary parts?

“Yes, I think they are. These immortal words seem to flow. They are certainly easier to remember. They have a rhythm.” Does this apply to Shakespeare? (I retain memories of many a tortured schoolboy hour which almost put me off The Bard for life!)

Barbara has played most of Shakespeare’s leading female parts. Doesn’t she have trouble remembering those lines? Or occasionally get Ophelia jumbled up, with, say, Rosalind? “No, never. Shakespeare’s are the easiest lines for me to remember. They really do flow, there’s no other word to describe it.”

And how does she react to all her publicity? The “sexiest St. Joan” angle? And what about the unexpected — and, I think, inaccurate — critic who accused her of “striding about like a man”?

“Oh, that, ’she says, derisively “That’s just publicity. Writers have got to say something about me; so they compete to say something different or original, just like Wilde and his companions here in the Café Royal. I mean, stride about like a man. Me? You had no difficulty keeping up with me, did you? Neither did the head waiter who showed us to the table. The writer of that line must have been a woman!”

Somewhere, somehow, I fancy the ghost of Oscar Wilde is looking down and smiling on the table at the Café Royal, his beloved haunt, of the Naughty Nineties…

The post Lanning: Barbara Jefford prefers life in the Sixties appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Miss Julie Rogers is at home in her flat in Kingsbury, North London.

A pretty face. Dark, almond-shaped eyes, long lashes, the hair naturally chestnut.

Oh yes, Julie is one of Britain’s most attractive singers.

She is a guest star in The Bruce Forsyth Show this week. She said: “Already I’ve a sore throat thinking about the show. That’s the way my nerves come through… via the throat. My greatest dread is that my voice will go during my act. But whenever I start to sing, it just vanishes.”

Conversation flows easily with Julie.

“I’ve been in show business seven years,” she said. “I like to think of myself as a professional. Certainly I feel I’m becoming more accepted internationally.”

Julie likes to stand while she talks; she says it’s more comfortable. She was Cockney born in Bermondsey. But there’s no trace of Cockney twang.

“I don’t think the success I’ve found has made me throw tantrums. I wouldn’t know how to throw a tantrum; I’m sure I’d feel foolish. No, I haven’t changed, have I. Ted?” — an anxious glance at manager, guide and mentor Teddy Foster.

“No, I’d never get away with it. You see, I spend 95 per cent of my spare time with my family. Two sisters, two brothers, I’m the youngest. They would run me out of town if I started any tantrums. I’m an auntie to nine. I’d love to have children of my own.”

She’s certainly eligible for marriage. What sort of husband docs she want? What about show business marriages? The answers are immediate. Obviously she has thought this out.

“Show biz weddings? Well, they must be better than non-show-biz weddings. How could I expect a man earning £30 a week to swallow his pride and marry me? A husband must be the boss; his earnings must be, well, comparable anyway. We couldn’t possibly be compatible if he had a nine-to-five job.

“And what would he say if I pushed off for a three-month tour of Australia?” (She is bound there again in the autumn.)

“No, it must be better to marry someone in the business, who understands the business.”

Julie is a strong-willed girl, and a shrewd judge of character. Manager Foster rates her highly as a business woman, too, and says her intuition is never wrong.

“When I was a kid I went dotty over good-looking boys simply because they were handsome. Now I look more for character and personality. These are things that grow on you so I think true love will happen gradually for me.”

Julie gets around. Wanderlust gripped her as a teenager; she went hiking off to Spain with a chum, via a refrigerated fish van.

Her travelling since has been somewhat more luxurious: to Australia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Capri, Singapore, all over Europe, South Africa. And still loves travelling.

Her comment: “We’re all citizens of the world. It seems pointless to content yourself with one small fraction of it all your life.”

She’s emerged from:

A nightmare drive through an allegedly impassable Alpine pass during a freak thunderstorm;

A plane which picked up a bird in one jet over the Indian Ocean;

A flight that circled for 50 minutes — under full crash routine — around Singapore, with an undercarriage fault.

Enough to put most folk off travel. Not Julie. “I had a sort of excited feeling. The crew were so calm, there didn’t seem any point in becoming hysterical.”

There she stands, posing for photographs, working up a sore throat thinking about her ITV date on Sunday awaiting her next travels, looking forward, one day perhaps, to a career in acting.

Quite a girl. Definitely, but definitely, more than just a pretty face.

The post Lanning at Large meets a singer with no tantrums appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

The bells on the beach donkeys are magically quiet; a comparative hush settles over the Golden Mile. Ssh, listen carefully — you can actually hear the sea lapping on the sand.

A lull time. When you can hear yourself think. And Bruce Forsyth, who on Sunday returns with music, gags, guests and that wide, half-melon grin in a new series of The Bruce Forsyth Show sits thoughtfully before the multiple mirrors of his Opera House dressing-room and considers the question of getting old.

I didn’t broach the subject. Bruce is one of those irrepressibly lively types who makes any conversation interesting — young at heart. And he seems in particularly splendid form today; the golf round went well this morning; the family are ensconced in his rented bungalow at St Anne’s.

The beer is chilled, the dressing room is cool. All is at peace. So why should the subject of agelessness — always one of the great virtues of show business personalities — crop up?

“Because I have decided that I’d like to stay just as I am for ever,” he says, solemn as a judge. “I’m at a lovely age — the perfect age for any man.”

He is 39. Twenty-five years in show business. He has known heartbreak and fame; his three little girls are pushing on towards 11-plus. “Yes, 39. The perfect age — when time ought to stand still. And you know what? Everyone says: ‘Aren’t you going grey?’

“It doesn’t notice much on television. But here in Blackpool I hear it all the time. But David” — Bruce hates diminutives in names — “it doesn’t worry me in the slightest.

“I’m not one of those types who sit in front of mirrors going mad over every wrinkle, every grey hair. I’ve got an old face. I’ve only got to screw up my eyes and I can play 70-year-olds. That’s nature.

“I think grey hair rather suits me. And it will come over beautifully on colour television. Makes me look mature.

“That’s how I feel. Able to cope with life. I’m better balanced now than at any time I can recall. And much more relaxed than I was, say, 10 years ago.

He pulls long legs up under him on the couch, takes a sip of bitter lemon and sucks a barley sugar, for “Blackpool throat,” a mysterious ailment that seems to attack most singers in this summer heart of British show business. And he looks immensely relaxed, assured, contented. What’s the reason?

“I’ve so much more under my belt now, so much more behind me. I’ve done a West End show (“Little Me”) and a Hollywood film with Julie Andrews (“Star”) and the last television series went down well.

“Just working with television professionals — writers, fellow artists and production people — is my idea of the ultimate. I don’t have to knock myself out any more. I don’t have to prove myself.

“Once the thought that I might be out of work for a fortnight horrified me. Now I don’t have to care. I can take it in my stride. I’m well set, and that’s bound to lead to a more relaxed attitude.”

A surprisingly well-ordered character, is Bruce. He plays golf only every other day. “If you play every day it gets on top of you. You start remembering yesterday’s faults and they haunt you. Give it a day’s break and you start fresh.”

His handicap is nine. Today he went round in only four over … way above my class — so we won’t linger on this particular subject!

But, inevitably, the parallel comes up. “Life is like a round of golf. If you slice one, or miss an easy putt, get it out of your mind and play on. Keep swinging.

“If you play brilliantly, well, tomorrow you might be awful. But you must accept this. You must put the last shot out of your mind and concentrate on the next one.

“Doing a television show is like that. If you do a good show, fine — but don’t rest on your laurels. If you do a bad one you’ve got to soldier on and not let it affect you.”

How does a professional like Bruce know when he is doing a good show or not? Plain intuition? Critical opinion from others?

“You know after the first sketch. If you’re getting laughs in the right place, if the thing is gelling, ticking, just plain going well. You just know.

“If it isn’t, you feel it. And you mustn’t panic. Plug away. Hope it will explode. It does happen. The pressure is greater then, of course, but I think I work better under pressure.”

Bruce Forsyth is obviously a man in love with show business. He believes in what he’s doing. And in his friends in the business — and many of them are coming up in the series: Harry Secombe, Tommy Cooper, Roy Castle, Dudley Moore, Jimmy Logan. Bruce involves himself with them in the same manner as you might chat with friends at a party.

He wants the show to be a success — but doesn’t allow it to brood on his mind. He has the priceless ability to shut things off completely; yet concentrate intently (even learning his script by tape recorder while driving to the studios!) if the occasion demands.

He’s a man who sleeps well, looks after himself. “Your body is only a machine, after all.” He prefers wholemeal bread, honey, health foods. He cuts down fried food to the minimum. He rather enjoys these lull-time, teatime chats…

But now teatime is over. Lights are starting to twinkle. People appear. The air seems to tingle. You can’t hear the sea any more.

An hour to curtain up.

Time marches on — but at least Bruce Forsyth, the man who would like time to stand still, is ready to accept it.

The post Lanning at Large… finds Forsyth the Philosopher appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Now I have always felt Dave Allen, under the surface, is a rather lonely, rather angry young man.

Lonely… because, well, he always seems to be working on his own. Or just with a stool on a huge stage. Just by himself. No trimmings. And now he is the one-man inquisitor every Sunday in Tonight with Dave Allen.

Angry. Hard to explain this, particularly about a successful comedian with an abounding propensity for making all sorts of people laugh. Yet his joking and humour has always struck me as slightly barbed. Having a prod about… oh, Irishmen, drinking, life, himself. Not malicious. Nor satirical. But a dig just the same.

He lights a French cigarette (he virtually chain-smokes during conversations) and considers my analysis. “Lonely? Not really. No, not at all. I have a fairly large circle of friends, mostly outside show business.

“They’re the same people I’ve known for years. Knew them when I started in the business 12 years ago; we still have the same sort of friendship going now that I’m better known.

“Friendship to me is like an interrupted conversation you pick up six months later. It should happen automatically. It shouldn’t follow any course or take a consistent shape. No, I don’t feel lonely, anyway. And surely that’s the worst part of loneliness?”

The quiet, confident manner that hallmarks Dave Allen performances in front of audiences and television cameras isn’t an act. It’s his natural manner. It comes through in all his conversations. His voice is little more than a whisper: very rarely a trace of any expected Irish ebullience.

“Angry? Many things make me angry. I’m not very pleased when lorry drivers lean out of their cabs and hail me with ‘Hiya, Paddy.’ But that’s to be expected.

“I’m always a little worried about reacting impulsively on the programme, if ever anything that makes me angry comes up.

“All kinds of intolerance make me angry. The colour question. All the infighting that goes on within the various denominations of the Christian Church. People who hoot their horns at traffic lights.”

When he talks, his hands become expressive. The inevitable cigarette burns away, unpuffed. The cheese and pickles are forgotten.

“Yes, people who hoot unnecessarily. They get me. There’s a lovely story about the cool type who, when hooted at, waits until the lights turn green, switches off the engine, leaves the car and approaches the fellow behind, politely asking: “Excuse me, am I bothering you in some way?”

“Of course, by this time the lights have changed back to red!

“I could never be that cool, though I’d love to be. I’m impulsive. If I could press a button that would make a whopping crane swoop in and carry off the offending hooter, I’d press it on the spot.

“But I can’t. So I swallow the reaction and do nothing. So I can’t be that angry, can I?” His programme, Tonight with Dave Allen was not hotly bally-hooed. It sort of crept in and was allowed to make its own impression on people.

“I didn’t want the show to start with a great fanfare of trumpets. It takes time for a show like this to gain shape, character. I just hope people appreciate this and don’t prejudge. Personalities are always wary about appearing in a new show; they like to see how it is developing first.

“I see the programme as a kind of newspaper. Picking up anything that is interesting and invevstigating [sic], probing. Okay, so maybe we get a crank or two. I love cranks. Life needs them. Otherwise, everything becomes regimented, a great grey mass and awful.”

Most mornings, Dave is in the research office, batting ideas back and forth with the production team. “I could sit at home and communicate by phone. But it’s my show. It means something to me. I want to be part of everything within it.”

He wants to get to know each person who is going to appear. Personally. He will whip them out for a steak lunch or a drink in this very corner seat. “Give us an hour alone and I think I’ll have pinned down their interesting points.”

In Ireland he once worked as a junior reporter (“wedding receptions, football matches and, thank goodness, it was a weekly paper — it gave me time to organise reports properly! ”). There’s still plenty of basic newspaperman in him.

“I’m interested in people. Very, very few conversations bore me. I like to let people go on because even though they might be boring, you never know if they’re going to come up with something good later.

“On the show I’ve got to try to analyse public taste, and occasionally cut people short. I’m not really worried what people think of me. I don’t think many will leave the programme thinking I’m a rotten swine.”

Tonight with Dave Allen is his full-time job for the moment. He does not wish to accept any other bookings, although he keeps faith with a few long-standing invitations to speak at dinners.

He’s intense, but enormously conscientious; serious, but not depressing.

“I enjoy controversy and appreciate the need for people to get angry, to let off steam,” he says.

The post Lanning at Large discovers a Dave Allen you don’t know appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

They lived three doors apart in Shepperton, Middlesex: identical houses, architect-designed, open-plan jobs, all glass, sunshine and light, before Tom moved on, a fortnight ago, to a house at Sunbury-on-Thames (which, incidentally, once belonged to Dickie).

