Accidents do happen.

My first major accident occurred at the tender age of seven. It happened at home in the garden.

My grandfather was a compulsive gardener and grew a vast variety of vegetables for home use; any over-abundance was quickly retailed after the Second World War on the flourishing black market in exchange for the exotic things in life like fresh home-made butter, sugar that came from the local army camp, bananas and the occasional pineapple.

He had built a greenhouse in which he grew the most delicious tomatoes, and to this day I have not tasted a tomato with such a superb taste as Pops’. He maintained that the taste was enhanced by his constant watering with his secret pigeon-shit concoction brewed in an old ten gallon diesel drum next to the compost heap at the bottom of the garden.

We also had three apples trees which received the same medication during the flowering and early fruit forming period. These apples too were absolutely delicious and at harvest time we had a queue of neighbours lining up to buy them.

I have to take some credit for both the apples and the tomatoes as every Saturday morning I was ordered to get down on my hands and knees and scrape up the pigeon-shit from the pigeon-loft floor and breeding shelves. It was a grimy and arduous task and I hated it. But with hindsight I have to congratulate myself producing the best tasting apples and tomatoes on the Fylde coast.

The Fylde Coast is a coastal plain in western Lancashire. It’s roughly a 13-mile square-shaped peninsula, bounded by Morecambe Bay to the north, the river Ribble estuary to the south, the Irish Sea to the west, and the Bowland hills to the east. The eastern boundary is approximately the location of the M6 motorway, constructed in the mid sixties.

It is a flat, alluvial plain, parts were once dug for peat, and it is the western part of an area formerly known as Amounderness. The name 'Fylde' is of Scandinavian origin, meaning "field".
With all this in its favour the region became a vegetable man’s paradise with is rich sandy mixed clay loam soil. We lived in Cleveleys a small town to the north of Blackpool and south of the fishing port of Fleetwood.

It was spring but I had been bed ridden for three days with a terrible dose of flu. On that third day I donned an old dressing gown of Pop’s and went to the vegetable patch in the back garden. 
Just in front of the pigeon loft was the veggie patch, I could see that Pop had already got two rows of spring baby potatoes in as the rows were highly ridged. I guessed that the next row would be his climbing runner beans as he had half built his cane trestle for them to climb. How could I help? I noticed that the blossom buds were just beginning to open on the apple trees adjacent to the pigeon loft. He’d not done his round tree soil loosening.

Ah ah, I could do that. This job entailed the use of the pitch fork. The ground around at the base of the trees had to be turned over and loosened creating a circular trough around the tree in which I would pour the pigeon-shite mixture.

I darted off to the tool shed and brought out the pitch fork. I didn’t bother changing out of the dressing gown and slippers as I sussed out that I would be able to hear, my mother’s lover boy’s at the time, car pull up to drop her off after she finished rehearsals.

On hearing it, I could dart back to my room, which at the time was the large downstairs front room, which had been converted in a self contained flat-let for my mother and me. I’d throw myself into my bed and pretend I’d been a good boy and spent the whole day in bed as I’d been instructed.

This was not to be. On my third downward plunge of the pitch fork my right foot was on the receiving end of the motion!

I uttered a scream that would have made Russel Crowe proud had he used it when he heard of the death of his wife in the movie Gladiators.

The moment of acute pain coupled with the shock of disbelief at my stupidity subsided quickly. Doctor Andews our local GP leapt to the forefront of juvenile grey matter, and he’s only four houses away on the corner of York Ave.

To this day I do not know how I managed it, or what drove me to hop on my right leg, clutching the pitch fork embedded through my slipper and left foot, down the drive-way through the gate along the street and into Dr Andrews’ surgery.

The waiting room was full but gasps from the waiting patients alerted old Molly Suttcliffe, the doctor’s assistant, that the figure of a child with a pitched fork impaled in his foot required immediate attention. An enterprising young waiting patient picked me up in his arms, “Where do you want him?” he asked.

“In Doctor’s accident room.” Replied Molly opening a door.

I was laid down on an examination bed and the next words I heard were, “So Pooley boy, what’ve have you done this time?”

Doctor Andrews was in his late fifties with a craggy lined face and he constantly smiled exposing his brown nicotine teeth acquired from his 60 a day Craven A. He peered at my foot. 

“Well, well that’s remarkable,” he said as he looked at the metal prong that was about three inches through my foot. At the same time old Molly who was now holding the pitch-fork with one hand grabbed an Asprin and with the other, gave it to me and said, “Swallow that!”

“Missed everything! Remarkable!” exclaimed Doctor Andrews. “Let’s get it out.”

“Right between the metatarsals, remarkable.” he continued as he deftly withdrew the pitch-fork with both nicotine sets, upper and lower teeth, exposed.

I let loose a second Russel Crowe scream.

“Alright alright, calm down Pooley, I’m going to give you a local.” He said as he filled a large syringe with a translucent liquid, “You won’t feel a thing.”

And sure enough I didn’t. 

Within a minute of the injection I felt as if I no longer had a left foot.

Bizarrely this is almost the same way a fellow thespian forty years later explained how he felt as I axed off the tip of his middle finger of his left hand in a production of the Scottish play aptly named “Mac-Bed”, as it had a giant hydraulically powered bed, which was meant to roll up and down a ramped stage as its centre piece.

This production was in the early eighties and the enlightened Israeli director proclaimed that Mr Shakespeare’s Scottish Play was all about the sexual relationship between Macbeth and his villainous coercive wife. For this reason a giant very slow moving bed working on an hydraulic powered system, was assembled in front of a large back-drop of scaffolding and all the scenes between the two protagonists were played on the bed.

In the latter part of the play when the fighting starts between Macbeth and Macduff the mattress was removed and the base with the scaffolding became the setting for their fight. This meant we clashed blows precariously balanced on the scaffolding making dramatic leaps onto the bed-base. 
It was during a final spurt as Macduff swung towards my head that I parried his blow and swept my sword down aiming for his arm. Unfortunately Michael, playing Macduff was at that time meant to grab hold of a horizontal scaffolding bar and swing with Tarzan-like dexterity onto the bed. A loss of spit second timing and my sword caught his hand still on the scaffolding.

Michael a true Thespian landed on the bed, let out a huge roar and charged at me pushing me off the stage were he was to deliver the fatal blow. All to the rehearsed plan!

The iron bed began its cued trundle down stage giving me time to let out my dying scream off stage.

 Michael  whispered sotto-voce in the wings, “You fucking Asre-hole!”

He grabbed my fake plastic head dripping blood from an assistant stage manager and sauntered back on stage for the final scene.

I met Michael in his dressing room after the curtain call and it was immediately assessed that a trip to the local hospital was in order to re-attach the dangling nail of the middle finger of his left hand, which had only been saved from a trip on the hydraulic bed by the fact that Michael had been wearing some very robust leather gloves.

It was a Tuesday night so the casualty department was virtually empty and not bursting at the seams with its weekend victims of alcoholic poisoning.

Michael was quickly examined by a junior intern on duty who told us to get to the x-ray facilities and get the hand x-rayed. 

This done we returned to casualty to be greeted y the smiling face of a doctor we both knew. Dr Kushlic the husband of a local theatrical diva who we both knew.

Dr Kushlic and the intern looked at the x-ray.

“Nothing broken, luckily just caught the finger nail” said Dr Kushlic, “But I’m not into fingers as I’m a gynecologist,” he continued with a broad smile on his face.

Michael and I both laughed catching Dr Kushlic ‘s double-entendre.

“You’re going to lose the nail.” He said as he instructed the intern to clean and dress the wound.
The rest of the night and well into the early hours of the morning Michael and I consumed of bottle of a fine malt whiskey. We slept most of the following day and performed in the evening.

After the performance when asked how he was Michael gave exactly the same answer that I gave to my mother when she returned from rehearsals.

“I’m fine.”

The show must go on even  though "Accidents do Happen'.

A tear is shed

The death of a close family member is always a harrowing and traumatic experience.

My close family, until I married and had offspring of my own, consisted solely of my mother and myself, but for eight years of my early life I had also had my grandparents, affectionately called Nan and Pop.

My mother taught me not to rely on anybody’s assistance and fend for myself. She was also very happy that as I got into my early teens I had decided to follow in her footsteps and tread the boards. 

In my mother’s latter and middle aged years she continued to run the boarding house that she had been left by Nan and Pop.

