More Questions Answered.

When it comes to films and TV productions in which I have appeared, is much more difficult to select my most enjoyable.

According to information gleaned from the WWW and IMB I have been credited in more than one hundred and fifty TV shows and film productions so, as you can imagine it would be almost impossible to select one to put at the top of my favourites list.

Do I select from my most bizarre locations like the jungles of Malaysia when I filmed Who am I? with Jackie Chan?

Or do I go back to my first TV job when I appeared in Dixon of Dock Green way back in the early seventies? 

The central character was a mature and sympathetic police constable, George Dixon, played by Jack Warner in all the 432 episodes, from 1955 to 1976.

This famous police drama, voted second most popular programme on British TV in 1961, was filmed at the BBC White City studios and as an actor almost straight out of drama school it was certainly eventful and terrifying. Just to be working alongside Jack Warner who played the title role was a huge honour. The character Dixon was the embodiment of a typical "bobby" who would be familiar with the area and its residents in which he patrolled and often lived there himself.

In Warner’s auto-biography he tells of a visit by the Queen to the studios, where she commented "that she thought Dixon of Dock Green had become part of the British way of life".

Warner's success as Dixon was also popular amongst various police forces. He was made an honorary member of both the Margate and Ramsgate Police Forces in the 1950s. Warner said of Dixon of Dock Green: "It has been a very good meal ticket for twenty-one years—although the taxman has never been far behind."

Or, do I select the mountains of land-locked Lesotho, where I played a fanatical Arab, Sheik Maksood, one of the first of many Muslim militants who was planning to use a suitcase-nuke to erase New York from the face of the earth. This was in the filming of American Ninja 5 with David Bradley and Michael Dudikoff?

I do have some very pleasant memories of shooting Shaka Zulu and later in the eighties the story of John Ross. Both these were shot with the base camp in Eshowe, declared the capital of Zululand in 1887, and was visited by the British Royal family in 1947. It is in central Zululnd near the Dlinza Forest, in central Qua-Zulu-Natal.

Shakaland, now a major international tourist hotel was originally built for the filming of Shaka Zulu. It is now a living monument to Zulu culture.  It is from here that people from all over the world come to experience the lifestyles, social systems and rich culture of the Zulu nation.  It is said that a visit to South Africa is not complete without a visit to Shakaland.  It is a traditional Zulu “Umuzi” or homestead, dividing the homes of the local Zulu people and the hotel rooms.

Most of our filming for both these shoots was about 70 kilometres away in a pace called Disappointment Bay just south of the Tugela river mouth and I had a glorious time there eating freshly caught mussels and crayfish.

And, I must admit that Munich holds a desire to be revisited just for the German beer and multitude of sausages I consumed while filming a movie that I can’t remember the name of, probably because I never got paid for it, but I do remember sipping ice cold beers in the English Gardens.

I also remember being trapped in a Range Rover when an unexpected tropical storm hit the location, we were filming near the Olympic stadium when the heavens opened and half of Munich was suddenly under three feet of water, The whole crew and cast that was on call that day were stranded until the flash flood had subsided. Luckily, I had a book of Suduko puzzles with me and Toddie was full.

Another project on which I and another ten actors were stranded was a French movie called, as the working-title Crime in the Gabon, it was shown as “Le Crime de monsieur Stil”, directed by Ms Claire Devers. We were left marooned in the one-horse town of Poffadder which is near the Namibian border after the final day of the shoot.

The crew and the transport manager had all scarpered forgetting to collect us, we made ourselves at home in the Poffadder Hotel, until the owner decided we were going to drink his establishment dry, He loaded us into his Kombi van and drove us like a demented-Schumacher to Upington airport where we flew back to Johannesburg,

This was an eventful shoot as all us local English-speaking actors had to speak French. I was an arduous affair and even with the help of a dialogue coach in French we once took over 70 takes to shoot a night scene. It would have been hard enough in English as the French director wanted the whole scene in one hand help tracking shot, the poor cameraman darted between nine actors trying to pick up each conversation in the bar. It was a memorable occasion and the film won an award in France!

I have already written about my shoot with Jackie Chan in a couple of previous posts. I spent over six weeks in Rotterdam while Jackie kept postponing the scenes I had with him as they were full of dialogue, he preferred the action scenes where he cold display his magnificent ability by sliding down glass-built skyscrapers and defeating his opponents with Dutch wooden clogs on.