But on this lazy, hazy summer afternoon I’ve caught them on a neighbourly rendezvous, sharing ice-cold lager at Dickie’s place. A rare afternoon. It’s not often their engagements on stage, television or in cabaret allow them to get together.

And when they do they talk … about television, stage and The Dickie Valentine Show, which starts on Friday and which stars the pair of them.

“Television,” says Tom, “is still the most nerve-racking business of all for a performer. You know, I squirm in my seat just watching singers I know performing on television; I know how worked up they are.

“You’re inhuman if that huge, unseen audience out there doesn’t affect you. On a live show, you know when an audience is with you. Or against you. On TV, you’re never sure.”

“Right,” says Dickie. “And you can be the biggest stage attraction in the country and go virtually unrecognised unless you get exposure on television. It’s the greatest challenge an artist can have; that’s why I like to have confidence in the guest stars on my show. And why I asked for Tom.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do yet. But we know we get on together. That we can adapt. We’re mates.”

Mates, yes. Yet they are of different eras.

Dickie: smooth, immaculate balladeer of the big-band age, one of the first British singers girls screamed at and over in the Fifties. Quiet, deep, introspective, yet not insular.

Tom: expressive, explosive, rhythm and blues orientated artist, right in the big-time of the Sixties.

Different worlds. Last time I met Tom, it was among the summer season jet-setters of Juan-les-Pins, on the Riviera. My last rendezvous with Dickie was here at his home.

And how do these worlds differ? How have standards, music, fans, records and television changed?

Dickie: “I think my day was a lot friendlier. Fans were better natured. The kids who tore their hair over me, did the same for Dennis Lotis, David Whitfield, Frankie Vaughan. Now the fans tear each other’s hair out. That’s not sour grapes, Dave. There’s a lot to be said for the current crop of kids. They just seem to be a bit more violent. It’s just the way things have developed.”

Tom: “Aye, there is a lot of bad feeling between rival fan units. I’ve been a tearaway in my time, mind, but I find it a bit distasteful now. Puts you off doing concerts.”

So how has music changed?

Tom: “Oh, the scene now is vast, tremendously comprehensive. Pop stars get so much exposure on television and radio. I mean, when I was a kid in South Wales, you never saw a big pop name.

“I would have hitch-hiked for miles in the rain to see someone like Dickie. And pop television and radio programmes were once-a-week things; now you only have to switch on to have it all day.”

So who had it easier? To make a hit?

Dickie: “Much easier in my day. You only had to sell 15,000 records to make the charts. Today, that amount is hardly enough to go around all the disc jockeys and radio stations.”

Tom: “Yes. it must be tougher now. When I was a big fan, a singer adopted a style. Sold hit after hit in exactly that style. Now you find one style and hit the jackpot. Try it again and have a rip-roaring flop. There’s so much more pop these days. It covers enormous amounts of ground and style. And it’s beyond analysis what makes a hit.”

Dickie is still a big band man. He has a genuine love for his era; they will always be good old days. His record library is packed with good things by Billy May, Stan Kenton, Count Basic, and his old “guv’nor,” Ted Heath.

Tom is faithful still to his teenage idols — Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Elvis Presley.

The two play their favourites alternately, listen, comment, make points and occasionally argue. Just a couple of professionals, on a rare day off, ready to listen to the other man’s view, ready to compromise.

The post Lanning at Large… with stars from different worlds appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

This is the town of Angers, in the old French province of Anjou, on the day that the circus left town.

It has been like the World Cup, the Olympics and Derby Day rolled into one frenzied occasion as 130 cyclists from 13 national teams, 668 cars and motor cycles in the official convoy and 250 pressmen have left the start of the 54th Tour de France.

And I wished good luck, on the starting line, to 10 of the most courageous, but probably least-known, sportsmen I have ever met.

The team representing Great Britain.

Ahead of them, 2,900 murderous miles watched by more than 150 million European tele-viewers and countless spectators en route, before the survivors tear into Paris on the finishing stages, which World of Sport is showing on Saturday.

Twenty-four days of cutthroat action; 24 stages averaging 120 miles each, including six major mountain climbs of more than 5,000ft. An average speed for the tour of 22 m.p.h. — which zooms to a breathtaking 70 m.p.h. on the down-mountain stretches.

Yes, 70 m.p.h. on a 25 lb. piece of machinery, balanced only on one-inch-wide rubber tyres, pumped up to 100 lb. pressure!

It costs £500,000 [£8.9m in 2018, allowing for inflation] to stage the Tour de France; the eventual winner collects about £1,500 [£27,000] plus contracts and perks worth up to £30,000 [£532,000]. This carnival-crazy, jam-packed chateau township paid £11,000 [£195,000] just to stage the start.

These are just a few of the facts. This is big-time, one of the biggest annual sporting events on earth. The facts tell a story; but only half of it.

What sort of men are carrying the Union Jack? Here’s their story. The human angle. For they’re super men. And few people in Britain realise it.

I arrived, down the bumpy road from Rouen, to find Angers fraught with tension, jealousy, rivalry, sparking with Latin temperament, as the fgted idols of the French, Italian, Spanish and Belgian teams prepare for cycling’s greatest test.

These men are the darlings, the kings, the Bobby Moores, Jim Clarks, The Beatles of the Continent. You’d expect the British boys, based in the back street Hotel Croix de Guerre, to be anxious, over-awed.

Mostly North Countrymen, this sizzling, sweltering atmosphere isn’t their world. They know they haven’t a hope of winning the team prize.

How are they treated? Consider the time trial, a round-the-houses race against the clock, staged the night before the official start, to establish the first owner of the famed leaders maillot jaune (yellow jersey: worth £75 [£1,300] a day to the holder early in the race, £37 [£660] daily later on, when it tends to become the property of one man).

Clusters of Continental photographers and starting line officials gently take the mickey from these brave boys in smart white vests with Union Jack epaulettes.

“Bye-bye,” they chaff, in mock-Oxford accent, as they each leave. “Ta-ta, old boy.” And they hum a tongue-in-cheek National Anthem.

But one man rams the taunts straight down their throats. There’s one man they all fear.

One man they don’t take liberties with.

Tommy Simpson. The 29-year-old that Continental fans call “Seempson.” Short in stature, big of heart, tall in the saddle.

And he’s the man the British team are riding for. The one man they know CAN win the Tour de France for Britain. Simpson. World Professional Champion in 1965, first Briton ever to win a stage in the Tour de France, in 1962.

On the eve of the start, I track down Tom warily. After all, this is the lull before the storm. The favourites are edgy.

“Glad you could make it, Dave,“ he says. “We’re always pleased to see British pressmen taking an interest in us cyclists.” (In all the hundreds of newspapermen here, I’ve met only three reporters, and one British photographer — my colleague Peter Bolton, who drove me down.)

I’m hugely impressed by the manner in which Simpson and the rest of the British lads approached this Tour de France. Cheerfully. Unemotionally. Quietly determined. Typically British, you might say.

So why, if cycling is so big on the Continent and we can produce great fighting riders like Tom, doesn’t cycling capture the imagination of the vast British sporting public?

“Because nobody is prepared to put up the big money in Britain,” he replies. “Pretty well every big business concern on the Continent is here, spending a fortune. In Britain, firms just aren’t prepared to do this.

“This could be because cycling is always rated as a poor man’s sport. You don’t see that many bikes about back home, do you? It’s all cars. That’s maybe why there’s such a big following for car racing.

“Perhaps Britain’s cycling missed the boat just after the war, when everyone had a bike. We’ve got the wrong image. We’re all exiles.”

Simpson, son of a Durham miner left Britain nine years ago, with about £100 [£2,300] in his pocket, to settle in Ghent, Belgium.

Now he has a building company there, and a summer retreat in Corsica.

Most of his team-mates are Continental-based. Burly Vin Denson, 31, a Ghent cate-owner. Michael Wright, blond, very Anglo-Saxon looking, but who has lived all his life in Belgium and speaks only about a dozen words of English!

Barry Hoban, the friendly Wakefield lad, now based in Paris; pin-up boy, quiet Peter Hill, now building a reputation in Normandy; tall, wiry Australian Bill Lawrie.

The British-based members of the team: Arthur Metcalfe, Colin Lewis, Peter Chisman and Albert Hitchen. Have you heard these names before? I hadn’t.

But I won’t forget them now. They’re doing Britain proud, whatever the eventual result, and deserve one hundred times the sporting recognition they get.

The eventual Tour de France winner is the man who covers the total distance in the shortest time. He need not win a single stage. Team tactics are everything. Simpson says: “To win this race you need 50 per cent luck, 50 per cent skill. I’m not outstanding at anything, but pretty average at the lot. On a good day, with everything going right, I know I can do ’em all. I also know that there’s going to be a day when I’m going to finish on my knees.”

Thomas Simpson died whilst this article was at the printer, having taken amphetamines and alcohol to try to keep going whilst suffering from a stomach complaint during the 13th Stage, leading to heart failure in the heat. The TVTimes printed the following box-out at the foot of Dave Lanning’s column the following week:

The sad news of Tommy Simpson’s death on the 13th stage of the Tour de France came as last week’s issues of TVTimes was being printed. Dave Lanning, whose article on the British team was in that issue, writes: The story I wrote was the scene in Angers at the start of the race. It is tragic that Tommy Simpson’s driving determination to win for Britain should have cost him his life. I pay tribute to a sportsman and gentleman I was to know only too briefly.

The post Lanning at Large waves a lonely flag for Britain appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Comedian Jim positively beams mateyness. I’ve never had the pleasure before, but his greeting is overwhelming. I’m ushered into a chair, offered a drink, smoke or sandwich and the undivided attention of Master Tarbuck, aged 26. grinning schoolboy fashion and looking like a stray Beatle.

He’s one of the guests in Secombe and Friends, on Sunday; so friendliness is an appropriate background and subject. For Jim has a great loyalty to his mates, and when he meets them (it’s never at the local — he’s teetotal!) all manner of unpredictable events occur.

With Dennis King (of the singing King Brothers) he goes golfing. He’s been playing for two years, handicap 16, and a bit worried about his chips. Would like to keep chatting about golf, but our subject is friendship…

With Tommy Steele he either plays or watches soccer. A great soccerman, Jim: I have difficulty dragging him off the topic of Celtic and back to his mates.

With Bernie Winters he goes butterfly spotting or bird-watching in open country like Clapham Common.

Er, what was that again? Butterflies and birds with Bernie? Now who is kidding who? These ITV comedians just love testing the elasticity of my leg and it looks like Jim has got the message, too.

“No, no. I’m serious,” he says earnestly. “Bernie Winters is quite an authority on ornithology and lepidoptera. I love just going along with him. It’s different. And isn’t this what friendship is all about? Sharing each other’s interests. Widening your own horizons.”

True, true. But the thought of Bernie and Jim stalking red admirals and pearl bordered fritillaries on Clapham Common is… well, a bit of a giggle. So I grin. And Jim grins. This is the way he is. Loves to amuse, even in serious conversation.

Has been in big time show business a fairly short time (three years). But he’d done 44 televised Palladium shows. The Royal Variety Show, shaken hands with the Queen, been a guest of Eamonn Andrews, and is acknowledged as a friend of Harry Secombe on Sunday.

He’s a star; but still hasn’t quite grasped the fact. Still overwhelmed at his acceptance by the big names in the business; still thrilled to be with fellow guests like Shirley Bassey and Dudley Moore.

“Amazing,” he says. “I’m just a kid from Scouse. Came up quick; you’d think the stars who had to slog their way up might resent it. But not at all. They licked me into shape.”

Dickie Henderson taught him to stop saying Thank You Very Much. “I used to repeat it, parrot-like, after every gag,” says Jim. “After every laugh. Nerves I suppose, but you don’t know you’re doing it until someone you respect points it out.”

Morecambe and Wise showed him how to bow properly. “I used to bend stiffly, like a Chinese waiter with lumbago.”

Frankie Vaughan advised on smiling. “I’d always walk on a little worried and grim,” he says. “But Frankie told me you must bounce on, smiling, happy. Then the audience is happy, too.”

What about Harry Secombe, his “friend” on Sunday? “Oh, Harry is the greatest,” he replies, fervently. “I don’t know anyone in the business who doesn’t rate Harry as a friend. I met him after I pushed over a pile of pennies for charity.

“Now it’s all very well pushing them over. But nobody knew where to send them. So I wrote to Harry. He knows all about things like that.

“He contacted me immediately. Ever since I like to think we’ve been mates. And he taught me humility.”

Jim has sporting mates: Ian St John, Liverpool F.C.’s Scots international centre forward; Billy Walker, heavyweight boxer. But all his friends are by no means well known. He’s delighted when old school chums knock unannounced at his dressing room door.

They usually end up at his home in Hertfordshire sharing memories with his wife Pauline — “my greatest mate of all” — and meeting his two children.

Jim certainly hurls himself into his friendships. I’ve a suspicion he’d prefer to be playing golf with me. Or showing off his collection of pop records. Or tiddly-winking…

Anything to forge a friendship deeper. One day I simply must come bird-watching with you and Bernie Winters, Jim.

The post Lanning at Large with the friendly one – Jimmy Tarbuck appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

It only takes two years to perfect and I’m taking my first lesson right now — from Lonnie Donegan, who is something of a past master.