With the passing of years the demand for fan dancers had been swamped by the growing demand for topless pole dancers at the discos and strip joints that had sprung up in Blackpool and across the world. So the running of the boarding house provided her with a stable income from the summer guests, the occasional long term tenant, and it also gave her a capital asset.

I did try at various resting periods to visit the old home town and my mother. But these visits were few and far between due to a constant lack of funds, especially during the years that I was trying to raise a family of my own.

 I did however manage a few unexpected visits, like on my return from the Edinburgh festival, when I arrived with a face that looked like an enlarged blow-up beach ball.

I had a sore throat during the final days of the production and been prescribed some penicillin by a young Scottish doctor. But I suddenly had an allergic reaction to the drug. So a quick visit to the local general practitioner in Edinburgh where we were performing, a jab in the rear end of anti-histamine, the penicillin, and  an overnight train ride to Preston, where I was met by an old school friend with a car, and the problem was solved.

Later in life; the mid-seventies I received a garbled message from an old age care centre in Kirkham, a small town in the Fylde near Blackpool. The message on my answering machine, in pure Lancastrian, was a simple, “Cum as soon as ya can !”

My mother had been in residence there since she had sold the boarding house to a property developer at an exorbitant price. They planned to demolish the old house and turn it into a seven story complex, with two luxury flats on each level. This depressed the hell out of me as all my childhood memories of life in the attic, the summer months in the garden sheds, and Pop’s veggie garden and pigeon loft would be gone.

She had admitted herself as she suspected she was descending into the same ailment that Nan had suffered. Today it’s called Alzheimer’s, back in Nan’s era it was called age-old-senility. Or as the locals said, “Aye she’s going a bit daft.”

A regular not so daft routine of Nan’s was to mop the downstairs corridor which stretched the full length of the house. 

At nine o’clock sharp she filled her metal bucket to the brim and would continue till four in the afternoon breaking only for a cup of tea and her favourite biscuits, Jaffa cakes. These were a crunchy biscuit base covered with an orange flavoured jam and then coated in chocolate. They were only offered to special guests and I wasn’t allowed to touch them unless I was offered one. Nan would polish off a whole packet in a day and my mother told her, “Them things are going to kill ya.”

I was never sure how much Nan took in or whether she understood what we were saying to her, but she pottered on her own sweet way, smiling and whistling a Perry Como tune. She enjoyed cooking and her offerings from the kitchen were eventful to say the least.

On one return visit in the early-seventies she decided to cook me an evening meal. She had remembered that I loved braised lamb’s liver with onions, laying in mashed potato and crispy bacon on top. My favourite pudding in those days of rationing just after the war had been mashed banana with home made custard. Bananas were a rationed luxury item so it felt as if one was enjoying an exotic tropical fruit.

I was sitting at the table in the downstairs lounge when Nan’s voice rang out, “Cum get it Chuck!” As I entered the kitchen the smell set my gastric juices in eager anticipation of a glorious feast, but when I looked at the plate my heart sank with utter dismay.

Yes, there was the liver and onions piled high on creamy mashed potatoes and even the crispy bacon garnish was there, but this majestic dish was surrounded by mashed banana and custard.

Nan said, “Saves on t’ dishes, less washing up.”

I thanked her and made the excuse of going to the loo. I crept out of the house to the local chippy and to see if an old school chum fancied a pint of best Boddingtons Bitter.

So, a couple of years later, when I’d managed to borrow the money and make the trip to see my mother I was very worried as to state I’d find her in. If she’d reached the custard and liver syndrome, I knew I was in for a harrowing time.

The care centre was called Serenity House, I mused that Senility House would be a better name. I thought this as I walked up the long driveway and caught a glimpse of some of the inmates.

Wheelchairs and motorized walkers were in evidence and an old couple holding hands on a bench staring at the sky. My mind raced and I thought of our general disrespect for the elderly, hoping that when I departed it would be a rush job, like getting killed by a truck careering down the road while I was in a state of inebriation.

As soon as I entered a hawk-like lady swooped down on me and announced she was the senior warden and I should follow her to her office.

“Tek a seat,” she said.

I’ve always been amazed at the Lancastrian accent. The number of times I’ve been invited to indulge in petty larceny. I had a seat, and sat down, wondering if she’d be offended if when I left I took the chair with me?

“What canna do you for?”

I though of answering theft, but thought better of it and replied, “I’m here to see my mother, Mrs Poole, you sent a message.

“Oh aye, that’s right we did. She not too good you know. Seeing things and hearing voices int’ walls.”

“That’s my mother, been doing that all her life, she calls them, her angels and they bring her good luck. She first heard them the night before Ken Dodd and her groups of dancers were invited to the Royal Variety show at the Palladium in London.”

“So she doinit for a long time?”

“All her life, as far as I know.”

“Ah think yu’d better speak t’ doctor Mr Poole. He’s second door ont’ left upstairs.  A’l goin tell ya Ma y’ here.”

With that she jumped up and opened the door, “Stairs is just round t’corner.” as she pointed her spindly fingers that looked like they’d been used as “finger-stand-ins” for Hugh Jackman in the X movies.

I knocked on the doctor’s door and heard what I thought was an answer to come in. I entered only to be immediately told to get out and wait till my number appeared on sign above the door.

I traipsed back down stairs and went to the reception.

A gleeful smiling young lady greeted me with the standard Lancastrian, “What canna do y’ for?”

“A number. To see the doctor who I’d worked out was the resident psychiatrist , Dr Padiachee from the name on his door. 

“’Ave y’ got an appointment?”

“No the senior warden said I should speak to him in relation to my mother Mrs Poole.”

“Oh, why didn’t y’ say int’ first place?  Mrs Poole y’ say?”

“That’s right, with an “e” at the end.”

“Just be a mo’.”

She punched into her keyboard what seemed like Homer’s odyssey judging on the time she took, and said, “Tek a seat, y’number’ll be up in a minute.”

I heard a printer and two minutes later she called be back, handing me a small slip of paper with the number three printed on it.

I climbed the stairs and again faced the doctor’s door. Above the flashing number three. I knocked and entered.

“What kept you?” enquired Dr Padiachee.

“I had to get a number remember.”

“Oh yes, dam stupid system if you ask me. What’s the problem? Have I seen you before? You look too young to be a patient here.”

“I’m not. I want to talk about my mother, Mrs Queenie Poole. I believe you’ve been seeing her.”

“Yes, the fan dancer?”

“When she was a youngster, yes.”

Dr Padiachee went to his filing cabinet and pulled out a blue file. “Got them colour coded. Yes, yes, paranoid schizophrenia, usual symptoms, delusions, hearing voices, seeing things.” As he read his file, “pretty conclusive, don’t you think?”

“You’re the doctor, not me.”I replied, “What are you doing with her?”

“Ah, yes, standard medication, just a mild sedative.”

“You know she’s been hearing voices and seeing things all her life?”

“No.” he said in a state of shock. “I wasn’t informed of that. We found it vey difficult to trace any of her medical history. She tends to wander in her sessions with me. I’ve been finding it difficult to separate the facts from delusions. In fact the address we’ve got for you is a prime example see”, as he handed me a sheet of paper from the file.

I glanced at it. It read “The Forest, Johannesburg, South Africa.”

I laughed. At the time I was living in a suburb of Johannesburg called Forest Town.

It was no wonder that the Doctor’s monthly reports had not been reaching me, but at least they had the home telephone number right.

“Well, from what you’ve told me, this puts a different complexion on the whole diagnosis. Seeing things and hearing voices all her life; you say?”

“Yes, but I’ve always thought they were just flights of her imagination, they were usually about her work, whether she get more, was she getting fat, how long were fan dancers going to be needed, they should shut down the strip joints; that sort of thing.”

“Nothing about people walking through walls?” asked the doctor.

I laughed as I remember her watching with me my favourite TV show of my youth, the BBC’s Dr Who. It was the episode of the first change of actors, William Hartnell to Patrick Troughton. 

In those days computer graphics were a thing of the future, but cross-fading through two identical looking sets with a different actor in each set was in the game in 1966.

“How’d they do that?” my mother asked.

“I dun’t know,” I replied.

“It’s like he walked through the wall.” This was her explanation. 

I told Dr Padiachee the story, but he didn’t see either the connection or the comedy. At that moment his phone rang. It was the senior warden advising me that I should get to my mother’s room as she was up and about. I apologized to the doctor and told him I’d try and return after I visited my mother.

