Bucket List and A Plug!

As the days creep by and the final twilight years of my life in this old and grizzled frame pass by, I occasionally give a thought as to what TV series and dramas I would like to have appeared in.

The one that springs to mind immediately is the TV show that had me glued to the black and white box way back in the nineteen sixties.

It was my weekly escape to another world and it came on a Saturday evening at five thirty when the melodious air of “Dr Who’s” signature tune composed by Ron Grainer rang through my grandparent’s lounge.

This piece of electronic music was recorded well before the advent of synthesisers and multitrack mixers. With the help of Delia Derbyshire, Grainer made tape-loops of a single plucked piano string and then cut, spliced, speeded up or slowed down various segments of the analogue tape giving us the iconic tune that is recognised today across the world.

Back in the mid-sixties, when the programme started, the leading actor was William Hartnell, since then there have been twelve others with the most recent transition having a sex-change as well, and for the first time ever the Time-Lord is to be portrayed by a woman, Ms Jodie Whittaker, who will give her marvellous talent to expanding the character traits as the thirteenth doctor.

Back in the sixties I watched every episode and religiously watched the transformation of Hartnell to Patrick Troughton and onto John Pertwee.

Unfortunately, then came my University and R.A.D.A. years and I didn’t have access to a television, so my interest waned. However, if I climb on board the TARDIS and fast-forward to 2005 when the writer Russel T Davies and head of BBC Wales, Julie Gardner became the executive producers of a new series, I again morphed into an avid watcher.

Since then there have been four different Doctors, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith. Peter Capaldi, and the last being Jodie Whittaker, who completed her filming of her first series in August of 2017.

My second choice is another iconic and viewed across the world English drama called Midsomer Murders, which came to the British TV screens in the late nineties. It is now in its twentieth season.

Adapted for TV, originally by Anthony Horwitz, from Caroline Graham’s Book-Series, called Chief Inspector Barnaby.

Like Doctor Who, the lead character has been played by, this time two actors, John Nettles and now Neil Dudgeon since 2011.

It is set in the fictitious English county of Midsomer. The County Town is Causton, a middle-sized town where Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby lives with his wife.

The popularity of the series arises from the incongruity of sudden violence in a picturesque and peaceful rural setting. Individual episodes focus on institutions, rituals, and customs popularly seen as being characteristic of rural English counties. Various clues in several episodes hint that Midsomer might cover the areas of Berkshire and part of northern Hampshire.

Each episode is a new story line. There are several recurring characters, like Barnaby’s wife, his junior assistant detective and a forensic scientist. The new characters for each episode are of course, the murderer and several red-herrings who could possibly have committed the atrocious act. Usually as the tales unfold a second and sometimes a third murder occur making Barnaby’s solution and ultimate arrest of the culprit even more fascinating.

A google search tells me that four actors I was with at R.A.D.A have featured in the programme as either the culprit, or as a red-herring and one has directed an episode, so I can see no reason why I can’t have a role.

Unfortunately, as I reside over twelve thousand miles away from the UK the request has never arisen.

The third programme is American and the reason I have not been approached is the same.

It is NCIS Los Angeles and it has never filmed in the far reaches of Southern Africa and in fact all its locations are in the US of A, even the scenes pretending to be Afghanistan and Mexico are shot at locations near Los Angeles.

This sort of franchise TV series gives the regular actors in the leading roles a lucrative income and even the minor roles receive a small income from the worldwide sales.

In South Africa this is not the case for both the regular cast and the minor roles. Our contracts work on a buy-out system and getting money for repeats from any of the three local broadcasters is a trying and fraught experience.

Action has now been taken by The South African Guild of Actors (SAGA) to right this terrible wrong and they have just made a presentation to parliament to have the Performers Protection Bill amended.

This diversion aside, are there any other programmes I would have liked to appear in?

If I think locally I’ve appeared in almost every single soapie since the advent of television way back in1976 plus a detective drama series, a period shipwreck drama series, a couple of Shakespeare’s, a post 2^nd world war drama about Italian prisoners of war in South Africa, a spy drama, and a sit-com.