Now I’ve always rated the boater as the Prince of Titfers. Rakish, practical, evocative of gay, carefree days gone by. And jolly British, too, by Gad. You don’t see many about these days and mores the pity. I can’t think why I haven’t plucked up the courage to don one until now.

It’s all thanks to Lonnie, you see. Reported to rehearsals for this week’s The Des O’Connor Show wearing one. He’s a boater man. Dapper, cheery, with a definite touch of the old music hall about his act.

So I’ve dropped in on Lonnie’s tree-shrouded, splendidly-designed bungalow in Surrey, to talk to an expert. About boaters.

And he’s delighted the subject has arisen.

“The boater,” he says, “represents a great era in show business… vaudeville and music hall. Audiences still enjoy seeing them. too. Give an act dash.”

Lonnie was introduced to his first boater 10 years ago, in an eccentric “double” with Billy Dainty. It was love at first sight. When touring New Zealand in 1961 with, coincidentally, Des O’Connor, he perfected his “Donegan Twitch,” an old-time hat trick of unknown origins but taught to Lonnie by gipsy singer Danny Purches during a backstage break.

It’s unfair, really. Watching experts like Lonnie, Frankie Vaughan, Tommy Trinder, we’re inclined to take their flashy interludes of hat handling very much for granted. Strictly a show biz embellishment. But it takes hours and hours of practice. Just for that dazzling moment of manipulation that we hardly notice.

Take the “Donegan Twitch.” Hat starts in right hand. It’s flicked, up and over. Caught precariously on the bridge formed by right thumb and forefinger. Then twitched on one forefinger for precisely one and a half revolutions. Then placed… or rather, clamped… upon head at suitably saucy angle.

Lonnie does it all in one magnificently nonchalant movement. And when he’s walking! Yes, walking. I’m stood still and in dead trouble with the first flick-up-and-over manoeuvre. You must make sure the bow in the ribbon doesn’t catch. And that bow must be on the left-hand side of the boater as worn. That’s sartorial tradition. No decent chap would ever abuse that.

Brightly, Lonnie adds: “I practised that routine solid for two years. Every day. Before I go on. I’ll do a dozen or so run-throughs. When you start, you get it right once in a hundred times then stop. Start again, get it right twice in a hundred times, then stop. And so on, until you get it right every time.”

Okay, so let’s chase my 100-1 chance. Flick… up… over… don’t snatch, now… twitch… oops, there goes another perfectly good boater, crashing on its brim on Lonnie’s plush, fitted lounge carpet.

“Boaters take a bit of a hammering,” says Lonnie, very philosophically. “I need a new one about every four months.”

A good boater is not all that easy to come by. Out of Luton’s (the traditional centre of the British hat industry) 241 manufacturers only one exclusively makes boaters.

“If I need a new one,” explained Lonnie, “I nose around to find the local meat market. Many butchers wouldn’t be seen without one. If there’s no meat market, then I try the nearest school outfitters — buy one, and change the ribbon. Some headmasters might get a bit shirty if they see me singing ‘My Old Man’s A Dustman’ while wearing the colours of a public school!”

He pays about £2 [£35.50 in 2018 prices allowing for inflation] a boater, and loves each one dearly. In America, those natty, serrated brim jobs cost up to a tenner. [£180]

And although boaters are considered frightfully English — tennis on the lawn and all that, chaps — the actual making of the plaits or braids for straw hats was first introduced by Mary, Queen of Scots, back in 1552.

Now there’s a thought. But for some completely unknown quirk in history, the Scottish national dress could be kilts and boaters!

Anyway, this week, in The Des O’Connor Show, Lonnie sings “Lily of Laguna,” “Tootsie,” and “I’m Looking Over A Four-Leaf Clover,” which are all jolly fine boater numbers. And I’m beginning to get the first flick-over right and now I’ve only got the twitch to go.

There’s progress for you.

The post Lanning at Large… In search of (well, almost) the last straw! appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

But that’s how it is: Miss Judith Durham, girl singer of The Seekers, and I. We outfit to be talking about poetry, blossom and what every young man’s fancy turns to in this sort of setting.

But the subject is Strine (Australian slang). And Judith, pert, articulate, seven subjects at “O” level (including languages) is doing the interpreting.

◉ Charlie Charm Puck: is how a true-drawling outback Aussie says “jolly jum-buck” (you know, the sheep in “Waltzing Matilda”).

◉ Anzac Tiles: are cracker biscuits. This goes back to the trenches of the First World War. Don’t hear it often these days.

◉ Gloria Sarah Titch: hmmm, that’s “glorious heritage.” Read it again quickly. Now you’re getting with it.

Just like I am this lunchtime. It’s break time during rehearsals for Tuesday’s The Des O’Connor Show. Judith (without the rest of The Seekers) is this week’s guest. She has just been rehearsing a song called “Somethin’ Stupid” with Des. And that mood has carried over. It’s that sort of day.

Not that Judith (she hates to be called Judy) goes around talking slang. On the contrary. She retains only a trace of Australian dialect in her speech. Born, bred and educated on the right side of the tracks in staid Melbourne, she has acquired a veneer of sophistication during her three years in England.

But she is still Aussie enough to know that Emma Chisat isn’t a girl but an inquiry about costs. And that Baked Necks hasn’t the slightest connection with sun-stroke, but is how a bushman might order a breakfast of bacon and eggs.

“Actually, there’s a Cockney influence in Strine,” she says. “You can’t live in Australia without coming into contact with it: right from the nursery, Dave. From the day you learn Chair Congeal and Lilma Smarfit…”

Hey, hold on now. Let’s take that slowly. That must be Jack and Jill and Little Miss Muffet?

“Right,” replies Judith. “Yer catching on fast, mite.” And she laughs.

She has fascinating dimples and brown eyes that crinkle happily when she’s smiling. A great sense of humour. I have a suspicion that she’s putting on the Strine strictly for my benefit. Aussie slang is rip-roaring, honky-tonk and Judith is neither. She is very, very feminine.

Judith is 23, and 5ft. 3in. tall and trim. She has lost 1st. in weight recently. Writes shorthand at 100 words per minute, types at 70 w.p.m., and writes long letters home to Mum two or three times a week, just like any other girl 12,000 miles from home. Courting… an English boy.

A big star with a sensational voice. But she prefers simplicity to glitter; sincerity rather than glamour. Her favourite piece of jewellery is a single pearl, set in marcasite, on a thin gold chain. A parental present and it is rarely missing from the Durham neck.

If Judith likes something or someone, it’s for keeps. She cares little for high fashion. If she likes a dress she wears it, regardless of whether it is “in” or not.

There’s no nonsense about the girl. She’s a bright conversationalist, but a good listener. Brainy, too. Won a prize at school for biology. Put it to practical use while dieting. “You know, all the facts about digestion,” she adds.

We stroll together through the trees to a shaded, typically English pub for refreshment. Like any Australian worth the name, petite Judith will go a beer, and “front up” when it’s her round. But today she is working. So it’s only orange juice. I order a classic Australian lunchtime dish — Hoppine Saws. Rough translation: hot pie and sauce.

She admits to getting nerves before shows. Judges herself harshly. “If I know I’m not singing well, I can’t understand why people are clapping,” she says, very earnestly. “And I know I can’t be singing well if I’m not enjoying myself.”

In March, The Seekers wowed an incredible audience of over 200,000 at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl during a triumphant homecoming in Melbourne.

That must have been quite a moment? “Yes, but I didn’t start enjoying my singing until our last number,” she says. “I don’t think that Melbourne concert can compare with The London Palladium Show we did recently. That was terrific: the audience, the orchestra, the atmosphere. That was show business magic all right. That was a sense of achievement.”

Now you would have expected an Aussie to have slipped in the expression “it was a real beaut.” But Judith doesn’t slip into the vernacular very often. You’ve got to melt the exterior to get through to these delightful Strine expressions. And then you’re never sure when she’s coming the raw prawn (pulling your leg).

Yes, she’s a splendid lunchtime date, and once you get her talking, she admits she misses Australia. The little things. Drive-in movies, Australian beer, cicadas (no, this word isn’t Strine, cicadas are a sort of winged cricket, which make a dreadful, persistent chirping noise). And she adds: “Funny, but you don’t seem to see so many rainbows in Britain, either.”

Maybe that’s because you’re not chasing so many any more, Judith.

The post Lanning at Large… finds a Seeker appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Particularly Dave Mackay and Ron Harris, respective captains of Tottenham Hotspurs and Chelsea. All year they’ve been hoping they will end up just like this.

Triumphantly holding the FA Cup.

On Saturday at Wembley Stadium, and before a television audience of millions, 22 of Britain’s greatest club players will summon every sinew to share such a moment.

Since this soccer season started, from the minnows to the mighty, 400 clubs, more than 4,000 players, have been chasing this particular rainbow.

Since the 1871-72 season (when the first F.A. Cup competition was staged) thousands of players — the great names, the immortal names, the forgotten names — have been in the chase.

Since 1911 (when this particular trophy was introduced) the winning of the F.A. Cup has been the ultimate in soccer endeavour.

This year the Cup is mine for a moment. Kings, queens, legendary soccer skippers have held these highly-polished handles. Just like this…

Mind, I haven’t had such a gruelling, heart-stopping time getting within holding distance of the Cup as the winning skipper will on Saturday. But it’s been quite a performance get ting this far.

WHERE am I? Mustn’t say. WHO is in charge of the Cup? Must remain anonymous. WHERE is it stored before going to Wembley? Oh, that’s awfully hush-hush; nobody is even sure yet what route it is going to take there.

This is strictly an undercover assignment. Top secret. No names. Wouldn’t have got within miles of the F.A. Cup if I hadn’t taken the oath of secrecy.

I’m at… well, an address in London. Somewhere in sprawling, densely-populated London. A poker-faced, uniformed commissionaire views me suspiciously and requests means of identification. Makes a short, terse telephone call.

I hear footsteps. Half expect to see James Bond’s Doctor No emerge, but instead it’s a middle-aged man in a grey suit, who leads me silently up winding, red-carpeted stairs. No, there isn’t a blindfold — I must look an honest type.

With memories of passing through the Russian Customs with Hughie Green, I pass into a plush conference room, with heavy blue curtains shielding the light and any inquisitive eyes.

Big-time soccer is understandably jumpy about its silverware since the theft of the World Cup, virtually on the eve of the big event last year.

Still there’s no sign of the Cup. But I should worry. Players and fans have been up for it since the mutton-chop whisker days of nearly a century ago. Few have got this far.

Only three men in Britain know exactly where the Cup is after the February 1 deadline date — when winning clubs must return it to the Football Association — until the Final.

No official is permitted to be photographed with the Cup. Some shady type might recognise him and trace the Cup through him. Apart from when it is cleaned (by a highly reputable firm), it is never out of the sight of two young, anonymous “guards”.

Ssshh. I think they’re bringing it in now.

The whole Cup is packed in a large, black box in wads of tissue paper. It emerges in three parts — lid, Cup and plinth. The “guards” piece it together without speaking, as though it is the rarest of china.

And there it is… a most magnificent bauble.

It is the little things that strike you. Like the knob on the lid. Practically a small replica of the Cup itself. And the depth and size of the inside of the trophy. Magnums of champagne have ended up in here and I reckon it would need a gallon to fill it.

The off-beat stories of the years come drifting back… in 1955 Newcastle’s jubilant players, about to swig the celebratory champers, found a set of false teeth in the bottom. In 1964 West Ham startled soccer by drinking milk from the Cup.

Now that seems sacrilege. It’s a champagne or nothing trophy.

On the plinth, the inscribed names of the winners. The greats, the disbandeds… Old Etonians, Old Carthusians, Royal Engineers, Aston Villa, Blackpool… they’re all here, fading slightly, but carved into soccer immortality.

There are 85 names here (since 1871-72 season, but excluding 10 seasons when Cup fighting was abandoned for wartime fighting) and they’re fast running out of space. Another silver strip will be added at the very base of the plinth in a year or two which should take us through to about 2000.

Lift the Cup… gently now. It’s heavy — nearly 11 lb. Perhaps that’s an unexpected reason why winning teams pass it around on their victory lap of Wembley — it gets to be quite a weight for one man to carry for a whole lap, particularly after 90 minutes of flat-out football.

But I’ll wager this problem is one either skipper will be happy to tackle on Saturday…

This is the third Football Association Challenge Cup. The first one was stolen in Birmingham in 1895, while Aston Villa were the holders, and the Villa still have rather red faces at the memory.

The second was withdrawn in 1910, after it was found to have been duplicated several times in design. It is probably the best-known trophy in the world… yet it is insured for £300!

Only £300? Just ask any member of Spurs or Chelsea Or any soccer fan worth the name in these islands. It’s the Crown Jewels, all the stars in the skies and Killamey, rolled into one. Utterly priceless.

But the stony-faced officials, viewing my awe unemotionally, declare with astounding aplomb that the cash value of the FA Cup is “the price of 175 oz. of scrap silver!”

That’s about £75 by current market price. And Mr. Richard Came, partner in charge of silver at Sotheby’s, reckons the auction value of such a trophy — forgetting its sentimental value — would be about £250.