“It’ll have to be tomorrow,” he said, “I’m off home now.”

“Ok” I said as I left the rooms of who I thought was a snotty English educated Indian or Pakistani immigrant, who knew he was onto a good thing working for this private establishment who had a lot of rich old-age residents.

“Hi there Ma,” as I entered her room.

Her head swung round, eyes glued to a blank wall to greet me. She extended her bony almost completely flesh ridden arms and a smile engulfed her crinkled face, “Cessy my boy,” croaked from her dry mouth. I handed her a glassed of iced water.

“Thank you,” as she took a sip. “You still in the forest?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I keep sending letters y’ know, but they come back marked address unknown.”

“I’ll write it down for you and the warden.”

“Ooh don’t do that! Don’t give them anything! They come at night, through the walls, you know, steal your pension book, look!”

She said this whilst she leant forward and lifted the corner of her mattress and pulled out a press-zipped plastic bag.

“Tek it all, all of it, I’m glad you came, it’s been worrying me.”

I looked at the bag. It must have at least a thousand Pounds along with her tea stained pension book.”

“No I can’t Ma. You’ll need it.”

Smiling she said, “Not after tonight.”

And how right she was.

That late evening I few back overnight to Johannesburg.

I landed at 9am local time and had just downed a home-made-expresso , when the phone rang.

I picked it up. I immediately recognized the senior warder’s voice, “Mr Poole?”

“Ja” I said back in my SA mode.

“Ya Ma, she went last night, in her sleep. It were peaceful. We’ve got her will and instructions re burial. When will you be coming?”

I put down the receiver as a tear rolled down my cheek.

A Hip-Replacement Appology

Sir Cess has to issue an appoloy to all his new viewers over the past month, especially those in Japan, Russia, and Canada, and all his numerous followers.

His decrepid physical state has seen him in hospital yet again. This time for a hip replacement on on his amutated right leg foot, which was done last year.

In spite of all these, hackings, choppings and metal replacements, he found time last month to have three days filming work in a local SA soapie, where he appeared as a villainous Czech gangster who kidnapped the leading juve lady, her husband, her mother in-law and another leading juve male.

It was all shot in Zulu, which he didn't understand but with his considerable experience, he managed to complete the assignment, and was then duly shot three times and mysteriously exited the soapie.

But he has been told by his agent, Mr Boo-King-Clarke" that he still has another few scenes to shoot and will be called-back. When this is in the hands of the producers, and the writers.

His considerable previous experience in the art of soapies as far back as the BBC's "Dixon of Dock Green" in the early nineteen-seventies, he envisages that he will be seen in a hospital bed, a prop to which now he has considerable personal experience on which to draw.

His character, Knobus, will utter the earth shattering line, "You can't keep a Czech Bear with warrents for arrest even in his home country, down for long."

This will fit in with a crimminal case that is at present running in the SA courts, and we all know how soapies like to keep abreast of local news stories!

This short post will be followed very shortly by a new one about "Accidents" which is hiding away in his hard and greying matter drives.

So all he asks is: Please all you now 7147 gobal readers/viewers, keep reading and please make comments on the stories. Thank you.

Genisis

As I’ve often mentioned before, a jobbing actor always needs the companionship of a good book, a crossword or a Suduko puzzle to pass away the time he is hurrying up and waiting.

The choice of book rests with the individual.

I have always tended to towards Sci-Fi or a fast moving spy-thriller. Occasionally I have plunged into something deeper, like when I was in India. This was to get my mind completely away from the scenes of dismal poverty or sickening wealth that walked hand in hand from the marble polished hotel forecourts into the sewerage filled gutters, so I had a re-read of Milan Kundera’s “Imagination”.

His deep and memorable prose certainly made me think twice as I watched a woman squatting in a Mumbai tree on the main road from the airport doing her daily morning ablutions. This spectacular display occurred approximately one hour after our arrival in the sub-continent, and while we were engulfed by the oppressive humid heat of pre-monsoon India in a taxi.

At the very moment the woman’s falling faeces cascaded to the street below, I was reading what I thought was a very apt quote of Kunderas’;  “There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside time.” I wanted the sickening sight to be removed from my time zone!

Taken literally, modern physicists like Stephen Hawkins would say that this was an impossibility, or rather highly improbable, unless of course we plunged into his parallel and multiple universe theories.
This I’m not prepared or capable of doing so I’ll take you along the mundane route of my enlightened memories that caught fire in the depths of my cerebrum.

New sights of a gold-plated lift taking us to a penthouse abode quickly erased the image of the tree squatting woman and the roof top swimming pool surrounded by imitation grass made me realize that the local Indian film producer we were visiting would have a flushing loo.

However, Kundera’s  quote resurfaced in my grey matter about a week later as I stood up and hoisted up my trousers after I had deposited the contents of my Dehli-Belly in the Nilgri Hills’ tea plantation.

It was probably the very act of defecation and relieving my bursting bowels that brought back the memory of the lady in the Mumbai tree and hence Kundera’s quote; but this time the quote brought the word Genesis to the fore front of my brain, as the scenic surroundings reminded me of the mountain Kingdom of Lesotho and the riddle which Chief Mojaje had given me on the last evening of my five day trek.

“The answer’s in Genesis”, he had said and then continued, “Give me the name of the man who was born before his father, died before his father and was laid on his grandmother’s chest?”

We were almost half way through our drive through India and were in Mysore. At supper in the half-a-star hotel , Anthony, the director outlined our movements for the following day. He had to cash some his US dollar traveler’s cheques and then we would take a look at the Holi festival, before travelling onto Trivandrum. I’ve already described this in the story “Dehli Belly in the Nilgri Hills”, so I won’t repeat myself.

This meant that we would not be going to Goa, which I been told by a friend was the most beautiful area of India. The fused culture of the catholic Portuguese colonialists and the locals was apparently a fascinating combination.

Dr Hromik said we would see some evidence of this as we travelled through the southern Nilgris as the Portuguese influence had moved quite a distance into the interior.

So the day after witnessing the harrowing scene of the blood-letting at the Holi festival we climbed aboard our 4x4 and set off.

I take this opportunity to give a brief description of the state of the Indian roads.

You have to immediately understand that it is not only combustion engine vehicles that travel on these thoroughfares. Elephants, mules, donkeys, a few horse & traps, cattle, and pedestrians make use of the roads. It seems as if no particular vehicle or even pedestrian has primary use of the road and everything that is on the road takes its own time to get from A to B. This you can imagine results in slow moving traffic.

Not so.

The average maximum speed throughout the whole road system is approximately 45 to 50 miles per hour when you are on an open road. In towns and cities this slows down to a snail’s pace, and as none of the traffic lights are in working condition all junctions assume the status of a 4 way stop, with it seems the elephant always having the prime right-of-way, unless it is out-ranked by a cow.

As a first timer to India I was often shocked by how close a small car comes to hitting a huge truck head on. The cars like to weave around the slow moving rickshaws and trucks but this means they have to go on the wrong side of the road. After a while you get used to this insanity. If it’s too much for you don’t watch or close your eyes.

Never mind elephants, because of their massive bulk, commanding the right of way at intersections. Beware of cows! They are holy animals and it seems that the bovines are aware of this fact, and so they happily sit in the middle of the road forcing vehicles to drive around them. This can be alarming at times because around a blind corner you can stumble upon a gigantic bull without warning.

So, as tempting as it might be for those of you, who like the Hindu locals who believe in reincarnation, I advise you to never, drive in India yourself. The road rules and ways of the land are so different than the west that it is a recipe for disaster.

Our trip down the mountain range was filled with all of the above encounters.  Elephants laden with cotton bales with a youth the size of Tom-Thumb perched on the animal’s neck weaved its way past trucks, cars, and rickshaws.

We had almost completed our descent when Dr Hromik suggested that we stop in the tiny town of Tenkasi and see as he described it, “A combination of cultures”.

On the main street next to a tyre-changing establishment where eight and nine year old boys removed punctured tryes off their rims with the use of crowbars and their own body weight was a Catholic church. Right next to it was a Hindu shrine and, believe it or not, a Buddhist meeting hall.

While Dr Hromik, our director and his wife decided to enjoy the facilities on offer at the “Yard-of-Tea” establishment, which was next to the youngsters jumping up and down on their punctured tryes, I sauntered across the road to the Catholic Church.