I spent most of my time befriending the local Dutch production drivers who were send weekly to numerous other towns with a briefcase full of cash to pay the local companies who were hired on the production. I accompanied them to Amsterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven, and even crossed the border once to the Hague in Belgium. Otherwise I toured Rotterdam on their excellent tramway system with my “Plonkie”, a ticket one could buy weekly which allowed you to hop trams to various destinations in the far reaches of the city.

The trams were a cheap delight for my wanderings, far more enjoyable than riding a motor bike with a side car attached. I had to learn to do this when I filmed in the late seventies on a TV drama called my friend Angelo,

I was taught by the great stuntman the late Janie Wienand who had me careering down open tarmacked roads and across the open veld steering past rocks, boulders and up and down dongas in no time. I became so versatile that the director David Lister, with whom I shoot my movies, let me do my own stunts apart from the dangerous ones.

At times I had a young actor who played my second in command as the passenger in the sidecar. He too had to have lessons as the swinging from right to left in a sidecar is crucial when taking corners.

So, as you can see from the over 150 productions I have been in it is very difficult for me to choose the most enjoyable, but I can say that as regarding erring an income I still receive a repeat fee from airings of a job I did way back in 1972. The piece, Pendas Fen still gets shown across the world today and because of the stringent British equity laws a few pounds finds its way into my bank account.

So, I’ll pick that one. I think its available on U-tube so have a look and help keeping those payments into my account. Thank you.

Please comment.

OLD AGE

Well knocking on the mid-seventies, I can tell you all that it's not too pleasant. 

Muscles ache with regularity, cuts, bruises, fractures and the common cold and flu take more time to leave your ageing body than they did in your youth.

I've always been a DIY-er., and even now I try, but the numerous times I have fallen foul of the surroundings I was working in, increases with each attempt.

Ladders and roof and gutter work are definite" No-Nos" and even trimming the bougainvillea is beginning to give more scratches than it used to.

Gardening is still a passion but wielding the fork and spade is not as easy as it used to be. Soil sifting and mixing with manure is still a doddle and can be done seated if all the necessary ingredients and tools are within easy reach. With spring in full swing in the southern hemisphere, it's a job on my list of things to do.[ 

My grand-pa used to make me do the job as a youngster and I have not forgotten how to prepare the right clay, loam, manure, sand mix for the seedling trays.

The right mix is the key for the germinating seeds to build strong roots and makes transplanting so much easier and successful. And if you water with his pigeon-shite mixture or worm wee-wee you're bound to have healthy seedlings, that will give an abundant and tasty crop.

I still do the occasional electrical job either around the house or for a friend. 

Recently I found myself in Groot Marico, a small hamlet in the North-West province of South Africa. I was taken there by a friend, Allen, who wanted me to put in three new double plug & plates and repair a couple of bedside lamps.

The jobs were finished before the sun set. Allen told me we were to visit a neighbour on the adjacent plot. The neighbour, Johann, had asked Allen to buy a frozen snoek for a braai we were going to have that evening.

For those of you who don't know a snoek is a sea fish that is caught mainly by the Malay fishermen of the coast round Cape Town. It's been described as the South African barracuda.

Groot Marico is named after the river that flows through it and the name was made famous by the writings of Charles Herman Bosman and the one-man re-enactments of his stories by the late thespian, Patrick Mynaard.

All his tales are set in the surrounds of Groot Marico, an area he describes as: "There is no other place I know that is so heavy with atmosphere, so strangely and darkly impregnated with that stuff of life that bears the authentic stamp of South Africa."

The area's other two claims to fame are its legal and illegal mampoer stills, and and its equally dubious rows of the Cannabacaea plants that are seasonally harvested and sold giving many of the locals a healthy income and lifestyle.

Many growers of the weed have turned their love of getting high into a highly profitable business either by selling the weed itself or extracting the highly sort-after cannabis oil.

Slowly but surely, we are definitely heading towards the legalization of the use of cannabis for medical use.

When this happens, many growers may join the legal distribution network even though this will involve a lot of red tape and the receiver of revenue. An entity that puts the fear of God in all of us.