Scrap silver? Auction the Cup? Perish the thought! This is the end of the rainbow.

Here’s a final revelation. Right from the inside. You want a tip about the potential winners on Saturday? Well, scrawled in chalk on the bottom of the zealously-guarded F.A. Cup box, is the message: “NEXT STOP — CHELSEA.”

IT’S all very well for us. We’ll have our feet up. a comfortable chair, and a cup of tea at half-time. Saturday’s F.A. Cup Final will be an exciting, but congenial experience for us, thanks to ITV.

Spare a thought for the personalities whose Cup Final won’t be nearly so relaxed. For whom split-second liming, quick thinking, and sheer hard work spell out Cup Final ’67 — the ITV Wembley team.

How do they view Saturday’s great occasion? And how do they see the first all-Cockney Final this century ending up?

While we will be watching, mainly, one thing — the ball — Billy Wright, ITV’s soccer expert, will be casting a cool eye on other things. Sweat on shirts, socks rolled down. Lines on faces. Players breathing heavily.

These, then, are the tell-tale signs that Billy Wright — winning skipper at Wembley in 1949 with Wolves and a man who has played on Wembley’s lush turf around 80 times — will look for on Saturday.

His tip? “Possibly a draw — we’ve never had one in a Wembley Final, after all.”

Eamonn Andrews, ITV’s anchor man, faces an afternoon of thrills… and frustration. Based at Wembley, he’ll see parts of the game, then must dash back to his desk to bring viewers up to date with the general sporting scene, for ITV have a full sporting programme, including wrestling and racing from Lingfield.

If Eamonn seems agitated don’t worry. He tipped Tottenham for the Cup back in the Third Round in December in World of Sport — and had a 10 bob bet on them at 100-7! Score: 3-2, with Jimmy Greaves getting the winner.

For Hugh Johns, ITV’s commentator, this is his first F.A. Cup Final behind the mike.

He will be on parade again next week. On Wednesday, he does the commentary when England meets Spain at Wembley.

He says: “My idea of the perfect commentary is if, after the game, viewers think: ‘What a terrific game — wonder who the commentator was?’ Not too much chat. Just identification and unobtrusive information.”

Hugh, who did a fine job for ITV on the World Cup Final, lives in Wales, and naturally, he will be watching the big-name Welsh players in the Final — Tottenham’s Mike England and Cliff Jones (if he plays).

His tip? “If both teams strike top form, Spurs to win 2-1 — with an intriguing duel between Mike England and Tony Hateley of Chelsea.”

And while we’re talking about tips, my colleague Maurice Woodruff this year picks Chelsea to win by 2-1 or 3-1. “Spurs to start well, but drop away,” he says.

Me? I think the winner is going to be ITV, whose Cup Final service this year looks bigger, better and more professional than ever before. Oh yes, and Tottenham to win 2-0

The post Lanning at Large… up with the cup! appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

It takes a masterpiece of manipulation by her cheerful little Tunisian keeper to prevent Noele Gordon and I, dubious passengers both, from ending up in the lazily-lapping Mediterranean.

Honestly, there’s simply no holding Lotus since she became a star!

Talk about tantrums. Until now she has been perfectly happy with a dollop or two of cactus feed a day and a gallon of water a week. But the Crossroads team have moved in on her native island of Djerba, 197 square miles of date palms, olive trees, sun and scorching sands off the coast of Tunisia.

And Lotus has been discovered. She will be appearing on British television, as part of the background scenery as Meg Richardson, Carlos Rafael, Marilyn Gates, and Geoffrey Steele reconnoitre the possibility of setting up a new motel headquarters for Crossroads on the island.

Until now it’s been quite an event if Lotus has ended up on a holiday snapshot. Now she’s in the big time, and the other 250 camels on the island are very proud of her. So please excuse her star temperament…

The “Sheik” who nearly ended up among the waves is me, Lanning of Arabia, all dolled up in Arab gear.

Not my normal travelling gear; but when you join this free-wheeling Crossroads excursion into the exotic, their astonishing enthusiasm becomes contagious. You just can’t help getting with it.

Consider the activities of the four “regulars” from the daily adventures in Crossroads, which until that buried bomb brought disaster, was set in the not-nearly-so-exotic Midlands of England…

Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson) is developing a tan while you watch. This isn’t far off her own idea of paradise. She’s a fitness fanatic; and this is the place for the outdoor life. With only 50 yards of white sand between her chalet and the sea, she’s in swimming before breakfast every morning.

There are majestic Arab horses on the beach for her to ride. And, as an enthusiastic gardener at her impressive Ross-on-Wye home, she’s going into ecstasies about the abundant, purple bougainvillaea and roses which magically appear out of the sand.

Lew Luton (Geoffrey Steele) has gone sartorially overboard for Arab clothing. His personal wardrobe is straight out of swingingest Carnaby Street. But out here he isn’t seen without his loose-flowing djibba.

Tony Morton (Carlos Rafael) is all wrapped up in Tunisian food, which is only what you’d expect from the famous Crossroads chef. I didn’t know, but Tony is an accomplished cook.

In the series, he concocts most of the dishes and recipes himself. Refuses to take short cuts or use substitutes. If he’s got to make an omelette, he makes an omelette, not something that looks like one.

Here he spends most of his time in the kitchen, engaging in wild bouts of gesticulation and translation, trying to find out exactly what goes into brik, a local delight, which is an egg done in herbs, and wrapped in a huge potato crisp.

His comment: “So all the hens on the island are brik-layers!”

Sue Nichols (Marilyn Gates) is lapping up the sun (a mere 85 degrees today) in her coral pink bikini. She wears a flamboyant, Arab-looking beach coat, too.

But not purchased in Houmt Souk (market quarter) down the camel track. Oh no. She found it in a Birmingham boutique, where it was advertised as a way-out mini-skirt and has “sort of adapted it, luv”.

Sue has been posing Twiggy-like under the palms for local cameramen, giggling virtually non-stop, and wondering why some Rudolf Valentino-type hasn’t galloped up on a stallion and whisked her away into the desert…

In between all then fun, games and frolics, they’re working conscientiously on the first programme of Crossroads in Tunisia, starting on your screens this week.

Me? I’ve winged into the happy-go-lucky set-up from still-chilly London, not knowing quite what to expect. And certainly not anticipating making a true pal in Lotus the Crossroads camel, who has been following me around the beach (where she plies for hire) like a puppy, ever since the word got around that I could get her name in the paper.

Noele explains: “Camels don’t get much limelight here. After all, Dave, you can buy one for about 75 dinars (£50) [£890 in 2018 allowing for inflation]. They go on working for 20 years. They’re very common and there are only about 20 cars on the entire island.”

So a motel in Djerba, it would seem, is something of a misnomer. Crossroads “cam-tel”, perhaps, would be more appropriate? But who wants to split hairs, up here on a camel’s back? Enough to admit that Djerba is the ideal venue for any sort of caravanserai, ancient or modern.

What of the food? Well, Carlos is mightily impressed and that’s good enough for me.

He recommends the schakouka, which appears to be a vegetable chop suey; or fish-wise, poisson complet, grey-blue mullet or sea bream, dished up with peppers, tomatoes, eggs and various salads. All this… and local wine at about four bob a bottle. [20p in decimal; £3.50 in 2018 allowing for inflation]

By day, my Crossroads friends are filming — on the beach, among the sheltering palms, at a medieval fort, built by the Spaniards in 1284, and — a snorting nudge between the shoulders reminds me — with long, tall Lotus, who, for connoisseurs of camel behaviour, rises from her haunches back legs first, and lowers front legs first!

Downright awkward, both ways; both manoeuvres almost have you headlong over her wickerwork muzzle!

Crazy, busy, fascinating. Like Sue Nicholls says: “Crossroads has never been like this before!”

Tonight we have a rendezvous at the glamorous, white-domed Hotel Tanit, where an Italian group play Beatlesquc music until midnight, and where Sue and Lew have promised to teach me an extrovert new dance they’ve invented, aptly called “The Hump.”

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll slip out of my Tunisian gear, grab a shower, don a conventional suit, and prepare for the evening festivities.

The only problem is Lotus. She’s become rather attached to me. Won’t let me out of her sight. And you simply can’t take a camel to a dance, not even in Djerba. I’ll just have to shake her off, somehow.

Pssst! Wanna buy a camel?

The post Lanning OF ARABIA at Large… gets the hump at the Crossroads appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

It’s Sunday afternoon in the sort of English countryside that makes servicemen abroad write nostalgic record requests and, presumably, made Henry VIII write “Greensleeves.”

Most appropriately, the tall, clean-cut figure striding at my side, showing off his 30 acres, is a character in the tradition of an English gentleman — John Rickman, ITV racing expert and a countryman of charm and dignity.

It’s a two-hour drive from London, past a picturesque mill-pond, up 500 feet of twisting farm track in what racing types would call undulating country, that you find the rambling farm-house where John Rickman lives.

Graciously, of course, as be fits a man whose manners and courtesy every time he appears on television are reminders of a gracious age.

This is his working headquarters and this is where he relaxes.

There are five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a lounge, his study with over 1,000 racing reference books dating from 1887, a Regency-style dining room, two garages.

John, over 6ft. tall, is all smiles over a pinkish face, and magically produces sherry before ushering you into deep cushion seats.

“Delighted to see you,” he says. “Delighted. But what on earth you are going to write about me I do not know.”

Well, I’m fascinated by his old-style courtesy on television. The raising of the hat before addressing viewers. What’s the story behind that?

With great good humour he says: “It all goes back to my first appearance before television cameras. On a Derby Day… oh, 12 years ago. I was wearing a grey topper at the time.

“Naturally, I was a little nervous, and the topper seemed to be so conspicuous, it seemed perfectly natural to doff it. Since then hat raising has become my personal trade mark.’ John is certainly one for getting ahead in a hat. He has a wardrobe of 12, including that grey topper, and a bowler which he wears to his office in London.

He was born into a racing family (his father was also a famous Fleet Street tipster) and he is now Gimcrack on a national daily.

This habit of hats goes back to the days when an Englishman simply wasn’t seen on a racecourse without a hat. And, says John a trifle sharply. “That habit still applies in many places, too.”

Of his television manners he says: “People want you to be informative and entertaining. And as informal as possible.

“I don’t believe in all this bullying questioning; trying to overwhelm people before the frightening eye of television cameras. Simply isn’t on with me. Anyway, you get better results by trying to be civil.”

“But you’ve always been courteous, John,” says wife Peggy. “It’s just your way.” They married in 1939, have three children and three grandchildren.

Nobody will question the results John Rickman gets. A consistent winner finder, he puts this success down to hard graft. Covers more than 200 meetings a year, and something like 60,000 miles.

A fast, but careful driver, he logs every trip — “so I’ll know the quickest way in future,” he explains. He doesn’t think he’s missed visiting one course in Britain.

Yes, but how does he find winners?

“I make a detailed research into about 180 horses each day.” he says. “And by personal knowledge of people in horse racing.

“It’s handy to know if an owner lives, say, close to Lingfield. If he has a horse running there, he obviously wants to win at his local track and show off to all his friends who will be at the meeting.

“It takes time to get to know the habits of racing folk; a racing journalist can take 10 years before he is accepted. Television had been a great help; it’s made me much better known than I was.

He rarely bets himself. “Backing is a full time job on its own,” he says. “I couldn’t possibly fit it in with my life.”

His biggest win was about £200. [£3500 in 2018 allowing for inflation]

John says his most memorable moment was when, as zoo correspondent for a Fleet Street paper, he wore evening dress to the birth of a chimpanzee.

“I left a dinner in a hurry to do the story,” he says.

Now I’ve done some fairly unusual things since being at large. But evening dress at a chimp’s birth? I’ve got to take off my hat to John Rickman on that one…

The post Lanning at Large… takes his hat off to John Rickman appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

That’s why I am treating Sidney Charles Green and Richard Michael Hills with a mixture of respect and suspicion.

For here they are, waiting to greet me at the Elstree Studios, dressed perfectly conventionally. Except for their magnificent black busby hats, which they arc wearing as if it is a perfectly natural mode of head-gear for top comedy scriptwriters.

“We’re letting our heads grow accustomed to their presence,” said Sid, most solemnly.

“And getting used to drinking in low-beamed bars,” says Dick, with terrible aplomb.

The busbies are stage props, but Sid and Dick simply can’t resist having a giggle with them. That’s their business, after all: they are among television’s most consistently successful comedy script-writers. Stars like Morecambe and Wise, Bruce Forsyth and Norman Vaughan look to them for laughs.

On Friday, they start a new series themselves, as performers. Those Two Fellers, it’s called. Anonymous sounding, you might think. But Sid and Dick are a fairly anonymous pair; you could mistake them for anyone’s next door neighbour.

Both live in Kent, in classy commuter country. Both are family men, and “fortyish”. They play rugby at weekends for exercise and the “social gathering” afterwards. They drive their children to school and their respective wives mad by dropping cigarette ash over their respective carpets!

Perfectly normal types: Sid is the crinkly-haired one, sometimes wears glasses, and prefers casual clothes. Dick is more thick-set; the more extrovert; likes a natty line in suiting.