Nothing about Catholicism is small or insignificant; usually their places of worship are huge, towering Cathedrals with bells that summon their congregations from the surrounding countryside, so this church was unique. It was minute.

A small chapel I think would be an adequate description. Neatly aligned fold up chairs for the congregation and a tiled aisle leading to the small altar. I wandered down the aisle and was suddenly aware of nother presence in the church; I turned around and saw what can only be described as Humpty-Dumpty sitting in a chair next to the front entrance.

“Can I be helping you?” enquired Humpty.

“Perhaps, I was just looking.” I replied wandering back to the robed entity.

As I approached I saw that he was not robed in the normal Catholic attire but a wrap around toga, all in white with a crimson band round his large waist. He was completely bald.

“I’m a Bhikkhu”, he said as he rose to greet me.

“A Bikku?”

He explained, “A Buddhist monk.”

“In a Catholic Church?”

He smiled, “Each to his own.” He replied. “I often sit in here to mediate.”

“Instead of your place next door?”

He smiled again, “It helps me understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Being.”

My God I thought. This is going to be deep. “You are delving into your confusion, right?”

Damm right I was!

He laughed and put his arm around my shoulder and said, “You like a cup of tea?”

We exited the church and crossed the road to my companions who were watching their “Yard-of-tea” being made.

To describe this process is tedious so I think a picture should suffice. The “yard” is the distance which the tea is poured from its brewing chamber to its receiving cup. This movement is said to make the tea smoother, mixes in the milk and sugar, and creates the exact temperature at which it should be consumed. It is a theatrical event and it was fascinating to watch the brewer make each cup individually for his now five customers.

I introduced my new companion to Dr Hromik, Anthony and his wife. Our ensuing conversation was remarkable as it seemed to touch and encompass every thread of enquiry known to man. Politics and religion were the leaders, closely followed by cricket, and then we entered into Dr Hromik’s realm of travelling Dravidian Indians way back in 8000BC and the reason for our visit to India.

The monk, was very interested in this and said, “The paths are wide and the roads are dusty.”

It took a while for this to sink in and it was only at the end of our tea drinking sojourn that I gave him the reason I’d visited the Catholic Church, Chief Mojae’s riddle, “Give me the name of the man who was born before his father, died before his father and was buried in his grandmother’s chest.”

He smiled and said, “It’s an understanding of being born. That will give you the answer, it’s in Genesis.”

That night in my Trivandrum hostel room I sat in bed reading the bible, a reader’s digest condensed version that was in my bedside locker and it suddenly hit me.

The answer was Abel. He was born before his father, as his father wasn’t born BUT created from the earth by God. And he was slain by Cain his brother before his farther’s death and he was buried in the earth, his grandmother.

 

God bless Buddhist monks!

Equal and Opposite

Recently whilst enjoying a relaxed state of inebriation with a fellow Thespian I began to formulate a theory related to our profession. 

We were half way through a game of Scrabble and the fact that my “Toddie” was empty and the flagon of dry red my friend had brought with him was almost finished, may have been the reason we were having to consult the dictionary with increasing rapidity.

“Actinism” was the word in question. My friend, Iain Walter Mcpherson another jobbing actor going through lean times, was eager to use his “Z” on a triple letter score. I had no idea what the word meant never mind how to spell it.

I was pleased to discover from my Penguin Concise that it was spelt with an “S” not a “Z” and enlightened to learn that it is the intrinsic property in solar and nuclear radiation that produces photochemical activity.

I was amazed at my friend’s in-depth knowledge of the world of physics and enquired as to when and where he had come across the word.

“Ach,” his Scot’s lips mumbled, “I was playing Rabbit at the time in an adaptation of AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh.”

“So,” I acerbically retorted, “You gave your character an Einsteinian-like bent?”

“No,” he replied seriously.

Not catching my creative drift he rambled on, “It was roond abute the late eighties and I had to wear some buck teeth over mi own front teeth and during a matinee performance I lost them.”

By now Iain was beginning to lose me too, as my alcohol-bemused mind could find no connection between the loss of Rabbit’s buck teeth, nuclear physics and solar radiation.

My eyes glanced down the page of the dictionary and I came across the very short definition given for an “actor.” A performer in a play for stage, film or television.

My God, I thought. What cheek!

It’s about time the world was given an explanation of what I and thousands of other jobbing actors are, what it is we do and why we do it.

I must formulate an Einsteinian-like theory.

Iain mumbled on as the last dregs of red wine in his enamel mug sat precariously balanced on his knee. He was completely oblivious to the fact that I had crossed into another dimension and was in a world of my own. We were suddenly two reminiscing monologues performing simultaneously in the same time and space.

My monologue took me back to my early days of training at the Royal Academy. A brilliant improvisation teacher, Mr. Keith Johnston, told us we were actors. “Whatcha mean by that?” piped up an ingratiating American student.

“An actor is someone who uses every part of himself, not just his voice, like a singer. Not just his arms and legs like a dancer. Not just his hands and eyes like a painter or sculptor. He uses his whole-being, he has to feed on every physical and mental attribute that his body can muster.”

Deep words for a bunch of young aspiring thespians to grasp.

We all stood dumbfounded in his class and waited for his next words of wisdom.

“Right,” he said, “I want you to blow up these balloons, and you can start by using your lungs.”

As I was blowing up mine I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he too was inflating a balloon, but before he started he took a syringe filled with some liquid out of his briefcase and injected it into the balloon. “Now we are going to take a trip inside one of the vilest monsters you can possibly imagine and one of you is going to slay it,” he said, holding his limply inflated balloon in his hand.

A ballsy female student, Annastasia Vampkov, from Bulgaria volunteered to make the trip.

Had Ms. Vampkov been born in the eighties she would have been excellent in the role of Lara Doon in the 1999 film of The Tomb Raider. This very attractive sultry looking red head was blindfolded and two male students leapt at the offer to be her guides on the trip.

The rest of us, apart from myself who was given the role of storyteller, were to be the insides of the monster. Following my draconian narration finger and toe-nails became teeth, sweaty bodies
became the tongue, hot garlic smelling breath of two Italian students became the breath of the monster, the inflated balloons, arms, legs, fingers, and torsos became the walls of the stomach and intestines.

The teacher whispered an instruction in my ear. “Now, you’re reaching the vital life- sustaining organ of the monster,” I said quickly modifying my narration to fall in line with Keith’s instruction, “if you reach out you’ll be able to feel it.”

The wet liquid-filled partially inflated balloon held tightly stretched between Mr. Johnson’s hands was placed in easy reach of the terrified Ms Vampkov. “Grasp it with both hands and rip it out”, I intoned in her ear.

She did just that. As the balloon burst covering the unsuspecting lass with water she screamed loudly and suddenly vomited. A perfectly natural reaction I thought for a Bulgarian vampire slayer.

It was at this stage in the formulation of my theory that Iain suddenly burst into an hysterical fit of laughter.

“Ye know were they were? I’d spat them rite out! They were sitting on top of this old grandma’s head in the front row of the audience!” he guffawed as he licked the remaining droplets of red wine he’d spilt off his knee.

 It just goes to show that all actors, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are right. At any time, in any space, to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Which one is me ?

All professions have written Rules of Conduct, ethical standards and certain unwritten Golden Rules.

The world of Thespians is no different and performers also have their strange list of “do’s & don’ts”. 

Maybe they are not adhered to with such fanaticism as the Hippocratic Oath of Harley street doctors but by and large they are observed. Many of my profession’s rules are founded on superstitions like, never whistle in your dressing room and never mention the Thane of Cawdor by the author’s given name of Macbeth.

The unwritten rule of not putting your daughter on the stage has been broken so many times by no other than Sir John Mills and Sir Micheal Redgrave, that the general public must think actors have no time at all for Noel Coward’s twee advice. They must suspect that my fellow knighted Thespians break rules with a regularity similar to the way that general practitioner Dr. Harold Shipman broke his Hippocratic oath during his fifteen-year serial killing spree.

Not so!

The majority of jobbing actors do follow a very strict Code of Conduct and behave in a discreet and respectable manner. It is more often than not that producers, with their uncreative heads wrapped around their balance sheets that bend the rules to suit their pockets.

But more of that another time.