Unfortunately, there has never been a political drama although with the political changes, constant corruption and court cases there is certainly enough material for writers to compose one.

I myself have put my fingers to the key board with an idea but no one has yet pounced on it and decided to raise the finance to film it, so I suppose it is time for you readers of this blog to have a look at it and maybe pass comment. I’ve entitled it THE DEAD MEN.

I must first give you readers a short history to the events which produce the DEAD MEN.

A free general election and the events of the last twenty-five years in South Africa have turned the country from the pariah of the world into a welcomed member of the Commonwealth and the United Nations.

This transition from the “Old” to the “New” has been called a miracle of diplomacy and political bargaining. The charisma of the late President Nelson Mandela and the negotiating abilities of South Africa’s politicians have drawn the bickering political parties of Northern Ireland to the country.  Mandela himself helped to guide the divergent forces of the Congo and Rwanda to reach an agreement.

What happened during the four years prior to the first free general election in South Africa are graphically described in Alistair Spark’s book “Tomorrow’s another country”.

The reader will quickly understand the intricacies of behind the scene negotiations that occurred before the release of Mandela and the unbanning of the ANC. It reveals that the ANC and representatives of the old Nationalist government’s secret service were meeting in hide-a-ways in England and Switzerland. At the time, exposure of such meetings would have been fatal to both parties involved.

These clandestine conferences and hide & seek strategies of the opposing political forces led to the creation of unique breed of men. They came from all the diverse racial groups of Southern Africa. They were conditioned, trained and supplied with weaponry by their power-seeking masters. The table-talking politicians used these men to uncover their opposition’s strengths and weaknesses.

To gain the upper hand these agents were unscrupulous. Journalists, lawyers, doctors, university lecturers were hounded, tracked down and killed. Political activists were banned and those who managed to cross the border were followed and executed.

Denial was the order of the day. As the ANC and old Nationalist politicians sat drinking whiskey in the comfort of an English county mansion their agents were committing atrocities that would shock the world.

Both sides were guilty. ANC-operatives bribed by the government became double agents.  Disillusioned, underpaid state security officers and police fed up with the indiscriminate slaughter also crossed the fence and became arms suppliers for the terrorists they were meant to be hunting.

The politician’s hands, to this day, are still unwashed.  Members of the old and new government were cross-examined by the “Truth & Reconciliation” committee. Winnie Mandela has a huge cloud hanging over her head.  Ronnie Kastrels and Dirk Cotzee, now members of the ANC, have been accused of bombing and murder. F W de Klerk has resigned from politics.

Several of the lower echelon of undercover agents turned to the “Truth and Reconciliation” committee and asked for clemency.  Some are in prison seeking amnesty.

Some of these agents have been linked to the “Third Force”.

Others have mysteriously disappeared. All this is recorded fact and is easily obtainable from newspaper archives. Yet numerous questions remain unanswered.

Who were the “The Third Force” and who controlled it? Was it the Nationalist government of the time? Was it the emergent “Inkata Freedom Party” with a strong Zulu support base? Could it have been dissatisfied “Umkonto Iswizi” cadres who were abused while training in Angola and Zimbabwe? Was it the homeland chieftains who were given their own armies by the government of the day? Or was it the staunch right-wing Afrikaners, with their fervent religious belief that South Africa was their God-given homeland? And what has happened to these men who were trained to work under cover?

The series drama called THE DEAD MEN will answer many of these questions and provide entertaining, serious drama to the South African and international viewing public.

It is set in the New South Africa and the stories revolve around the lives of three ex-uncover agents.

Fact crosses over into fiction.

Hannes du Toit (The Chameleon), Enoch "Welcome" Mtoba (Betjan The Rhino) and James Bronic Menyet (The Ferret) are three men in their mid-forties. All of them were under-cover agents. For which service and which government is never disclosed, only inferred. It is with these three men that the audience will identify. They will recognise part of themselves - the common man.