And it’s virtually impossible to put your finger on their highly-tuned sense of humour. Enough to say it doesn’t slosh you in the eye like a custard-pie. It sort of creeps up behind you and taps you on the shoulder 10 minutes after they’ve changed the subject.

Their philosophy of humour is that anything, anything is funny if you look at it long enough, think about it hard enough.

Even me! And they don’t even have to look or think hard about me. “You’re tall,” says Sid, immediately. “Always good for a whole routine of tall man’s gags… you know, trouble washing hands in trains, doing up shoe laces.”

“And you’ve got long, thin, hairless legs,” remarks Dick, surfacing from my sock-line. “All you need is a short, fat, hairy partner and you’re in business, boy.”

Which is a thought that needs some swallowing, so we move into the Elstree Studio bar, where we are greeted warmly by Eric Morecambe, Ernie Wise, and Millicent Martin, who are working on a show with Sid and Dick today.

Sid and Dick are obviously putting their humour philosophy to the test. They’re staring at a glass. So are Eric, Ernie and Millie. Remember, if you look at anything long enough, etc.

“It’s empty,” says Sid.

“And to make it funny, Dave,” says Dick, “fill it!”

They all stop staring at the glass. And stare at me. All absolutely deadpan… you see what I mean about tricky situations? It must be my round.

“If you fill it three times, it gets to be hilarious,” adds Sid, helpfully. Yes, but what about the show? How come two script writers pop up every now and again in their own series?

“Mainly because it gives us a pretty good showcase as writers,” replies Sid. “We’re not realty performers — although we’ve never lost a schoolboyish delight in acting the fool.”

“And this series will give people a chance to learn our surnames,” adds Dick. “Until now, we’ve simply been known as Those Two Fellers. Or Sid and Dick. Or them two. Now people will know our surnames.”

“I’m Sid Richard,” says Sid, deadpan.

“I’m Dick Sidney,” says Dick, equally deadpan.

And this is the way they work. Set up a serious situation. Work in a gag. Blow up the balloons, then burst them.

In the series, Green and Hills (notice I’ve got the surnames in!) will write for many top comedians, who will appear as their guests — Morecambe and Wise, Frankie Howerd, Bob Monkhouse, Arthur Askey, Bruce Forsyth, Ted Ray.

Before they write anything, they study each comedy talent under a microscope: style, facial expression, timing, the lot They can imitate most comedy acts; Sid can do Eric Morecambe to a T. They act out ideas. This is partly how they have become involved as performers.

“We even studied ourselves for this series,” says Sid.

“Discovered we’re probably the best-paid writers in the business,” adds Dick.

“And the worst-paid performers,” says Sid.

It takes quite something to make Sid and Dick break down and laugh out loud. They did when they saw Rachelle, a ravishing, 27-year-old, 6ft. tall red-head, who sings off-key… and deadpan, of course. She will appear in the series.

Having studied each other under their comedy microscope, they have decided Hills is the performer and Green is not. So Dick gets the funny lines, although it’s debatable whether they will stick to any formula.

Sid says his wife will complain right through the six shows that he ought to be home doing the garden at this time of year. Dick says she’s right!

Me? I’m still trying to work out why Sidney Charles Green and Richard Michael Hills have worn busbies throughout this assignment. After all, there isn’t one low beam in this bar.

Still, maybe the joke will creep up on me.

The post Lanning at Large meets Those Two Fellers (Sid Green and Dick Hills) appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Between sips of champagne I am discussing love and marriage with Miss Anita Harris!

While sitting upstairs on a 1910, open-top, horse-drawn London omnibus, clumping gracefully down Park Lane on a fine spring morn! And it’s all in the cause of authenticity. In Tuesday’s Tom Jones! show, Anita sings a “Love and Marriage” duet with Tom, seated picturesquely in a horse-drawn carriage.

I invite her to expound more fully on the subject.

“Right,” she says. “Come and join me on a publicity stunt; it will be an appropriate setting.”

Now publicity is part and parcel of show business. But, at least, Anita could have told me exactly what was in store. But she’s like that. Touch of the mischievous. Loves to catch people out; to see the look of amazement on their faces.

Just like the one I register, when we rendezvous outside the London Palladium, and I see this magnificent, spiral-staired old bus, hired for the occasion from a Luton farmer — horses and all.

There’s Anita, looking gorgeous in an Irish plaid, mini-skirted costume. On the seat opposite: Suzanna Leigh, Elvis Presley’s recent leading lady, ditto gorgeous, along for the ride as well. There are hosts of models in absolutely outrageous hats. The champers flows. Yes, I am willing to concede there are less glamorous ways of earning a living than this…

Hm, but love and marriage. That’s what I’m here to discuss. Bachelor girl Anita, talented, attractive, definitely eligible, has strong views on the subject. Or at least, she did have. Didn’t I see a report of her on record as saying: “I don’t believe in show business marriages. The casualty rate is too high. I would never marry anyone in show business.”

Her big brown, cleverly made-up eyes roll, she sighs and admits’ “I did say that once. Haven’t you got a long memory, Dave? It was when I started in show business — I was 16 at the time, the prototype teenager, very impressionable.

“I did a season singing in Las Vegas, and it seemed that all around me show business marriages were going on the rocks. But I’m older now” — 23 — “and I’ve rather changed my views.”

Surprising how Anita, who has a Goonish sense of humour (she’s a great fan, and friend of Harry Secombe) can turn on the seriousness. It hardly fits our zany surroundings, but it’s interesting.

So what made her change her mind?

“Getting to know happily married couples in the business,” she says, waving grandly to astonished patrons of a red London bus (circa ’67), circumnavigating Hyde Park Corner. “Just observing how they live and co-exist.“

Such couples as Anne and Gerald (The Rat Catchers) Flood — whose hospitality and bonhomie I can also commend — and Kenneth Cope (Jed Stone, Coronation Street) and his wife, Renny Lister.

At this point, our cosy, if draughty, tête-à-tête breaks off, due entirely to a surprise outburst from Miss Leigh, who has to date been a quiet, interested listener to Anita’s theories.

She lives near here, and is convinced that Dobbin, our lead horse, is taking the wrong route to our eventual destination in King’s Road, Chelsea.

Horses, however, aren’t cab drivers. Despite Suzanna’s protestations, Dobbin plods on regardless.

Suddenly, alongside, trots a trim little red wagon, advertising a firm of cigarette manufacturers, pulled by two magnificent high-stepping greys.

Our coachman grins and says: “The grey on the right is old Dobbin’s girl friend!” Dobbin winks a blinkered eye as the mare swings by. It’s spring ail right; love and marriage is in the air. Dobbin obviously knew where he was going…

Says Anita: “The most important consideration of any marriage is… is it love or not. That is all that matters.”

Now there’s a certain faraway look in Anita’s eye and I have a suspicion it isn’t entirely the spring air and the champers. Is she… could she… has this love business got through to her?

She grins. She frowns. She giggles. She puckers. It must be love. Then she says: “Everyone always says ‘no comment’ to that question, Dave, and it’s rotten of you to put me on the spot. All I’m going to say is that last night I had a marvellous dinner with a very old friend and well, oh, I don’t know, it could be happening, I suppose.”

The post Lanning at Large with romance, Anita Harris and a horsedrawn bus appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

That’s fast, pardners, mighty fast. Right up there with Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp; deadly enough to have Jesse James and Billy the Kid heading out of town on a fast hoss.

But this is Esher, 1967. Michael and I are playing strictly for laughs, here on the patio of his rambling farmhouse, hardly a cattle-call away from Sandown Park racecourse. Which is just as well, because my experience with weapons is strictly military and I never exactly impressed Aldershot at that!

This belt and holster. It’s called a rig. Strap it on loosely. It balances on the thigh. That’s probably why cowboys had bow legs. Arched their knees to prevent the holster dropping. A leather thong ties just above the knee, preventing the holster from flapping.

And there’s another retainer thong, which loops over the hammer of the gun in the holster — presumably to stop it hopping about when you’re a-wooin’ or a-roundin’ up them thar mavericks.

Before you even think about pulling a gun, you must unleash that thong. Of course, I forget… well, I bet Johnny Ringo had the very same trouble when he started practising!

“Draw,” says Michael. I heave for the gun, which stays put. All I manage to do is hitch up my trousers six inches! Meantime, “Lightning” Mike Bentine is clicking his initials in imaginary bullets around my cardiac region.

You could say it’s my “Thong Song” as a would-be gun fighter.

I’m here to discuss Michael’s new series of All Square, which starts on Saturday. And it’s appropriate we should get involved with gun-fights — there’s a running sketch throughout the new series dealing with comic duels.

But, with Bentine, there’s so much to discuss. You just get carried away by his brilliant versatility.

Born in Watford in 1922 of Peruvian parents. Old Etonian. A brilliant physicist (“but I gave it up after the H-Bomb – there was nothing left to discover!”).

A linguist (he can sing the “Yellow Rose of Texas” in five languages, including Latin). An Egyptologist, capable of translating scarab hieroglyphics (“some of my best friends are scarabs!”). A fencer and archer. Accomplished yachtsman. A glider pilot (“I once landed in the buffalo field at Whipsnade Zoo”). A fine cook, a collector of valuable drawings, and an authority on splendid olde Englishe games like “Nelging the Flune” and “Clopping the Fudge.”

Married to a former ballet dancer, Clementina, elegant, blonde, who goes through life reminding her near-genius hubby about such down-to-earth domestic matters as wearing a cardigan. Four children: Marylla (17), Stewart (16), Richard (six), and Serena (five). To Michael they are Fusty, Gus, Peski and Suki respectively.

There are encyclopaedias in the bathroom and flowers in a genuine Inca silver chamber pot (sent by family ties in silver in Peru) on the coffee table.

This is quite a man: this is quite an assignment.

The show? “Should be up to standard, David,” says Michael airily. “Plenty of edging, clopping, and Monarching of the Glenning. You know, it takes me about a year to dream up the crazy sketches for a series. Nearly as long organising ’em, too.

“Had a ball making the new ones. One great laugh from start to finish. That’s usually a good sign.”

As you talk to Michael, he’s liable to switch suddenly to one of his fantastic range of accents. I mention his famous sketch about the Chinese junk sinking the Houses of Parliament. Original idea came when he was talking to a Chinese restaurateur from Limehouse, who was roundly cursing the authorities for knocking down his property for redevelopment.

He’s got his dialect off to a China tea. You name any other: Bentine can turn it on like a tap. How does he do it? “By living with people from the region concerned, and making a study of their speech,” he says. “Most people of mixed blood — like me — have the ability to ape accents.”

He’s uncannily accurate; can even discern the difference between accents from North Kent and Coastline Kent. “Only ones I’m not too hot on are Birmingham, Liverpool and Northern Ireland,” he admits. “I must try to get round to them one day.”

Through all his incredible array of talents, guns remain Michael’s first love. He’s one of the world’s experts on ballistics. Mathematically and theoretically, it’s been proved he could outshoot most of the ballyhooed gunfighters of the last century.

Today, he’s as fast as Sammy Davis, Jr. (“but only with my glasses off”), and only fractionally behind Jerry Lewis (rated by the mathematicians as the fastest gun in the world).

Which is all rather out of my league. I have unhappy memories of guns. After a most war-like Army exercise at Blackdown, Surrey, my ears were ringing for a fortnight after firing a mere dozen rounds from a rifle.

But this is different; hardly any kick and no noise. And it is fun finding how good you are on the draw. Something most men with a touch of the Walter Mittys dream about at some time or the other.

Well, Michael Bentine’s assessment of my speed is 1½ seconds. Which is well up to average, so there. Mind, it’s distinctly posable that I might put a bullet into my right foot in the act. And whether or not I would actually hit anything is highly debatable.

But I can draw and fire in 1½ seconds. Now I’ve only to knock one second off that and at least I can meet Sammy Davis, Jr., on terms.

So pardon me, folks, I’m aiming to git some practice in…

The post Lanning at Large bites the dust! appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

“I want to outlaw ties,” says Patrick. “Useless garments. Nasty, dangly, stringy things. Serve no purpose at all. I wear them as little as possible. And I hope the men of Great Britain will follow my example.”

Now Pat is an elegant, cultured dresser. Modern Beau Brummel type. And although he’s talking with typical John Steed tongue-in-cheek suavity, there might be something in what he says. So what does he suggest? In place of ties, I mean.

“Cravats,” he replies. “They were in first, you know. Wasn’t until 1840 that a few traitorous eccentrics abandoned ’em for these dreadful ties.”

He’s wearing a cravat today. Very stylish. But it suits him. Us conservative types aren’t so sure. I’ve got rather a soft spot for ties. Been wearing one for as long as I can remember. True, they don’t actually do anything. But surely now they’re a part of British life…

Fifty million are sold every year in Britain. They earn £100,000 in exports. And they do present opportunities to be… well… daring.

You can buy ties like pyjama cord, bootlaces, wide “kipper” ties (you know, the type highly favoured by Al Capone and acolytes). Slim Jims and Neat Petes. String, satin, silk, leather, corduroy, suede… wide horizons have ties.

Such fantastic scope. Why not a tie made in the world’s most pricey material — shahtoosh (which is brown-grey and comes from the throats of Indian goats). Only about £20, plus labour costs.

Or you could utilise a bootlace bought for a bob from a street vendor. You won’t find scope like that in any other form of male apparel.