A Never-do rule I personally have adhered to is to stoop below my station and accept work as an extra. No matter how empty my “Toddie” has been, even if I’ve had to resort to filling it with cooking sherry or Chateau cardboard dry red wine, I have never taken work as an extra or a walk-on.

Unfortunately a dear old friend of mine did.

Mr. Leonard Smirkovski, known as Smirnoff to his friends, found himself in the unenviable position of being very low on the readies. For over a six-month period prior to a trip to the United States, he never managed to stretch his social security Giro cheque sufficiently so that he could cover the cost of his addiction. As many quadruple vodka, lime and soda waters as he could drink before he reached the all-fall-down stage.

Lenny Smirkovski was born and bred in the East End of London and had he been born thirty years later he would have been rewarded with a leading role in the English TV soapie Eastenders. He had an impish sense of humour and was a superb con artist. At the tender age of eighteen he convinced the principal of his drama school to loan him two hundred pounds. In the late fifties this was a considerable sum of money and Lenny had carefully planned his ploy. He had lost one of his front teeth in a bar room brawl and wore a National Health plate.

“I need a root canal treatment and a bridge,” he announced to the principal. On bended knees he pleaded his case. No father, a sick mother, a younger brother and sister living in a squalid terraced house in East Ham. Finally the principal and unsuspecting bursar agreed to the loan. At graduation two years later, Mr. Smirkovski was still soaking his plate in a jam jar overnight, his front tooth was still missing and the loan remained unpaid.

By the end of the seventies Leonard was still living in the States. He was working as barman in a low life establishment in down town Chicago when he spotted a short newspaper article related to the filming of Star Wars. Absconding overnight with the bar-takings in his back pocket he boarded a flight to London and twenty four hours later was camped with several hundred hopefuls outside the gates of Pinewood studios.

He stayed with me in my Kings Cross basement flat during his stint as an extra in George Lucas’s epic. He spent five weeks clad in a storm-trooper’s plastic outfit. One evening he returned home in high spirits beaming from ear to ear.

“What’s the joke? I enquired.

“I did a great scene today.” He said, “I stood guard outside Princess Lea’s cell and did this.”

He demonstrated his action. Standing to attention, as a menacing storm-trooper should, he waved his arms up and down. “Were you on your own? Just you outside the cell?” I asked.

“No.” He replied seriously, “There were one hundred of us.”

“Then why the arm waving? I asked. “So when I see the movie I’ll know which one is me.”

Mr. Leonard Smirkovski was a true professional. He stuck to another Golden Rule of coarse acting. Never lose your character’s individuality!

His final role was in the hit English TV series “Silent Witness” which deals with case histories of a pathologist played by Amanda Burton.

He played a corpse.

May he rest in peace.

Something For Nothing

 

UK Telephone boxes

 Getting something for nothing is desired by us all. The advertising industry across the globe constantly offers us “Freebies”.
 
As a writer I am constantly bombarded with ways I can publish my novel by clicking on a web address that will guide me through to a newly released hard back, or to a free domain and my own web site. I’ve clicked on many of these offers only to realise after many hours of clicking that there is a huge $ sign at the end if I am to fulfill my dream.
 
Genuine “Freebies” are hard to come by and virtually impossible to find, unless of course you are prepared to cross the boundary and enter the world of crime.
 
During my life I have acquired the occasional “Freebie”, usually a drink and a few buffet snacks at some launch or other, either of a book or a theatrical first night party. Very occasionally I have crossed the line into the realm of petty larceny like in Harrods delicatessen counter while working as a night watchman.
 
It was during this latter adventure that I discovered another way that I could get something for nothing.
 
In the late sixties and early seventies I was an avid reader of spy fiction and science fiction and the operations of the CIA, MI5 and 6 fascinated me.
 
Trunk dialing had just reared its head in the UK. From a coin operated telephone kiosk you were able, after inserting coins, to make calls anywhere in England or overseas. The Frederick Street flat were I was staying in Kings Cross London had just had a coin operated telephone installed by the landlord. This was a wise choice on his part as he wouldn’t be left with huge bills after his tenants had scarpered into the London smog. It was a blessing to us as tenants as we could give
our number to friends and receive calls.

 

Frederick Street

 One evening after I’d just finished reading John Le Care’s novel “The spy who came in from the cold”, when Bat, a fellow tenant at the time rushed in clutching a tattered piece of paper with numbers, written with a kid’s crayon scribbled on it. He dived for the phone and punched in six of the numbers. He waited anxiously, about two minutes later he entered another six numbers, another delay, then he said proudly, “You want to talk to my mate in LA?”
 
“Los Angles, in the States?” I enquired.
 
“Yep, and it’s free!”
 
Back in the sixties we were intrigued as to how, and from whom Bat had acquired this marvellous twelve digit number.
 
“From a guy drunk in the Arms who said he’d joined MI6.”
 
“From a pissed spy?”
 
“Yeah, said he’d just been released from the cop-shop opposite, they were holding him because he’d been tailing some professor from Cambridge who had a connection with Philby and Burgess.”
 
“The Cambridge five? They were caught in sixty one, he’s a bit out of touch. How does the number work?”
 
“The first six numbers put you through to a computer, you wait for a dialing tone, then in you put the next six, wait again for a dialing tone and then dial the code and number you want; You’ve just seen it works.”
 
And sure enough it did. For the rest of that night and all of the next day we all dialed our mates up and down the country and in America, Australia, and Europe without having to put a single coin in the machine.  The scam lasted about six months and then suddenly it didn't work.
 
If like me, you don’t believe that spies like their drink and get pissed you may find my explanation a little more credible.
 
I think Bat’s pissed reprobate was a disenchanted Telcom technician who had given him the numbers to get his own back for firing him for being pissed.
 
To this day I still do not know the explanation, but I have just read on the Net even in today’s high tech environment the secret way of making free telephone calls drew the attention of time magazine in 2011when they published the following article.
 
“If you’re willing to go to the trouble of dialing your own number, waiting for the prompt, hitting 2, and then dialing the number you really want, then, yes, you get a free cellphone call. You’ll never be billed for any minutes at all.”
 
This information was released by David Pogue of the NY Times and he details the  legal, not-entirely-secret hack for making free cell phone calls, which involves Google Voice, careful selection of your cell plan’s Friends & Family numbers, and jumping through a few annoying hoops. But the reward for punching in a bunch of extra numbers on your phone is: free calls!
 
The high tech available to today’s hackers certainly beats the method I learnt in childhood from my days as a Boy Scout. Then the technology was almost non-existent and we had to rely on very fine sewing thread, cello-tape and an old penny.
 
You attached the thread by cello-tape to the penny, using the minial ammount possible, and dropped it into the slot. Very carefully you moved it up and down through the mechanism four times, hence you’d paid your four-pence and retrieved your coin. It was a time consuming and often the thread got caught but nine times of ten it worked. And if you were really lucky you could press button B and get the money you hadn’t used back, a reimbursement from the previous caller. 

This was a bonus “Freebie”.

Petty Larceny & Bar Snacks

My memories of student days are all a bit misty.

This is for several reasons related to both studying and pleasure. 

Days at RADA are easier to remember as they were part of a fixed routine.

RADA

Up early about seven o’clock, a quick shower, some breakfast, usually porridge  or cornflakes,  depending on the season, a boiled egg and then my fifteen walk from my Frederick Street flat in Kings Cross to RADA in Gower St at about eight.

Classes varied from day to day, but voice and movement were always on the itinerary.

Movement was either classical leaning towards restoration, or modern under Ms June Kemp with her cassette recorder, churning out the pop music of the sixties.

Voice and diction then followed, in the latter we mastered standard Queen’s English and various dialects, under the supervision of Ms Pursley who had us pulling faces, stretching our facial muscles and making “Piggies”.

Our voice classes in the first two terms consisted mostly of us lying on our backs viewing the peeling paint on the ceiling, and discovering how to use our inter-costal-diaphragmatic muscles in our lower chests, so that we could count to a hundred on one breath.

After voice, diction and movement, which happened every day, we would then either have classes in mime and improvisation or go into rehearsals for our term production. The day finished between five and six in the afternoon unless we had evening rehearsals.

Marlbourgh Arms

 Then it was time to visit the nearest hostelry which was called The Marbourgh Arms on Torrington Place, a five minute walk or two minute run from RADA’s front door.