The complex personal histories of the three will never be explained in full but snatches of information will be supplied throughout the series, whetting the viewer’s appetite.

Fragments of their pasts that emerge during the series will show they have a common bond. They are good. Their pasts have made them so.

They are disillusioned by the hypocrisy of the human political animal. They have been betrayed. Their clandestine pasts make it impossible for them to lead the lives of normal people. Their pasts are hidden. Why? and Who hid them?

Hints will lead the audience to believe that their past employers may be responsible. Their past employers are protecting their own interests.

The basic plot line will be in English. Short ambiance sequences and character delineations will be in either English, Zulu, Afrikaans or a mixture of all three.

The use of English is purely with a view to overseas sales.

The pilot episode will be TV feature length approx. 90mins. This will establish the format and pattern and increase the viewers chance to identify with the leading characters. The pilot shows how the three heroes came together, what their common aim is, who their common enemy is. It ends with the formation of the DEAD-MEN team.

At the end of the pilot episode the three heroes have an advert placed in English/Zulu/Afrikaans in the daily papers.

The ad. Will read: "Need help phone 011.xxx.xxxx" An answering machine responds: "Thanks for your call, leave name, address, and telephone number and someone will be in touch."

It is from these calls that their assignments for each hour-long episode will be based.

Each episode will have a completely different story line. The only links will be provided by a few characters, other than the leads, that are common to other episodes. (i.e.: a police inspector, a forensic scientist, a contact in the CIA/MI5/KGB, an old Afrikaans spinster, a shebeen queen, a female official in the police.). These characters, the reasons will not always be explained, are willing and do help our heroes.

In each episode, depending on the story line, one of the heroes will be the "lead" with the other two supporting.

This highly emotive and complex scenario, set in a country with exquisite scenery, ideal weather conditions, a stable infra structure and a well-established TV and film industry, is an ideal project for this fictitious TV drama series.

In fact, the series will be South Africa’s answer to the A-Team!

THE DEAD MEN

PLEASE

I would be very grateful if you would make a comment, good, bad, or indifferent, they will all be appreciated.

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.

Answering Questions

I have often been asked many questions about my career as a jobbing actor, some I always find infuriating like; how do you learn your lines? Some that I must ponder on and then consider if I should give an informative and truthful answer.

One such regular question is; what was your most enjoyable play, film or TV production?

To answer this question, I have to take some time and try and wrack my ageing-hard-drive as I’ve been performing professionally for over fifty-eight years and one’s memory does decline as the years pass by.

On stage, two productions immediately come to the fore. Diary of a Madman and Gulls, both these performances were in the nineteen-eighties when I was still in my early middle-age and they happened in the space of three years. I also won awards for both, a small cup, a medallion, and a paltry amount of money, which was quickly spent in a bar celebrating my thirst and that of many others. Once Toddie was filled and a dozen or so rounds of drinks was purchased for friends and hangers-on the prize money became an empty hole in my pocket. This is myself going to the podium to collect my medal and pittance.

I’ll start with Gulls, a superb play by Australian playwright Robert Hewett. It premiered in Australia in 1983 and won Hewett The Green Room Award.

A well-travelled and doyen of South African Theatre at the time Moyra Fine, who had established a production company in 1982 called Volute, with the original intention to stage plays that the People’s Space Theatre, the first multi-racial theatre in South Africa could not finance, secured the performance rights.

The director was Mr Keith Grenville and here is caught here having a cuppa with Moyra.

I was offered the role of the leading character Bill, a forty-year-old man, who because of a car accident had supposedly the mind of a brain-damaged eight-year-old child. I was immediately attracted to the part and accepted the role. The production opened at the Nico Malan Theatre in Cape Town on the 17^th of July 1987.

The other cast members were Jeremy Taylor, Bill’s close friend who was driving the car when the accident occurred, Diane Wilson, Bill’s sister, and the late Joy Stewart-Spenser who played Molly, their next door neighboured who looked after Bill while his sister was at work. 