No, I’m all for ties. Although by some oversight I didn’t rate as one of the “Tiemen of 1967” (elected in conclave by the Tie Manufacturers’ Association), influential fellows like Bobby Moore, Nubar Gulbenkian, Nicholas Tomalin, Eamonn Andrews and Cliff Richard, all did. Staunch allies there, all right.

And what about the Duke of Windsor? What about the Duke of Windsor? One of the great tiemen of our time. Gave his name to the Windsor Knot, most widely used in Britain.

No, it won’t do. An Englishman without a tie? Whole pillars of society will collapse and the sun will surely set on the Empire first.

“Rubbish,” says Patrick, who, like his cravat, remains unruffled. “Ties are simply symbols of conformity. Cravats have flair, masculinity. You won’t find a tie in my wardrobe.” (Actually he does have one: an Old Etonian that he never wears. If ever he needs a tie, he borrows one from the studio.) “Besides, cravats are breaking through. Nubar Gulbenkian, one of the Tiemen of 1967, is a great cravat man. Cravats are on the way.”

It’s all very worrying. There’s so many factors to consider. Silkworms for a start. Did you know it takes 2,000 worms a flat-out 24-hour shift to produce enough cocoons to make just one silk tie?

Suppose Pat’s campaign really catches on. What about the silkworms? You can’t just stop a silkworm in mid-tie!

And the ladies. Think of the ladies. Of the 50 million ties bought in Britain each year, experts say three-fifths (30 million) are purchased by females. I’ve got 30 ties myself; only bought about half a dozen myself. The rest were gifts from… well, family ties, feminine.

A world without ties means that nearly every woman will be stumped completely for Christmas presents! Patrick Macnee is a brave man. What sort of man would want that on his conscience?

Didn’t he recently spend over £40 on ties alone (it was a whopping wholesale consignment of 20, including “kippers,” slim Jims, stripes, silks and one for getting into a club which Harry reckons serves the best cottage pic in London).

Isn’t Mr. Aitch another television trendsetter sartorially, with a pretty sharp taste in neckties?

And Harry says: “Down with ties! I only buy ’em because there are so many occasions when an actor is expected to wear one — and because after my shirts have been to the laundry, mate, they all seem to gain half an inch around the neck. And a double Windsor Knot tight around your old gizzard is the only way to keep a shirt collar looking neat and tidy!”

And what about cravats? Is he behind Patrick Macnee? That’s the question millions of tiemen want answered.

“Actually, I prefer Cossack-style polo-neck shirts and sweaters,” says Harry. “They’re neat, crisp, and look good. No trouble, either; the bother you get just knotting up ties and cravats.”

Well, Harry H. Corbett mightn’t be 100 per cent behind Patrick Macnee, but you cannot escape facts.

Two of ITV’s sharpest dressers are against ties and I am beginning to feel I’m a square for wearing one at all. Still, I think I know what will happen to all the millions of faithful ties if ever they become obsolete.

Women will wear them. Adapt them into their crazy fashions.

And at long last their taste in ties will be vindicated.

The post Lanning at Large… all tied up with Patrick Macnee appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Just the scene to make a Cockney sparrow chirp nostalgically…

But not exactly the setting you’d expect for the very French Mademoiselle Francoise Hardy, who is sprawled deliciously on the bed, not looking in the least homesick for her native Paris.

I am becoming accustomed to the much-publicised Gallic unpredictability of course. About a year ago I went to Paris to review the “Beat Scene” — couldn’t find one guitar and was hard put to unearth an accordionist in a beret.

Then there was that swinging weekend on the French Riviera with Tom Jones which ended with me rolling about with food poisoning after sampling some highly potent steak tartare in a romantic beach restaurant at Juan Les Pins.

Now here’s Francoise, darling of the Paris Left Bank, calmly ensconcing her self for a stay in London and relishing the thought of a supper of Cockney steak and kidney pud and a good cuppa.

A taste she acquired in Paris? Seems that English nosh is the “in-thing” there at the moment.

C’est la vie, I suppose.

We’re together in her suite. Francoise is ending a three-week wowing of London’s late-night people with her cabaret act at the hotel. She is also to appear on The London Palladium Show on Sunday.

She is wearing tight-fitting flared trews, a chunky-knit white sweater, high heeled boots. Her blonde hair is loose, yet framing itself perfectly around her long, sad face.

Five feet 7¾ inches tall, but an incredibly sparse 7st. 101b., she looks exactly like a model girl. “Model?” says Francoise, in a soft, husky Gallic voice that would encourage any red-blooded Englishman to dig the Channel Tunnel single-handed. “How can I be? I have not enough clothes.”

It’s true. Although she’s on nodding terms with top couturiers like Courreges, St. Laurent and Ricci, Francoise has a wardrobe of only 10 dresses. Unostentatious dresses, too.

In London she shops at Biba’s but on this trip it’s window shopping. “Oh, I spend so much money on my latest suit from Ricci. I dare not spend more,” she says, looking very ashamed.

How much?

“Enough to buy a row of dresses in Carnaby Street,” she says, throwing her long, artistic hands out in a beautifully timed gesture.

The suit is with Francoise in London. That’s it in the picture. She changed into it specially for the photograph and wears it only on special occasions.

Unlike any other woman, she’s terrified it might create a diversion outside. Such a strange trait for a pop star… this overpowering modesty, and finely tuned sense of humility.

Francoise admits, with a nonchalant shrug, that she:

• can’t dance;
• can’t play the guitar;
• and couldn’t possibly be a singer but for the invention of the microphone.

“Without a microphone I have no voice at all,” she adds.

Although she speaks English, Francoise employs a translator for her songs and admits she has great difficulty in mastering English vowel sounds and British dialects.

“Scotsmen, oh,” she declared, looking hopeless. “And you. You have funny accent. Are you from Scotland?” (I’m from Hampshire).

She has a studio flat in Paris, a house in Corsica, reads Agatha Christie, loves the Rolling Stones, and doesn’t drive in London because she loses her temper finding somewhere to park.

Hmm, this girl knows her London all right. I have the same problem but don’t lose my temper any more about parking. 1 simply don’t drive in London any more.

“You English,” says Francoise. “You are so polite and well organised. That is what I like about London.” She is “always in love, happily or unhappily, and it shows, I think, in my songs.” Francoise wants to know about the Palladium. It’s her first time there on Sunday. I report that it is large, impressive, and has an atmosphere all its own.

“It sounds very frightening,” she says. “But I have my own musicians with me. They will give me confidence.”

Dinner time is here. Francoise must change into a skirt, because the Savoy management still frown upon trousers (on girls!) in the restaurant. And Mlle. Hardy would rather go without her eagerly awaited steak and kidney pie than create a scene.

The post Lanning at Large… With the ‘Darling of the Left Bank’ appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Pre-1904, it’s a veteran. Very grand. I’ll bet our grand-daddies never thought their snorting chariots would end up in the Brighton Run and being towed on trailers by 1967 Jaguars.

Edwardians are circa 1904-19. Almost as dignified. Roaring Twenties-type wagons (anything up to 1930) are vintage. Experts say 1923 (when you could buy a new Ford Model T ‘Tin Lizzy’ for £59) is a good year…

The latest pedigree is Post-Vintage Thoroughbreds. You don’t see many about. And I don’t expect I’ll ever see another from this angle. I’m underneath one. The 1932 two-litre, low chassis Continental Lagonda, owned and fussed over by Michael Scott, compere of Cinema.

I’ve flashed up by inter-city express train to his comer house in the fashionable “Cheshire Set” area of Bowden, 20minutes’ drive out of Manchester. This is where I found him — under the car, muttering away about a radiator leak.

I join Mike because I’m fascinated. Veterans, Edwardians, Vintage cars. What’s it all about? And, what’s the definition of a Post-Vintage Thoroughbred? Why the class consciousness?

Replies Mike: “When the depression set in in the early 30’s, car production became a bit bangerish. Only certain sports models really retained quality. And are regarded as thoroughbreds. This is one. A real lady, isn’t she?”

A sort of lady of a Lagonda. But I’m still not convinced of the appeal.

“She’s something lasting in this world of chuck-away gadgets and appliances,” says Mike. “Classic example of unsophisticated craftsmanship.”

And doesn’t the thought that they may break down constantly outweigh all the advantages and fun?

Seems not. In six years of Lagonda driving (20 miles a day to and from his studio office) he’s had to stop only once. “Was doing a dizzy 75 m.p.h. on the motorway — pre-restrictions — when there was a tremendous clang amidships,” he says. “Thought it was a shaft gone. Turned out to be a spanner dropping out through a loose floorboard!”

Mike, 34, 6ft. 2in., dark-hair streaking with grey, isn’t the arch-type, old-time motoring man. No deer-stalker, flowing moustachios, and pints-of-bitter-in-the-bar for him. He’s a member of the Vintage Sports Car Club and the Lagonda Club, but frequents them only for finding odd spares. Doesn’t race or rally. So, why use the car every day? Exhibitionism?

“No,” replies Mike. “Just the opposite. People don’t notice the driver in this sort of car. Only notice the car. Must admit. I first fell for old cars at public school because they seemed extrovert. First one I got was a Lagonda. Been in love with them ever since.”

This Lagonda does over 20 miles to the gallon (cheapest brand); has trundled Mike and family over the mountains to Italy; is good on tyres (and anyway a major company still manufactures tyres to fit old-time classifications); and with an aluminium body, doesn’t rust. And it will always be a Post-Vintage Thoroughbred.

I’ve always thought that cars attain vintage or veteran status on reaching a 40th or 50th birthday. Not so. Once a veteran, always a veteran and nothing to touch you. Never a new influx of veterans each year.

Veteran, Vintage and P.V.T. people do mix. But not a lot. Thoroughbred folk like Mike tend to think of veteran cars as show-pieces. And themselves as functional. This Lagonda is certainly functional. You can identify it simply by the crash of its gears. Gearbox is so tough to handle that the charming Mrs. Sylvia Scott (Mike met her, aptly enough, in a cinema) can’t drive it.

And talking of Cinema, Mike always keeps an eye open on old film clips for possible snips. A great yell of triumph recently from the editing room when he spotted a Lagonda like his in use during the Joan Fontaine-Cary Grant film “Suspicion.”

There’s a great collectors’ market for old cars. Few about and Americans after them all the time. Mike managed to get this Lagonda only six years ago in a swop, plus £175, for his old Rover that another collector wanted.

A great thing, the value: Veterans, Edwards, Vintages, and Thoroughbreds reverse the normal trend in car sales. They appreciate as the years go by. Today Mike reckons his Lagonda — with a respray and a general tidy up — might fetch £350-£400.

Still, old cars might be stylish. And a lot of fun. But even Michael Scott, a confirmed Lagonda man, also has a dashing mod-style sports car. Ostensibly, it’s for the wife.

But sshh. Here’s the secret. It’s the sports car that occupies his garage, while the Lagonda stands out in the Cheshire rain.

And the moral of that may be that a modern car expects cosseting. A Thoroughbred wouldn’t dream of asking for it.

The post Lanning at Large… interviews Michael Scott appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

You start out talking about Here Comes Kathy (Tuesday) and end up in this all-white, lacy boudoir, viewing one of the most exclusive, impressive fur collections in show business. And talking about… well, marriage.

Now with most big-time girl stars it is advisable to treat such subjects with delicacy. But with Kathy you ask the question you want: she’ll give you a straight answer.

So why hasn’t she married? No hesitation with the reply: “Haven’t found the right man. It’s as simple as that. And I’ll never rush into marriage. I’ve got to feel sure. You see. I’m a Roman Catholic: my marriage is for keeps.”

She talks clearly, deliberately, with authority. Obviously given the matter much thought.

“The man I’ll marry? He’ll A have to dominate me. I need domination. Golly, I’ll enjoy it. He’ll be the driving, Mike Todd type. And almost certainly older than me: between six and 10 years older. Oh, I’ll meet him one day. It’ll happen. I’m certainly not going to wander around starry-eyed looking.”

You could say she doesn’t need to. Kathy, at 26, dripping with furs, diamonds and glamour, is a star in the old-time image.

Earns something like £1,000 a week. Has just bought and furnished (period style) a five-bedroom, three-bathroom house in Mayfair and is moving in any time now. Eats in the best restaurants. And you only have to mention her wardrobe and here we are, with the prize pieces spread around us.

“Don’t think I’m over extravagant, though, Dave,” she says, as we stroll back along her thermostatically-heated hall to the lounge, furnished with quiet taste.

“I live within my means; I’d be frightened out of my wits to spend more than I earned or get anything on credit. I’m just lucky to be able to afford the sort of things that most young women can never afford.

“I invest in diamonds — they never devalue, do they? I’ve a couple of walls crammed with clothes. But there are still times when I ‘haven’t a thing to wear’. Then a week later I’ll find the very dress I was looking for, squashed up at the end of the hangers.”

And she grins. With the sheer, unabated delight of a girl who can’t keep track of all her clothes. It’s not a smile… there’s nothing mysterious about it. It’s a grin. School-girlish. And it repeatedly punctuates her conversation.

When it comes to talking, Kathy is no shrinking violet. She says what she thinks with disarming candour.