This pub was the starting place for many a night of festivities. My three mates, George, Leonard and Bill were regulars for an early evening pint of Courage Best Bitter, but Leonard was soon onto his favourite, a quadruple vodka and lime, leaving us stragglers to catch up on tots of whiskey if we could afford them.

Len, who had already appeared in the movie “Loneliness of a Long-Distance Runner”, was a master con-artist not just in the bar but also at RADA, where he once managed to get a few hundred quid out of the registrar for some new front teeth that never materialized.

The three of us then drifted on our own excursions into the swinging life of London in the sixties. George usually back to his home in Welling-Garden-City where he lived with his wife and two kids, Bill to his wife-shortly-to-be, a nurse Irene, Len to the bars of Soho, and myself to The Carpenter’s Arms, the local pub opposite my flat in Kings Cross.

The Carpenter’s was a pub with a capital “P”, a remnant from the war years.

Carpenter's Arms

 It had all the attributes that I wish drinking hostelries still had today. A Men’s-Only bar, called for some inane reason the public bar, a lounge in which both sexes could frequent, a snug which was for ladies only.

I know all you free thinking liberal readers of today will think that this is archaic and conservative thinking but I think this separation of imbibing areas was highly successful.

There were “rules and regs” in place that prevented bar room brawls, allowed the ladies to gossip unmolested & peacefully, the men to play bar billiards and darts uninterrupted and swear to their hearts content.

The lounge where the sexes met had a very peaceful feel to it, and the drinks were tuppence or threepence more expensive. No swearing was allowed and meals were served, believe it or not on white linen table-clothed tables with sterling silver cutlery and napkins and the beautiful situation of this pub right opposite a police station made after-hours consumption a normal occurrence when the landlord, Paddy made the correct noises to the most senior officer in the bar.


I shared the Frederick Street basement flat with four, sometimes five, fellow students who were studying to become, accountants, scientists and general loafers. During the three years I stayed there the occupants changed, usually by word of mouth. This happened mostly during the summer break when, apart from myself who had a commitment to the NYT, or as in one summer to a company called Securicor, most of my fellow inhabitants returned to their parent’s homes.



In the summer I was a night security guard, I shared my room with a Scots lad called Agnus. It was he who introduced me to his boss at Securicor, and hence I worked all night guarding such institutions such as Harrods and the Metropolitan Police Ticket archive offices. 

All jobs, as I’m sure you know, have what are called their “Perks”. Free lunches, petrol coupons, tickets to football matches, reduced fares on the transport facilities are a few. With Secuicor it was pens, pencils, fresh exotic cheeses, cold meats and free international phone calls.

A night’s work went as follows.

Between five and six in the afternoon you arrived at the place you were to guard. You telephoned in your arrival to the head office and settled yourself into the security cubicle with book and crossword and hoped that you would not have any intruders. You had to patrol all floors of the establishment every hour and clock in to the check points on every floor, then telephone the head office with the password for that night that told them all was OK.

This usually took about twenty minutes leaving you free for the remaining forty minutes to while away the hour either reading, cross-wording or if you were lucky watching an in-house TV.

Some of the office blocks I watched over were international global companies with offices in all parts of the world. These offices also had to be cleaned. To do this the companies hired teams of cleaners who were brought in around seven in the evening. I had to check them in and search them when they left the following morning at six am.

It was these cleaners who taught me the in & outs of my job and taught me how I could avail myself of the hidden “Perks”.

These Perks involved what was called petty larceny, but one justified the taking of things as the only person loosing out was the international conglomerate, and they could easily replace the missing pens, paper, pencils, typewriter ribbons, ashtrays, cups, saucers, cutlery, tea and coffee that disappeared, either in the cleaner’s handbags or my shoulder bag.

A Molly McIntyre, a young lass from Glasgow let me into the secrets.

“Never take new things! Always used-stuff!”

I never worked out how a used tea-bag could be a profitable acquisition but half finished biros, and half worn down pencils made their way back to Frederick Street.

The main switchboard was my favourite place to spend time.

The sixties model of a switchboard looked a bit like the code-breaking Enigma machine named “Christopher” by Alan Turing who made it. Plug in cables and a wind-up ringing handle. 

Centrally placed at the top of the machine was a time or unit counter that made a record of all calls made out. I made a note of this number, let’s say it was 231 units, I would then press a button which would reduce it to zero. I would then begin my overseas and long distance trunk calls to mates in America, Blackpool, Manchester, Liverpool and Australia. I would constantly watch the counter, and when it was close to the used number of 231, I would cease the calls and dial the speaking clock to get it precisely back to 231.

While I was whiling my nightly hours in the office blocks of Shell, BP and Whimpey Construction, Angus had got himself a fantastic place to guard. 

Harrods Store in Knightsbridge and he made a point of recommending me to his supervisor that I join him for full over-time sessions at the weekends. In those days there was no Sunday trading so that meant we were on duty from 2pm on Saturday till 6am on Monday morning.

Of course this lengthy period would not happen today with the restrictive rules laid down by the government and Trade-Unions, but back in the sixties a thirty-six hour shift was not uncommon. It meant we patrolled Harrods unrestricted by cleaners till they arrived on Sunday night and we could cruise the isles of their delicatessen counters searching for prime Scots fillet, partridge pie imported Brie and Camembert Cheeses from France, and imported European salamis and sausages.

After these long sessions we were given a forty-eight hour turn-around of days off. On these days off the regulars in the Carpenter’s Arms Men’s-Only bar and dart’s team enjoyed delectable bar snacks.

Not a word passed our lips especially to the senior detective from across the road, who really enjoyed the Polish Kielbasas, gherkins and Hungarian Korbacz that was on the snack plates.

Dehli Belly in The Nilgri Hills

The Nilgri Hills

During my illustrious career I have been involved in the making of several documentaries as a presenter, a writer, a voice over artist and even at one time a producer.

This involvement has taken me to several foreign climes, in including Australia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Malaysia and India. The latter is the country which is home to the Nilgri Hills, a mountain range that crosses the centre of the sub continent. The range of mountains form a
part of the Western Ghats situated in the western part of Tamil Nadu state.

It is on this range of hills that the Jack fruit grows. This is a remarkable fruit as it is the only fruit that grows directly from the trunk of the tree and not from the branches. It grows to a great size,
some a long as four feet with a girth almost as large.

In the Hindu religion it is held to be food for the Gods.

The reasons for this are threefold. To start with it is not easily accessible; secondly it is covered by very small spikes that are poisonous to touch. Although not fatal they give a nasty prick that
causes a rash on the finger.

It is for this reason that the collectors of this gigantic fruit and those that dissect it to get to the very tasty edible part, coat their hands in cooking oil. This coating gives protection from the spikes also from the gelatinous substance that surrounds the absolutely delicious inner kernel. The flavor is comparable to a combination of apple, pineapple, mango, and banana.

The Jack Fruit

Tea Pickers in The Nilgri Hills

The third reason for the protective oil coating is the gelatinous substance is like super glue when you touch it, and a visit to a local clinic is necessary to part your glued together fingers.

I mention this exotic fruit to give you an idea of the unusual fodder that crossed my lips while on this particular assignment.

I was in India travelling by road from Bombay, or Mumbai as it is now called, filming a doccie called “Behind the African Mask”. We travelled from Mumbai to the southern most tip of the sub-continent ending at the town of Trivandrum.

The premise of this documentary was exploring the theory of a Dr Cyril Hromnik who believes that Dravidian Indians crossed over the Indian Ocean as far back as 8000 BC to mine gold in Southern Africa.

This Cape Town based historian Dr Cyril Hromnik has produced a vast body of research. He paints a compelling picture of an ancient settlement of gold miners in the Eastern Transvaal and Swaziland with roots that go back to the early Dravidian seafarers who had expert navigation skills and a lust for African gold.

So the documentary attempted to answer the question; did ancient Dravidian Seafarers establish the first gold mines in Southern Africa?

Also grown of the lower slope of the Nilgri Hills is tea. Nilgiri tea is generally described as being a dark, intensely aromatic, fragrant and flavoured tea and is grown in the district of Tamil Nadu.

It was whilst I was trekking up the slopes amongst this aromatic tea that I had my first rear end explosion.

It was a low-budget production. The producer stroke writer, director and camera operator, his wife as coordinator and general dogs-body, Dr Hromnik and myself as the on screen presenter and  carrier of what else was needed, made up our full crew.