This is myself with Jeremy in the opening scene.

The play utilized the incredibly talented Adrain Kohler and his newly formed Handspring Puppet Company. Adrian designed and made the two seagull puppets, which were an integral part of the production. The puppeteers were Mark Hoeben and Andre Rootman.

The production won three Fleur du Cap awards in 1987 and went on to play in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and finally closed two years later in Port Elizabeth, and the present day FNB Theatre Award (National) is named “The Moyra Fine Award for Outstanding Contribution to Theatrical Life”. This award is for individually and jointly continuing to encourage and develop theatre for all, in the face of stringent apartheid legislation.

As you can see the production was a massive success and played to full houses in all the cities across South Africa.

For me?

I enjoyed it, the whole production team and cast became close friends, we were like a family for over two years, even though there were a couple of cast changes.

I pranced nightly across the stage gurgling and talking to the other characters as if I was from another planet and then suddenly the action froze, and I talked directly to the audience in standard Australian-English.

This transformation seen her with  my sister on the left, from a crippled brain damaged idiot to a normal man, transfixed the audiences and every night for the two years we received standing ovations at the curtain call.

It was certainly enjoyable and exhausting. I consumed an enormous quantity of liquid refreshment till the early hours of the following morning after every performance without exception.

Bizarre and eventful jaunts happened throughout the run. I remember a party at the residence of co-producer of the production when we played a season at the Baxter theatre.

John Slemon, seen to the left after imbibing was infamous at the time for his ability to consume all alcoholic beverages and was the former manager of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He was brought out to South Africa to start up and run the new theatre with enormous success. He retired in 1995,

One Friday night we all ended up in the plunge pool for his sauna at his house in Simonstown and raucously sang old Irish republican songs.

At four in the morning the police were called by a neighbour who was complaining about the noise. We obliged, and the party ended. I drove back to my friend’s house in Devils Peak where I was staying. I had just purchased a new old vintage BMW and that was it last drive it had as I drove headlong in to a city transport early morning bus that was weaving its way down the winding Devils’ Peak road.

The car was a write-off but fortunately I was unharmed, and the city bus driver received a handsome gratuity from my friend as we surreptitiously towed the wreckage away to Don’s garage. There were no other witnesses as the bus, which was basically undamaged apart from a bent bumper, was empty.

So, the handsome bride, which I repaid to Don was well spent. The BMW underwent an inspection by my insurance company who were amazed that so much damaged could be caused by me accidently driving it into Don’s gate.

I never bought another car after that incident and always purchased old Bakkies, like a 1984 Nissan Champ 1400, which I still carts away the garden rubbish weekly to this day.

The final party after the closing of the production in Port Elizabeth was also a grand affair. It was in the Opera house Theatre, the oldest theatre in the Republic.

As a farewell gesture I ordered four hundred of the finest Port Elizabeth harvested local oysters to be delivered and Moyra Fine, who incidentally was Raymond Ackerman’s sister, arranged that the liquor costs were covered by the supermarket chain which Raymond owned.

The event was drowned in oysters with Guinness and Champagne chasers to wash them down.

The other play that offered equal enjoyment and exhaustion was Diary of a Madman, I have written about this play in several previous posts and madness certainly came very close to the surface in my own hard-drive! I start off as a lower-class civil servant and end up in the lunatic asylum.

This was the first production in which I was the script-adaptor, part director, transport manager and co-producer as well as lead and only performer.

My long- time friend, Karoly Pinter came up with the idea that we should adapt Gogol’s magnificent short story into a one-man play. A psychiatrist who worked with us as a medical advisor said it was the best description off paranoia schizophrenia he had ever read. Doctor Bass who started everyday of his working life at the Rustenberg psychiatric clinic with a double brandy and coke, so that he could deal with an elderly black patient who could recite every word of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth daily.