About her age, for example. “No point in lying. I’m 26. And I’m glad I’m getting older. Feel more mature. Enjoy life much more than when I was 18. Come to think of it, I must have been impossible when I was 18. Besides, a woman can never hide lines on her face. So why try?” Well, Kathy can afford to be nonchalant about complexion, because from this angle I can honestly report there isn’t one wrinkle on her face. And I say so. With Kathy, such subjects aren’t touchy.

“Then I jolly well ought to have some,” she says. “Because I worry and fret myself silly every time I do a show and will again on Tuesday.” She insists on learning all her lines. No cue-boards or prompters for her.

Kathy freely admits she’s hard to get along with on show days. After any performance, she’s still functioning at full throttle. “My mind is going boinng, boinng, boinng for hours afterwards,” she says.

She goes to a restaurant. Sits talking until early light.

She doesn’t smoke; isn’t at all partial to smoky atmospheres, either. She drinks a little wine. “Two gins and my eyes go all bloodshot,” she says gloomily. “But don’t let that stop you having one” — and she pours a gin and tonic of proportions that would stagger a sea captain.

She reads all the papers. Right through. Every morning. No dumb blonde, this. Has a comprehensive working knowledge of the international scene. And here’s a surprise — she’s a soccer and boxing fan!

The afternoon sort of dissolves. Almost time for Kathy to go. On a dinner date. She disappears to make-up, leaving me wrestling with this gargantuan gin.

She doesn’t take long. “I know what people say, but I don’t like a lot of make-up,” she says, pouting slightly. “Don’t wear much, either. Look, you can see my freckles!”

Kathy has many freckles but, typically, doesn’t try to hide them. She simply wishes, rather impatiently, that they would all get together. “Then perhaps I’d have a nice tan,” she says, with that grin again. “All I do normally is burn up.”

Kathy has that famous hair done twice a week and describes it simply as blonde. “Honestly, Dave,” she whispers. “You’ll roll about laughing if I tell you the technical shade — it’s a mixture of ‘Baby Blush’ and ‘Precious Platinum!’ Doesn’t it sound dreadful? Just say blonde!”

Well, it’s been an interesting afternoon and now Kathy gives me the pleasure of selecting her “fur for the night.” In this job you do get some unexpected requests. Ahem yes, that chinchilla looks pretty cool. Or is it the red fox. And anyway, what is a Russian broadtail?

“A lamb,” says Kathy, deeply, as I escort her into the taxi, feeling that I really ought to be in evening dress.

Well, you live and learn. Now I know the difference between Russian lamb and Persian lamb.

It’s all in the tail.

The post Lanning at Large… The man that she marries will have to be… appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

“Coal,” she replies.

Now I am pouring tea and the thought of the with-it Miss Springfield whacking a bit of nutty slack around her alluring peepers is enough to put any man off target with a teapot.

Coal?

“That’s right,” says Dusty. “K-O-H-L kohl. It’s a metallic powder used in the East for darkening eyelids. Mix it with mascara and it works a treat. Lasts for ages, too… er, Dave, would you mind terribly pouring my tea into the cup, there’s a luv?”

Ahem, yes. I’ll leave the pouring to Mum — Dusty’s Mum — from now on. It’s Sunday, you see. One day of the week Dusty abandons the whirl of the top-pop world and her Knightsbridge flat. And comes home, to Chelsea, for tea.

There are scones, homemade sponge, a cheery fire. Dad — Mr. Gerald O’Brien, a tax consultant (he doesn’t handle the affairs of his family) puffs on a briar.

Mum — Mrs. Catherine O’Brien, puckish, petite, with incredibly twinkling eyes, buzzing about with chocolate biscuits.

They’re a close-knit, but far from overpowering family unit. The kids, Tom — a successful songwriter — and Dusty have gone their own ways. Changed their names to Springfield (Dusty has always been Dusty, it’s a nickname of no known derivation; Springfield originated when they were forming up as a group and actually rehearsed, in a field, in the spring, and put the two together because they couldn’t hit on anything else!)

They have their own flats, their own careers. But still, underneath, they’re the “O’B.s”

I’ve looked in to catch Dusty in a rare off-duty moment. Totally at ease. And maybe slip in a word about her appearance in The London Palladium Show on Sunday, too.

Now Dusty has a reputation for unpredictability. Has been known to throw crockery and cream gateaux about. And to weep openly when upset.

It all seems right out of character now. She’s home. She’s happy. And she says: “Honestly, I’m not nearly so scatty as I’m made out to be. At least, I don’t think I am.”

She’s short-sighted. Doesn’t try to hide it. Has broken three pairs of glasses in the past six weeks. “I keep sitting on them,” she says. “Never see them… um… because I’m not wearing glasses, I guess!”

She does like throwing things. “Cups,” she says, happily. I… er… edge away, taking my piece of the best O’Brien bone china with me.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she says. “I only go nutty once a year. Why? I love the sound effects. You see, I was brought up with a great appreciation of comedy; we always seemed to be laughing in this family. I was brought up on the Marx Brothers and The Goons. I’ve never got over the sound effects of either…”

That husky, smoky voice seems to drift away. “And those beautiful scenes of outrage. You know, the looks from bosomy ladies when a custard pie hit them slap in the face. Tremendous!

“That’s comedy art to me. The bursting of pomposity; the ruination of gentility. I’d love to throw a real custard pie…”

Such Goonish outbursts are rare. “Haven’t got the nerve to try them more than once every year,” adds Dusty.

With Dusty work comes first. She is the dedicated vocalist.

Not so hot at remembering lyrics, so writes out the words of her songs like “50 lines at school” to get them perfect. And actually has singing lessons before each performance — at least 15 minutes’ practising scales.

She’s 26, doesn’t smoke, can only be tempted to drink vodka drowned in cordial. Voted Britain’s top female vocalist in ’65 and ’66, and world top female singer in ’66. In show business, as a group singer and soloist, for 10 years. But still as fancy free as any teenager.

She owns little. A lot of clothes, perhaps. A fur coat (but it’s rabbit, not mink). No car. Did buy a house in Knightsbridge. Decided she wouldn’t spend enough time there to warrant the expense. So sold it almost immediately.

“And anyway, my home will always be here.”

It’s Mary Isobel Catherine O’Brien (her parents still call her Mary) feet up. Could be a Sunday scene anywhere.

I feel so much at home that it isn’t until I catch a glimpse of the television — a modest, 19in. job, tucked away in a corner —
that I recall … the Palladium. What about Sunday?

“Still not sure what I’m going to sing, Dave,” she says. “You know me — never plan ahead. I used to get excited and worked up about a Palladium show weeks beforehand.

“Now I won’t start doing my nut until at least Wednesday!”

Well, we’ve had our second cups. Finished the scones. Reached that quiet, peaceful most Sundayish of afternoon hours. Dusty is curling up on the curved grey settee, those remarkable eyelids drooping.

Sshh! I think Miss Springfield is dropping off. It’s all part of her Sunday afternoon at home, after all.

The post Lanning at Large… Tea with DUSTY SPRINGFIELD… not to mention Mum and Dad O’Brien appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

“Latest thing in dressing rooms, my darling,” he says, crinkling a happy grin. “Come in — and have a poppadum!”

Poppadum! It’s the Indian equivalent of a giant-sized potato-crisp. Very highly thought of in old Bombay. Just the sort of phonetic yo-yo that Charlie loves to get his tongue around … er, verbally.

But I am not going to be sidetracked. I’m here to learn about his new series Who is Sylvia? I have long suspected that television comedians have a championship going to see who can lead me farthest up the garden path…

This time. I’m not going to be led. So first, the show.

Charlie takes a deep, deep breath. “Yes, well this time I am not a little man looking for a job like I was in The Worker,” he says, crisply. “I am a little man looking for love; looking for Sylvia, the perfect little lady, haunting marriage bureaux, not employment exchanges and I hain’t ’alf seen a lot of London, lately, mate.”

It’s the filming, you see. Lots of location work. Which accounts for my chase. Except for the maternity hospital. Charlie hasn’t been there. It just happened to be the nearest spot with a phone which I wanted to use …

Charlie giggles. It’s a master giggle; deep, throaty, full of hidden menace. A Drake trademark. He’s a visual comic. He looks. He blinks. And the giggle is the greatest. A sort of custard pie prelude.

“David,” he says, raising his voice an octave or two. “Stop being so big. What with you, lamp-posts and trees, mate, I haven’t got a chance.”

Okay, so I’m 13 inches higher than his 5ft. 1in. So we look like the long and short of any situation. It hasn’t anything to do with Who is Sylvia? But there’s no stopping Charlie now.

“Ah-haaa, big things always gang up on me,” he says. “Trees. They keep whopping my car. And I am a beautiful driver. Beautiful.” Charlie has a primrose-yellow Jaguar E-type, which he calls his “Custard Torpedo.”

“And river trees, too,” he goes on. “Them on the river bank. They keep hitting my launch.” It’s a sleek, blue, 38-footer, which Charlie christened “Goodness Gracious” because that’s exactly what he said when he saw the price!

“Why are big, tall things always picking on me?”

Well, I’m not. Hardly getting a word in edgeways. It’s fun just listening to Charlie. He really has a real-life propensity for getting involved in comic situations. Like when he’s fishing.

Only Charlie could so regularly clump his right earhole with a lure when casting for pike. But then, it’s typical that when he once did hook out a 4lb. trout from the Thames near his home at Weybridge he “felt sorry for the little fishie and threw him back.” Very rare, too, are Thames trout.

Charlie tells his anecdotes with a twinkle in his blue eyes … eyes deeply embedded in laughter crinkles.

He jokes about his hobbies. But I happen to know he is a first-class angler, a crack shot. A golf handicap of six explains this is no rabbit. He paints — “stripped to the waist, mate, and daubing like mad” — but collected a fat four-figure fee for a sale of 38 of his works.

He does nothing by halves. If it’s slapstick, he‘s got to go one step beyond.

But Charlie Drake, despite his small stature, is physically hard as nails. Does no particular exercise to keep fit. Off duty smokes a lot, drinks champagne unashamedly. But works like a Trojan. Writing until three in the morning. Up at 6.45 a.m. Takes the rigours of location filming — pretty chilly this time of year — without a thought.

Filming … that reminds me. The show. Will it mean the end of Charlie in a boiler suit?

“Oh yes,” he replies. “This is my new uniform — topper and tails. Wedding togs. Don’t you think it suits me? Got the figure for it, ain’t I?”

Charlie, who has worked for seven months on the scripts for Who is Sylvia? carries the new “uniform” off with classic clown panache.

He seems in rip-roaring form.

And he’s due on the set. But hey, what about those poppadums? Haven’t had one yet. Wouldn’t mind a nibble now. “Oh them,” says Charlie, looking mischievous. “I’ve finished them, but I thought it would make a lovely word for your interview!”

Okay, okay, I wasn’t going to be side-tracked. So open up the garden gate and let me out. And go to the top of the comedians’ league, Charlie!

The post Lanning at Large with… Charlie Drake… and garden paths appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

It’s all very impressive and I’m beginning to think my hair has let me down. We try combing it. And back-combing it. Even Doddy’s magic fingers — which worked wonders on him — can’t make my hair stand on end. Can’t do a thing with it. And it wasn’t washed last night, either!

“Never mind,” says Doddy, brightly. “Let it settle a mo. We’ll attack it at intervals, when it’s unsuspecting. Maybe that will work.”

Now exactly why I should want my hair to stand erect after it has behaved itself like any decent English hair for years is rather a mystery. It’s just that with comedians, I always seem to get so involved. And end up in a whacky situation.

And they don’t come much whackier than sitting high above London’s fashionable Park Lane in an hotel executive suite, attempting … well … high coiffeur with Ken Dodd. But that’s Doddy for you: the most conventional conversation turns into a chuckle, a giggle, or a downright belly laugh.

Right now Doddy’s Music Box master is in London for cabaret. Such sessions, in between television, radio and recordings, mean high pressure living for Ken. You’d think he’d be all on edge. Go, go, go … gag, gag, gag. But no. He’s relaxed. That electric energy that powers his stage act rarely overlaps into his private life.

“It’s the reason I keep going, I suppose,” he says, quietly, with just a whisper of his native Knotty Ash dialect. “I don’t panic. Not any more. I’m able to relax. I’m a placid type.”

And he proceeds to show just how placid by attacking my skull from the back, rummaging like a housewife at a jumble sale! Ahem, I’d forgotten about his hair threat. But not to worry. Mine continues to lie doggo.

“But I have found a couple of little curls here,” says Ken. “And that’s a start.” Well, thank heaven for little curls …

That’s the trouble with Doddy. Just when you think you’ve got him talking seriously … BANG, something daft happens. It’s most discumknockerating.

Gosh, Doddy’s even got me at it now! But with Ken there’s always some little item, some link between the real life Kenneth Arthur Dodd and the man who tickles the fancy of the nation.

Look at his smart, well-tailored, but unobtrusive suit. What every go-ahead young business man is wearing this season.

But you can bet that somewhere in a pocket, there’s a scrap of paper on which Ken has jotted down a new gag, a new comedy routine.

“There’s one now,” he admits, delving deep into his wallet pocket. “On this envelope. It says ‘Knotty Ash Crown Jewels.’ Now that ties up with that silversmiths I passed this afternoon. Never done anything on that, and it lends itself. It’s daft enough.”