We had a hired a driver four our four wheel drive jeep as driving in India is a nightmare for anybody brought up in the western world. The driver Habba was also our interpreter and our go-between when any bribes had to be negotiated for entrance to certain historical sites.

We were on a climb through the terraced tea plantation to see an ancient dolmen, also known as a cromlech, a portal tomb or a quoit. I suppose it’s a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb.

All these strange words entered my vocabulary while I was on this shoot. I had already been made familiar with the Yoni stone and the Shivaling or Lingam, which are representations of the male phallus and the female vulva.

In Hindu philosophy the Yoni is the origin of life and an abstract creative force that moves through the entire universe, so during the climb Dr Hromnik had said we were going to see the most enormous Yoni very close to the Dolmen.

To this day I still do not know that the thought of seeing a giant Vulva or Vagina set my bowels in motion, or if it was the curried paste of the Jack fruit I had eaten the previous evening, but set in motion they were.

I quickly had to remember all the advice I’d read in Kathleen Meyer ‘s humourous , environmentally sound and explicit book entitled “How to shit in the woods”.

I borrowed a small trowel from our director, which he’d brought along for leveling the ground for his camera, and dug Kathleen’s suggested six inch hole while I squatted, hidden from the tea picking ladies, between two lines of tea bushes.

The relief was gratifying and as I strode effortlessly on an empty fuel tank up the hill to catch up with the rest of the crew, I wondered how my six inch buried semi-liquid donation would affect the aroma of the Nilgri Tea picked from the nearby bushes.

The Yoni was enormous and the dolmen was as it should be, two vertical stones with a large slab stone lain across the top. Dr Hromnik had dragged us all the way on this four hour climb to see something that we had already seen many times on our travels in the Eastern Transvaal of
Southern Africa, in Zimbawe, and in Swaziland.

His point was that he wanted to show us how the construction of this particular Dolmen and it’s orientation toward the setting sun was very similar to the ones we’d seen in Africa.

Down the hill we trekked back to our waiting vehicle and driver, who told us we had still another four hours drive till we reached our overnight stop-over in the city of Mysore.

We were visiting this city for two reasons.

Firstly our director had to cash in some dollar traveler’s cheques and we were going to see the Holi festivities in the city.

In Hinduism, Holi also called Holaka or Phagwa is an annual festival celebrated on the day after the full moon in the Hindu month of March or Phalguna, as it is known in the local tongue. It celebrates spring, commemorates various events in Hindu mythology and is a time of disregarding social norms and indulging in general merrymaking.

The central ritual of Holi is the throwing and applying of coloured water and powders on friends and family, which gives the holiday its common name "Festival of Colors."

The ritual is said to be based on a story of Krishna and Radha, when Krishna playfully splashes maids with water, but most of all it celebrates the coming of spring with all its beautiful colours and vibrant life.

Dr Hromnik said that similar festivities were also conducted by the Nguni tribes of Southern Africa, thus adding more credence to his theory that The Dravidian Indians had crossed to Africa and left some of their culture.

The following morning after spending over four hours exchanging dockets for wooden discs and then pieces of paper with hand-written instructions and signatures on them, our director finally got his hands on almost a small suitcase of Indian Rupees.

The Indian banking system is archaic and adheres to Nehru’s political doctrine of every man
having a job no mater how menial it may be.

In our hotel too this was highly evident. If I lit up a cigarette, immediately a man would appear with an ashtray. I’d drop my ash into it. Again immediately a boy would rush up and scoop the ash into a bucket. Then another boy would appear from nowhere and take the bucket across the room and empty the contents into a dust bin. Then suddenly I’d be surrounded by two boys and a man with their hands open expecting payment of a few Rupees for disposing of my tobacco ash.

Back in the bustling city, we then weaved and threaded our way through the throngs of people who were in the city for the festival. We were heading for the river where most of the “splashing” would take place.

It is estimated that over 4.5 million people come to Mysore for the Holi festival that lasts for four days. It is amazing to think that we Westerners believe we’re in a crowd at a Rolling Stone’s concert that has sixty thousand people crammed into a stadium and here we were watching close on one hundred and twenty thousand people splash around in the Kabani River.

Negotiating our way through the crowded streets was like moving through a tin of sardines, sweat, splashing water and coloured powders engulfed us and only once or twice would the crowds thin out. This was usually when a “Bloodletting” ceremony was in progress. To my eyes this event was horrific.

In a small clearing we came across a mother, son and father. The young boy was being held by his mother who was deep in a self induced trance. 

The father slowly circled the boy whose right arm was out stretched and tied tightly with a coloured silk scarf above his elbow. The father increased the rhythm of the mantra and moved in closer to his son, suddenly with a downward movement of his hand the cut-throat-razor he carried sliced into the boy’s lower arm. The mother broke her trance and held an enamel cup below the gushing blood.

We could watch no more and squeezed our way back into the thronging mass of people.

We later learnt from Habba that this practice still occurs throughout the country, particularly amongst the Shi’a Muslim community, the practitioners believing that they are ridding the victim of impure blood.

It’s called “Ashura” and is one of several ceremonies marking the death of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Imam Hussein at the 7th century battle of Kerbala.

That night we stayed in a hotel, the one and only hotel apart from our first night in Mumbai. The budget was restrictive and most of our stops where at hostels that catered for the trade representatives that roamed the country trying to sell their merchandise, These hostels certainly
would not rate a semi-colon let alone a star.

Washing facilities were an enamel bowl and a rather unclean looking face cloth. Latrines were long drops outside, few were a little up-market as they were pig-cleaned. That means a ravenous pig quickly consumed your droppings.

Early the next morning we set of on the final leg of our journey, a drive through the rest of the Western Ghats mountain range and onto the town of Trivandrum.

My bowels were still not in a stable mood although I’d taken some Imodium tablets so I had to request several stops at what I was told were public toilets.

Fortunately we’d learnt to keep several rolls of loo paper in the vehicle as there was never any at these latrines.

All were of the “Stand or Squat” variety and all had a supply of tap water. I was told that this was for the washing of one’s hands, particularly your left hand, as this was the one you should wipe your arse with.
 

I only believed this when I noticed that all the locals, left or right handed, ate their food with the fingers of their right hand.

When I landed back at what was called Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg the first thing I did was rush to the ablution facility and give the attendant a twenty Rand tip after I’d finished using the first flushing Thomas Crapper I’d used for three weeks.

I wish you continued happy bowel movements & use of the loo.

 A Google search will tell you more about the ducmentary "Behind an African Mask"

http://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imageworks.co.za%2Findex.php%2Fgallery%2F2%2Fbehind-an-african-mask%2F&ei=2c9iVduZDKOf7ga09oGwAQ&usg=AFQjCNGfUFWZT4Z84FS0-mSim85r0GzPmQ&sig2=Cv0WwE3cttqvAhOfaXLJyQ&bvm=bv.93990622,d.ZGU 

Cabbages, Ripe Tomatoes & Eggs

The title of this post should clearly tell you what actors and politicians have in common.

Both these professional groups have been on the receiving end of all three.

The two professions of course have other things in common. They tell lies or porky pies if you are more familiar with the Cockney rhyming slang.

Ronald Regan, ex-president of the USA and Arnold Schwarzenegger ex-governor of California are two very well known actors who became successful politicians.

The actors that have dabbled in the machinations of governance cover all countries.

Eva Peron from Argentina, Sidney Poitier US ambassador to Japan, Stephen Harper a conservative ex-Prime Minister of Canada, Jaya Bachchan an MP in India, Gina Lollobrigidia an unsuccessful candidate to the European Parliament, Jaroslaw Kaczynski a Prime Minister of Poland, Glenda Jackson a Labour Member of the UK’s Parliament. The list goes on and on and can easily be found by doing a Google search.

In the last few years Nigel Farage leader of UKIP, David Cameron the UK Prime Minister & Ed Miliband leader of the Labour opposition have all been pelted with eggs while campaigning for support, and others have received cabbages and rotten tomatoes.

The one and only time I have been pelted with assorted fruit, vegetables & eggs was when I was in the company of Charles Hawtrey of The Carry-on movies fame, Peter Bowles co-star of the BBC sit-com “To the Manor Born” with Penelope Keith, and John Challis.
  

 

 John was a young actor at the time and was yet to gain fame as Boycie in “Only Fools and Horses” and “The Green Green Grass”, both highly successful BBC comedies.