We started work on this straight after Gulls has closed and spent six months in rehearsal interspersed with visits to the local psychiatric hospitals while we adapted the short story and turned it into a one hour fifteen-minute monologue. It was gruelling work, but we finally had a finished product which opened at the Windybrow 100-seater theatre in I think 1986.

It was a huge success again winning 4 awards for myself and Karoly, the production ran for nine weeks to full houses. We then toured down to Cape Town running at the Nico Malan for ten weeks, a return season of six weeks at the Market theatre.

Because Karoly and I were co-producers of the production we kept a very careful eye on the bookings and how much income was coming in at the box-office. We had struck up share deals with all the theatres on a sixty forty percent split of the box office takings.

At the closing of the production which was after about a year three months of hard graft Karoly and I sat down with a calculator had did some mathematics. It turned out that over the one year and three months we had worked on the piece we had earned the princely sum of one Rand eighty-two cents each per hour of work!!!!! We even added in the prize money we had received from the best director and best actor awards we had won!!!!

The life of a jobbing actor is not financially rewarding as many of you may think.

On this production the most memorable event occurred on Karoly’s and my drive down to the mother city of Cape Town, a fourteen-hour haul with an unloaded bakkie, which we both owned. My 1984 Nissian champ and Karoly’s Alfa Romeo. We loaded all the set and numerous props into the vehicles and we set off. I had the home constructed cell toilet, a metal box with a bucket covered with a toilet seat, as my friend resting precariously on the passenger seat.

This is me as Poprischen with the toilet seat around my head in the show.

Just about ten kilometres after by-passing Bloemfontein Karoly’s Afla showed signs of overheating and after discarding the idea of pissing in the radiator we decided to drive into Bloemfontein and seek mechanical help. After an hour we received the verdict from the Bloemfontein mechanic, the radiator was completely fucked and would have to be replaced. The fastest he could do this was a week as the spare part had to come from Port Elizabeth over a thousand kilometres away.

It was decided we should try and load all Karoly’s props and set into and onto my Bakkie. We purchased about fifty metres of nylon rope and we set of with the cell-toilet and various other things tied onto my roof rack. Twelve hours later we arrived in Cape Town and started setting up the set in the Nico Malan theatre. Karoly was also the lighting designer so he had to stay and rig the lights and work through all the sound and lighting cues with the local stage manager. I at least could retire to again My friend Don’s house where I had been invited.

The following day we opened again to rave reviews and the local producer from CAPAB assured us the advance booking were excellent. They were and ten weeks later we drove ladened northwards again with the set to firstly Bloemfontein to pick up the Alfa and on to Johannesburg.

After the return season at the Market we were invited to do one show in what was then called a homeland. Bophuthatswana was created only for the Tswana people and was one of the homelands created by the then Afrikaner Nationalist government.

These Bantustans or homelands were established by the Apartheid Government. They were areas to which most of the Black population was moved to prevent them from living in the urban areas of South Africa. The idea was to separate Blacks from the Whites and give Blacks the responsibility of running their own independent governments, thus denying them protection and any remaining rights a Black could have in South Africa. In other words, Bantustans were established for the permanent removal of the Black population in White South Africa. This is a shot of the set-up in Bophuthatswana, with Karoly instructing the positioning of the lights.

The show was a huge success and we amazed at the number of Black Africans who saw the performance all spoke with American accents. We observed this at the after-show function which was organised by the theatre in conjunction with UNESCO, thus explaining the amount of Americaneeze spoken. Also, Bophuthatswana had its own broadcasting corporation which aired mostly American TV programmes!

Some of Poprischen’s lines remain with me today as he spoke of the real-truth about the world in which he lived and many of us still do today:

“I need people not dogs! I need spiritual nourishment to feed and enrich my soul. Why ? Why is it always generals and gentlemen of the court? People like me who manage to scrape together a few crumbs of happiness and just as we are about to reach out and grasp it along comes a general or gentleman of the court to snatch it away.”

A good observation on life in general!

I hope that answers the question. I deal with my favourite films in another post.

Please comment, it will be appreciated!!