When it came to payment for my second electrical job I was asked to do, this time for Johann the following morning, I decided that the R of R would not get a look in and choose the barter method.

Johann had asked me to insert a new 30amp breaker in an external  distribution board and link it up to run a new borehole pump; normally a 500 Rand job.

I have no idea of the going price of dagga, the weed or the extracted oil, so I asked for a bank sachet of dagga and enough oil to last me a month. Johann obviously thought this was a good deal. He smiled and said, "Give me a minute." And he departed.

On his return he passed me a bulging plastic back sachet of dagga and a large jam jar filled to the brim with oil. What disturbed me though was the greyish sediment that lay at the bottom.

"You can drink the clear oil, and also use it as a rub on your skin. The stuff at the bottom is frankincense and myrrh. Great healers, aches pains, cuts and bruises."

"Right, time for a drink, Scotch or Irish?"

"Irish please."

"A man after my own heart. You and Allen can get the braai fire going while I get the toots."

After the sixth or seventh double Irish Johann announced the snoek and sweet potatoes were ready for consumption. A large sheet of clean cooking foil was laid out on the outside bar and the crispy snoek was placed atop, sprinkled with roughly crushed peppercorns, sea salt and the juice of a freshly picked garden lemon was squeezed. This caused minor eruptions as it hit the cooked surface of the fish. I peeled back the cooking foil off my sweet potato and tucked in. It was superbly divine, tender and succulent and the flavour was enhanced by a light smear of homemade apricot jam. This was Johann's suggestion and it worked a treat!

He opened a bottle of cooled dry South African white wine and in under half an hour eighteen ravenous fingers had laid bare the cooking foil leaving the fishes skeletontonial bones to be tossed onto the dying braai fire embers.

We returned to our camping chairs around the fire, wood was tossed on it, the second bottle of Jameson's was opened, and I suddenly realized why Charles Herman Bosman had so loved this area. The smoke curled gently upwards, fire-flies danced in the distance over the running spruit/stream, and the whole magical scene was enhanced by musical tweets of the night-time crickets.

The Bosman flavour filtered through embellishing our fire side conversation which encompassed religion, politics, ex-wives, past and present lovers, children and of course many jokes which certainly would not find themselves on either the air waves or the internet.

One such would be classed as racist in the new South Africa but would be classed Ok if the word "Zulu" was changed to "Irish".

You all know that Neil Armstrong was not the first human to land on the moon? No?

When he took that first step he looked across the sea of tranquility and saw a bunch of black African men sitting there surrounded by wheelbarrows, picks, spades, and cement mixers. He bounded slowly across to them. " Hi guys.  I'm Neil Armstrong, I'm supposed to be the first human on the moon. What the fuck are you doing here?"

The largest 6 foot 4 Zulu took a slow drag on his cigarette, a hefty quaff of his Carlsberg larger and said slowly, "We do fuck nothing - - till the boss arrive!!"

It is totally beyond my comprehension that if the hero in this joke was either Irish or a Polack it would not be considered racist, but in this age of political correctness I apologise to anyone I have offended.

I also apologise for meandering off my opening statement.

Old age certainly restricts the playing of my youthful addiction to a forty-five-minute session on a squad court. I also no longer go to a gymnasium, so my only physical activity is either gardening or doing handyman jobs around the house or for friends.

Cleaning the swimming pool is now a dangerous business for my rickety joints, and I must employ help to scoop out the leaves and suction-pump the sediment off the sides and bottom.

It is a labourious and boring job as when you clean, no matter how slowly you do it, some of the sediment is disturbed, clouding the water and making it difficult to see which area you have already swept. I try to be very methodical, starting at one side and going carefully round the pool, but there is always some interruption, a telephone rings, or someone, usually a manure seller in summer or an innocuous and disheveled beggar in winter at the back gate. No matter how meticulously you position the brush, so it will not slip into the pool, it always does. This requires that I start again, but by now the water is far too cloudy, so the whole operation is suspended till the following day.

All in all I have to surmise that the older one gets the longer time it takes to do anything. I’m sure all you older readers will agree. I have learnt however as long as I still enjoy the work and I can stand back and be proud of what I have accomplished, life must go on till the reaper makes his call.

C’est la vie!!!

---

 [Test scri1]

 [Test scri2]

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.