The Dodd comedy brain rarely stops working. And he must have quite a brain as hair like his would need something pretty sensational to take root in!

Still reads comics; never stops looking for the opportunity to slip in the quick ad lib.

“I work hard,” he says. “And eat three regular meals a day. Try to get a decent sleep each night, too. When I wake up in the morning, I exercise. Up, down. Up, down. Then the other eyelid!”

He has the master touch of leading into a gag casually, so you are completely unsuspecting. I throw back my head to guffaw and that is a mistake. Gives Ken a perfect chance to try again to get my hair to emulate his tonsorial acrobatics (that’s his explanation, by the way).

No go again. You can’t catch my hair by surprise. “But you’ve got a couple of grey hairs here,” observes Ken. “You’re getting a bit thin on top, too, if you’ll pardon the bald statement!”

H’mmm, back to the interview. Ken doesn’t smoke; thinks it is a “mug’s game.” Lives in a splendid 18th-century Georgian farmhouse in Knotty Ash. It’s packed with all the gear his abounding talents might require; piano, recording equipment, tapes, film, projector, Ken Dodd is the ultimate professional.

Makes a deep, philosophical study of humour; the breakdown of a gag, what exactly makes people laugh at it. Cheerfully admits there is no general rule — or if there is, he hasn’t found it. Says his hobby is “just chatting to ordinary people.” He’s 37, done the lot professionally. Could afford to sit back a bit, but still drives on. Looking forward to a new stage presentation at the Palladium; to a film; to his Doddy’s Music Box each week.

“Great mixing with these pop people,” he says. “They’re such good sports. I’m enjoying the shows greatly: you could call it a nice blend of pop and com.”

Well, it was his line, not mine.

And we’ve been talking almost an hour and his hair is still spiralling upwards. It’s incredible. I never want to see the Indian rope trick now. “Discovered my hair years ago,” he says. “It was on my head! But one night in my dressing room as I heaved off my pullover, my hair just stayed upright.”

And mine won’t. Ken makes a final attack and comes to a (sorry, but it’s catching) hairline decision.

“You haven’t upright hair,” he says, sadly. “You’re a case for the Diddy people.”

Oh yes, diddy people. We haven’t mentioned them. How did they begin? “It was my Uncle Jack,” says Ken, arching an eyebrow. “Years ago. He was a diddy man. Very small, quaint, red-faced, lovable, puckish. All the kids down our way called him diddy.”

Well, the hair doesn’t work. I am a dead loss at that. At my height (6ft. 2in.) I hardly qualify as a diddy man. Haven’t Ken and I something in common?

So what’s the Doddy-word for someone big, large, over six feet?

“Hoozey,” says Ken, quick as a shot.

Well, here goes. This week it’s Lanning At … Hoozey?

It just doesn’t seem me, somehow!

The post Lanning at Large… A hair raising experience! appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

For, en route to the sausage factory, these piggies get some snorting good laughs. From the antics of us humans.

There’s the young master: Mark Rowe. Only 19. They call him the latest “Golden Boy” of British boxing. But every morn before dawn, he’s in with the pigs. Dispensing swill. Then he goes over ploughed fields for a three-mile run.

And the boss. Bill Rowe. Not nearly so energetic. But he ambles about in mid winter in a vest, like some great contented bear. Splendidly hospitable, but rumbles away because his big son is chopping down all the trees on his 200-acre spread.

Oh yes. Strange are the goings-on at Grove Farm. The pigs wouldn’t swop it for the Palladium.

Take today. Photographer Peter Bolton and I arrive to have words with Mark. It’s all to do with the ITV boxing programme, Professional Boxing, on Wednesday, when the piggies’ 11st. 51b., 5ft. 1Oin. young master attempts to … well … bring home the bacon against Jack Powe, of Preston, in a contest that Mark hopes will prepare him eventually for a middleweight title fight.

It’s bang in the middle of Mark’s punishing training routine. Nothing else for it but to join in. Dad Bill says: “He’ll be back from his run along that bit o’ path over there. Careful where you tread, now.”

The pigs line up to watch the fun. They do not have long to wait.

Photographer Pete, doubtless attempting to obtain the Picture of the Year, disappears knee-deep into a patch where only pigs would feel at home! Ahem, I think I’ll stay here, close by Mark’s private gym. There are concrete paths here.

Mark pants in. Looks in great trim. Doesn’t say much. Doesn’t go much on publicity. He’s shy, insular but not unfriendly. Right now he’s training and that’s the job in hand.

He says: “Hold the punchbag for me, will you, please?” Well, there’s a half-hundredweight of padding to protect me. But the destructive punches of Mark have the power to swing the bag. And I swing with it. This kid packs a wallop!

Mark seems concerned. “I’m not hitting with full power,” he says quietly — it’s almost a whisper. “I daren’t. Without bandages on my hands. I’d split my knuckles.”

Ahem. Jack Powe on Wednesday must face this teakish teenager with bandages and without a punch-bag to hide behind and I for one wish him well.

Mark doesn’t talk about his private life, but from Bill Rowe I learn Mark:

• it owns 100 acres of his own and 13 houses:
• has his own private swimming pool, gymnasium and 40-record juke box;
• spends his holidays in Florida .
• was paid £10,000 to turn pro after a sensational amateur career in which he lost only three of his 100 fights and won an Empire Games Gold Medal:
• drives a blue, two-seater Lotus Elan — and is thinking of switching to a Ferrari with the same nonchalance as I order an oil change!

So why box?

Mark stops throwing punches. Muses deeply. He always uses his head before engaging his mouth. Then replies: “It’s purely ambition. I want to be the greatest boxer in the world.”

Don’t imagine this is a playboy boxer with an oversize ego.

Playboys don’t rise before dawn to clean out a pig-sty. They’re not in bed every night before 10. Nor do they go without smokes and drinks. “Mind, I do go to the pictures in the afternoons about three times a week,” adds Mark, a trifle sheepishly. “I shoot a bit, too. Pheasants, rabbits, you know.”

Girl friends, then? “Yes, I did have a couple once,” says Mark with great disinterest. I do not pursue the subject; right now we’re doing pull-ups on the bars. I am in no mood for talking, because I’ve run out of breath.

Mind, Mark has most of the attributes that girls require from a pin-up. Blue eyes. College-boy style hair. His boyish good looks unmarked after more than 100 amateur scraps and five tough professional encounters. There is a scar on the bridge of his nose. “A childhood accident,” he explains.

He still reckons his most exciting moment was when a fiery old boar got loose and needed rounding up, cowboy style.

That’s the morning training over. Mark must lunch, grab a sleep, then roar up into the East End to another gym for sparring practice.

I’m rather glad I’m not his weight. Otherwise I bet he would have me in there.

And that would have been enough to make a pig laugh

The post Lanning at Large… with boxing’s GOLDEN BOY appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Still, finding Hugh Manning at the door of his six-room bachelor flat with a cup of coffee is reassuring. Hugh is an early morning man. It’s the best time to talk to him about Mrs. Thursday and the role of Richard Hunter, the lady’s financial adviser which he plays in the series. In a royal blue dressing gown he looks like a man who has been up for some time. “And I have,” he says, running a hand through his hair and slightly ruffling its well-ordered appearance, “since before 7.30, in fact!”

Now this morning I can make the same claim. But for Hugh, it’s the same each day. Up by 7.30 a.m. Doesn’t matter how late he retired. He’s up. Has a sluice. And ambles down for a cup of strong tea, without sugar.

Here, in this lofty-ceiling, airy kitchen, Hugh sits looking rather like a character out of a Noel Coward stage production.

A bath. Then breakfast, which is usually sketchy. “Sometimes just bread and cheese,” he says. “But of course, we’re talking about mornings when I’m not out and playing tennis.”

That’s a relief, anyway. Interviews I can manage at this time of the morning. Tennis is another thing altogether. But regularly Hugh abandons all but his tea and scoots off to a local tennis club (which he co-founded some years ago). After an energetic set or two, he might breakfast frugally on an egg.

At 9.45, he’s off to the television studio. Between breakfast and then, he attends to the “little jobs a wife might do, if I had a wife.” Like laundry and shopping. Hugh relishes shopping. But he doesn’t clean. A cleaner does that for him.

The lounge is comfortable, warm, yet dignified. Lined with books, on subjects from anthropology to Mrs. Beaton’s Book on Cooking and Household Management. “I do a great deal of reading,” he says, lighting his first cigar of three he smokes every day. “And I like to listen to good music, too.”

He cooks with abounding enthusiasm. But ignores recipes. Pours in what he thinks is right. Tastes as he goes along. And delights in experimenting with sweet and sour contrasts, like sugar and yoghourt. “You could say my cooking speciality is Chicken Marengo,” he says. “But don’t ask me what goes in — it varies every time! I have a great liking for Indonesian food, too. It combines the subtleties of Chinese cooking with the power of Indian.”

Hugh dines out three times a week normally. Usually in a “rather splendid Indian place down the road.” A great curry man. But doesn’t make them himself.

“Can’t master the technique,” he says, furrowing a brow. “And I’d rather go out and get the real thing than make do with a pale imitation.”

He lives alone. But is never lonely. Has a wide circle of friends. Didn’t marry because “I was in love with a girl at 18, it all fell through and that was it as far as I was concerned.”

Once trained as a chartered accountant, gave it up because, typically, “I didn’t like it.” Started acting, aged six “and stopped the show by waving and shouting to my parents in mid-poem.” Now an urbane 47, a contented 14 stone, and “thoroughly enjoying life” in Mrs. Thursday. A series which means him getting, for the first time in his career, fan mail.

“Mostly from elderly ladies,” he says, just a teeny bit embarrassed. “And mostly charming. Mind, I did have one letter from a six-year-old boy who said he thought my face lit up like a headlamp!”

Tries to answer all his fan mail. Personally. Hugh wouldn’t want it any other way.

Finances. Does he care for his own cash with the same polished precision as Richard Hunter shows for Mrs. Thursday’s windfall? “Oh no,” he says. “I have an accountant; never worry about money myself. Never have an inkling how much I’ve got in my pocket. If I have a lot I spend it. I’m dreadfully extravagant. I don’t think money is worth worrying about.”

Which is just the sort of answer I expect from Hugh Manning, a gentleman to his fingertips, and a most interesting early morning companion. It’s not nearly so grey outside now. And what’s this? A taxi lurking right outside. I’ll wager Hugh even organised that.

The post Lanning at Large… with Mrs Thursday’s man Friday appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. Just grins and explains: “Well, Dave, so much of my time is spent in dressing rooms. Now I make the most of it. And I like to talk to people like you in them.”

I’m here at Frank’s invitation. Subject is the new series of The Frank Ifield Show, which starts this week. Now I was thinking of dropping in on him and young wife Gillian, formerly a Palladium dancer, at their new home, on the outskirts of London.

Frank says “no.” Not that he’s unsociable. Just the opposite. But he hasn’t finished decorating. And he likes to keep his private life … well, private.

And there’s an awful lot of interesting aspects about Frank this side of his front door …

His handshake, for a start. Talk about a grip. Has the sort of power you’d expect only from Popeye! Frank has large, strong hands. Brawny arms. He’s built like a stockman and just doesn’t look right employed exclusively applying stage makeup to his nose right now.

“Always do my own ‘slap,’” he remarks, slipping casually into friendly, slangy tones. “Feel such a Charlie letting anyone else do it.”

Incredible how he dedicates himself to the business. Doesn’t eat a morsel for six hours before any performance. “Must give food time to digest properly,” he says. Doesn’t drink, either. Not that he’s much of a drinker in any circumstances. Just imported Australian beer, as a “swill-down” with a meal.

Smokes a bit; only filters. And cuts right down on these when doing anything athletic in his act. Like sword-fighting, or dancing.

Been in the big time for years and years now. But still gets butterflies in the stomach … and admits it cheerfully now as he starts changing into his blue evening suit. Still likes to sing the old numbers he did back in Australia.

And still prefers to sing in bare feet. “Was always happier wandering about without shoes as a kid,” he says. “And that’s stuck, too. Although I only ever kick off my shoes during recording sessions.”

Sssh. Loudspeaker is crackling. “Fifteen minutes, Mr. Ifield, please.” Still bags of time. But Frank is ready to go now. Looks immaculate. Dozens of artists would start pacing the floor. Not Frank. He’s too much of a professional to let his butterflies show.

Singer-wise, he’s come a long, long way from the nipper singing “Ten Green Bottles” with his brothers in an air raid shelter in Coventry. Done the lot. really. And there’s still a whole lot of his adopted country, Australia, in the Frank underneath.

The slang. It flits unobtrusively and musically into his conversation. I don’t suppose he’s ever said “fair dinkum, sport” or anything as corny as that. But to Frank, carefully going over guitar chords, beer is grog, sixpence is a zack, his suit is his whistle, sausages are snags, and anything he finds remotely agreeable is beauty.

He’s on in five minutes. We stroll to the wings. Out front, a packed, sophisticated audience. We’re still chatting about the series.

“There’s Ted Rogers. Great comedian. Looking forward to working with him,” he says.

Drums roll. Frank strides confidently away. His last words: “See you, Dave. I’ll give you a call next time I land up in a hot dressing room …”

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