Bafflement!

I get baffled, do you?

I try to understand how things work and always have done; as a child I was constantly picking up anything that was lying in the gutter or on the pavement or anything washed up on the beach.

If it was money I either pocketed it if it was a few coins, a farthing, a penny, a halfpenny, a shilling and even a half-a-crown, but if it was a note I was a good boy and took it to the local police station and told them where and when I found it.

I became well known at the cop-shop and the desk sergeant always greeted me, “Whacha got t’day Cess?” was his usual greeting, as I dived into my shoulder bag and handed him some expensive looking item, like a watch, I’d found on the beach.

Anything that looked like part of a machine or something electrical always fascinated me and I kept it for further inspection.

It would go into my Grandad’s workshop and it was there I’d attempt to dismantle it and fathom out its inner workings. Back in the nineteen-fifties there was a lot of junk lying on the beach. After a heavy storm was the best time to go collecting as the violent waves cast many a large item onto the sand.

Today it’s plastic and more plastic!

I once found what today you’d call an out-board motor, probably from an old dingy, it was too heavy for me to lift, so I dragged it up the beach as far as I could, before I scuttled off to Sergeant Ramsbottom at the cop-shop.

It turned out after a bit of detective work by the Plain-Clothes-Fuzz, that the motor was from the local life-boat station at Fleetwood and I got my first mention in the local rag, the Blackpool Evening Gazette. They didn’t let me keep it because their mechanic said it could be repaired. But it did get me interested in the inner workings of motors.

I side-track for a while and offer a bit of information I have gleaned from Wikipedia.

Wikipedia tells me that in maritime law flotsam, jetsam, lagan, and derelict are specific kinds of shipwreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage. A shipwreck is defined as the remains of a ship that has been wrecked, a destroyed ship at sea, whether it be sunken or floating on the surface of the water.

It goes on to say that the Law of Salvage has its origins in the Roman practice of “negotiorum gestio”, which dictated that one who preserved or improved upon the property of another, was owed compensation from the owner, even if the service was not requested by the latter. The law did not apply to maritime regulations, but were the basis for following ordinances, such as the Marine Ordinance of Trani, which stated, that a "finder" was to be rewarded, whether the owner claimed the goods or not.

The laws have evolved since “negotiiorum gestio”, and today, in the United States, a salvor who voluntarily brings the goods back into port may legally lay claim to them, or deliver them to a marshal, in return for a reward.

Had I known that then, that in terms of maritime law, the definition of flotsam pertains to goods that are floating on the surface of the water as the result of a wreck or an accident. As there is no clear way of defining ownership, one who discovers flotsam can claim it, unless someone claims ownership to the items in question.

Back in nineteen fifty-four or so, I did not know this.

So, my reward turned out to be a great learning friendship with Steven Hardcastle, the mechanic at the Fleetwood life-boat station. Unfortunately, not much of what I learnt has remained in my ageing-hard-drive and I never continued my interest in diesel or petrol driven motors, but the knowledge I picked up from my grandad, the electrician, has stayed with me.

So, today I sit with two electric discarded washing machine motors, the first motor was dealt with in my previous posts and it was not from a washing machine. It was a machine-bench motor and was easily fixed so that it could be given back to its owner, Keith my friendly plumber, who wished to use it as a grinder on his work bench.

As my reward he gave me the two old washing machine motors with the directions that if I fix one of them so that it would work on his water pump, I could keep the other.

My mind is at present baffled!

I have done all the necessary multi-meter readings that are necessary to find the starter winding and the running winding and have managed to get both motors working, but one of them will only run in an anticlockwise direction even when I reverse the input polarity.

This is perplexing.

As usual I have made use of the informative world wide web and now all the knowledge I gained as a youngster is in the fore-front of my ailing hard drive, but I am still greatly perplexed.

I have even tried a few slugs from old Toddie and taken a sleep on it, but the riddle remains as to why I can’t reverse the spin of the motor. And suddenly at eight o’clock in the evening my cell phone rang,

“Eh hello, how are you?” asked a young female African voice that I did not recognise.