We were all in Tom Stoppard’s wonderfully satirical play about a Parliamentary Select Committee called “Dirty Linen & New-Found-Land”.

It is actually two separate plays but Stoppard, for some unexplained reason coupled them together.

Dirty Linen is a masterpiece of cynical political comedy. They are a pair of plays that are always performed together and were seen first as an Ambiance Lunch-Hour Theatre Club presentation at Interaction's Almost Free Theatre on April 6, 1976.

New-Found-Land is slipped in between the two halves of Dirty Linen. The curtain falls after the first half of Dirty Linen and then rises again for New-Found-Land in which an older and a younger man, two other Members of Parliament, briefly discuss the naturalization of an American into British citizenship. They laud the American nation as a whole, including every American patriotic cliché they can remember. 



After another fall and rise of the curtain the audience is returned to the Select Committee of Dirty Linen for the closing scene.

The production enjoyed a critical and box office success in South Africa and was invited to what was then Salisbury in the UDI state of Rhodesia.

Thus theatre entered the realm of politics. The whole cast was approached and after much deliberation it was decided that we would go to Salisbury for one week, Bulawayo for one week and have two stops at the towns of  Kwekwe and Gweru, two mining towns in the centre of the country.

At the time Rhodesia was in the state of what can only be described as Marshal-law. Driving between the major cities had to done in convey as both Mugage’s ZANU forces and those of ZAPU under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo, were roaming the country.

The South African producer and the producer from Rhodesia that invited us made a huge mistake.

They assumed that the reaction from the audience in both countries would be the same. The quasi-liberal theatre going audience in South Africa at the time enjoyed the way Stoppard ridiculed the UK parliamentary committee system and the producers expected the same reaction from the Rhodesians.


It was not to be.

Little did they know the Rhodesians were very Pro-British, loved the Queen and were enamoured of the UK Parliament, so anybody who said anything bad about the system would be in for a bad time.

Throughout our opening night in Salisbury we did not get the expected laughs or rounds of applause, just a few gasps, titters, and occasional boos.

When the curtain fell instead of the rapturous applause we received in Cape Town and Joeys, we got boos and were pelted with eggs,cabbages and over-ripe tomatoes.

Charles Hawtrey and Peter Bowles, the stars were quickly whisked away in the producer’s Mercedes back to the hotel, leaving us junior actors to fend for ourselves.

John and I went to the front of house bar and had a couple of drinks before going to the car park to our hired vehicle.

It was here we were confronted by about eight burly soldiers from the Rhodesian Front Army, these were the young white Rhodesians who were conscripted into the local army. The confrontation was what can be described in military terms as “A stand-off”. They hurled insults at us.

“Commie-Bastards!|” seemed to be the most insulting. “Monkey-Lovers!” and “Libby-Limeys!" were another two.

John and I decided to skirt around the group off soldiers and make our way to our car, but we were out-flanked by two enormous young men who blocked our path.

“Toddie” came to our rescue.

“You like a drink?” I said as I offered “Toddie” to the larger of the two.

He grunted a duo-syllabic reply, “What’s it?”

“Good Commie-Polish vodka, you can’t get it here.” I said.

He looked at his mates, and took a huge gulp. The normal coughing spluttering ensued, “You trying to poison us as well?”

“No”, I said, “Trying to make friends.”

His buddy laughed and grabbed “Toddie” and took a sip. He smiled and said, “Kowalski”, offering his hand. I tentatively took it and almost had the blood squeezed out of my palm.

“Please to meet you, Cess Poole,” I said.

The ice was broken and the tension eased, and within the next hour John and I were being introduced to the night life of Salisbury by Dave, Stephen, George and Stephan Kowalski. The latter was of Polish-Jewish extraction and his parents had been moved from Warsaw to Rhodesia during the last years of the Second World War.

During our conversations on that night I learnt a great deal about the Terrorists and the war going on in Rhodesia.

The news filtering through to the world was very one-sided as most liberal European countries were siding with the Africans and supporting the independence stance of ZANU & ZAPU. But I had no idea of the amount of arms that were being smuggled into the country from the communist block.

Hungarian and Czech tanks that were being reconditioned by the South African company Armscor were appearing on the battle front. American small arms and the Russian rifle, the Kalashnikov, were also appearing. The young Rhodesian soldiers where capturing arms from all around the world. They described the situation as “A total shitty mess of money & politics”.

They informed us that Britain, for one, kept on supplying oil to the rebels. Washington was dealing in strategic materials, especially chrome. The Soviets accounted for more than half of Rhodesia's illicit deals. These transactions were arranged through pliant companies in Austria, West Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. Heavy machinery came from the East, usually in shipments brought by Yugoslavs who had no qualms about flying to Salisbury, as long as their passports were not stamped.

My eyes were opened and continued to be on stalks even on the next day, when Dave and Stephan took John and I into the African township called Harare.

It was here that I was introduced to Rape & Mopani worm stew.

These worms are not worms but caterpillars and are found usually on the Mopane tree and known in Zimbawe as Macimbi if your’e from the Ndebele clan, or Madora if you’re from the Shona tribe.

Dave and Stephan said they were an important source of protein and were a common snack for the “Ters” and themselves. The stew was delicious. Cooked on the roadside in an up-turned metal dustbin lid, it slid down our gullets and was washed down with a Carlsberg lager bought from a near-by “shebeen”.

I often wondered why the African name for an illicit drinking abode was stolen from the Irish, but that’s another story.

So the Danes were in on the illicit trading deals!

I digress, sorry.

We learnt that the worms are hand-picked in the wild, often by women and children. In the bush, the caterpillars are not considered to belong to the landowner (if any), but around a house permission should be sought from the resident. When the caterpillar has been picked, it is pinched at the tail end to rupture the innards. Then they squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste to expel the slimy, green contents of the gut.

The traditional method of preserving the worms is to dry them in the sun or smoke them, whereby they gain extra flavour.

The dried worms can be eaten raw as a crisp snack, as Dave and Stephan had told us or they are soaked to rehydrate, then fried until they are crunchy, or cooked with onion, tomatoes, spices and the green spinach like vegetable called Rape.

After our tour of Harare we were returned to the Meikles Hotel where we were billeted, to be told by the rest of the cast, that we were only going to do two more performances in Salisbury before we travelled south to Kwe-kwe , Gweru and Bulawayo for our final week. The producers had cancelled the other mid week performances and we would only be doing the last two shows on Saturday.

John and I were delighted as this meant we had more time to spend with our newly found friends.

We invited them for lunch at the hotel and they told us the whole history of the Meikles Hotel. It was named after the founding family who came to Sothern Africa from Strathaven, Lanarkshire in Scotland in 1915 and they gave us the address of one of the great-great grandchildren who now lived in Bulawayo. A young girl of twenty one called Wendy. John, who unlike me, at the time was unattached, quickly jotted down the name and address for future reference.

 

 The rest of the week was spent visiting the Salisbury Sports Club, which is now the Harare Sports Club and hosts all the international cricket teams that visit the country.

The ground is surrounded by Jacaranda trees and has a beautiful gabled pavilion. It’s in the heart of the city and was an easy walk from Meikles Hotel for John and I to avail ourselves of the cheap alcoholic beverages on offer.

We bade farewell to Salisbury and travelled in convey on Sunday to Kwe-Kwe for two performances on Monday and Tuesday, then another convoy to Gweru on Wednesday for three shows, before we moved onto Bulawayo the following Sunday.

The production was received far more cordially in Kwe-Kwe and Gweru.
 
The audience was composed mostly of ex-Brit-Pats who worked in the chrome and coal mining industry in these towns. They were working class Brits and warmed to Stoppard’s cynical ridicule of the Uk’s parliamentary system, and particularly enjoyed our leading lady’s entrance clad only in her bra and panties.

Our final week in Bulawayo was also better received than Salisbury but even so the early week performances were cancelled and we only performed on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

This gave John time to track down Wendy and discover that she had a younger eighteen year old sister, so John and I had a foursome swimming pool party on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Douglasdale. The suburb was named after The Douglas family, descendants of William de Duglas , the leader of late 12th century Scotish clan.

The sisters were fantastic hosts and at a party after our closing night they served omelets to the whole cast with a side salad of fresh tomatoes just to remind us of our reception in Salisbury.