I gave my standard sardonic reply, “I’m still here.”

It fell on deaf ears, so I ventured, “Who’s that?”

“Comela from Isithembiso, did you get the script?” said the voice.

“Oh yeah, I did get an email this afternoon, a script, but I thought it was a mistake. I was last in Isithembiso over a year ago, played a vice-chancellor for two calls and then my agent told me you’d written my character out.”

“Eh, well, … we need you tomorrow. Pick up at nine o’clock and you should be home lunchtime,”

I was now doubly baffled, electric motors and Isithembiso.

So, a night’s sleep and I waited at nine o’clock for the pick up to drive me to the studios where Isithembiso was being filmed. A safe and speedy journey by the driver Katleco, and I was escorted to the wardrobe department to be informed that I needed no costume as I was only here for a voice-over. I could have told them that as I studiously read the script I was emailed the previous afternoon, so Katleco guided me up another flight of stairs where I was greeted by Beezy, a second assistant director who I knew from shooting in the series the previous year.

“How are you Cess?”

Standard rely again. “I’m still here thanks.”

“Good to see you, you’re here for the telephone voice-overs?”

“It would appear so.”

“Tea, coffee?”

“Rooibos please no milk.”

“We’ve got a smoking room, if you’d follow me.”

“Great.” I replied as I followed Beezy to a two-metre square windowed room, “I’ll go back downstairs and sit outside if that’s OK?”

“Fine”, he replied, “I’ll bring your Rooibos.”

I found myself a plastic chair, pulled out Harold Courlander’s book on the Treasures of African Folklore, an excellent read by the way and picked up my perusal of chapter three, which I book-marked with an old liquor-shop-slip.

About five minutes later Beezy returned bearing my tea, “You never drank rooibos before.”

“Doctor’s advice, they say it helps lower the anti-oxidants in your blood.”

“Oh…...” he replied, looking as if he was about to ask what anti-oxidants were. “I’ll come and fetch you when they need you.” he said departing across the parking lot.

An hour later I was back in my abode having sat in a studio and duly recorded my telephonic voice-overs with a lanky sound assistant reading the other character in what can only be described as African-Broken-English. The director seemed very satisfied and I was escorted by Beezy back to Katleco who was waiting in the car to drive me home.

I’ll elaborate on my findings at the Isisthembiso set in another post, but I can tell you that nothing has changed since back in 1974 when TV was first broadcast in South Africa. A case of learning from one’s past masters, except the past masters made numerous mistakes but they did a better job at hiding them than the present TV production teams. I questioned several senior schedulers as to whether I would be required again soon. I was told probably in about ten day’s time. When I returned home I phoned my agent to enquire if he had heard anything, the short answer was no!

Time to confront my other bafflement, the motor.

I rechecked my temporary wiring and made sure no naked wires were hanging about, satisfied that all was safe I supplied power, the motor ran perfectly in an anticlockwise direction. I reversed the polarity and lo and behold the motor turned clockwise. A double dose of bafflement engulfed me. I had changed nothing from my last test and yet the motor had been reversed, I tried a second and third time switching the positive and negative inputs and each time the test was perfect.

I took a slug from Toddie and convinced myself that I had not changed any connection. Finally satisfied I phoned Keith to tell him he could come and pick up his motor. Wrote down carefully the wiring connections for clockwise and anticlockwise rotation and awaited his arrival.

While I waited my mind drifted off onto the memory I’d recently had with my lap top. About a week ago I suddenly could get not reaction from my task-bar at the bottom of the screen. I duly clicked on Microsoft help button and made a post of my predicament under the “System failure Forum”. Within an hour there were three replies offering various solutions. None of which I could understand, and I did not want another bafflement!

So, I pressed hard on the power button and kept it pressed for about thirty seconds. I then switched it on again and it worked perfectly, my task-bar was working normally.

The end of Bafflement!!