Author: strokeofbadluck

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tales from the past

Between 1971 and 1976 i used to get a lift to school with my father. he didn’t much like talking in the morning; instead he kept the car radio tuned to Radio 3 – except for a minute or two around 8.30 when he used to retune to Radio 2 and listen to ‘Wogan’s Winner’. the night before he would have surveyed the racing card in the Evening Standard, marking it with reference to the latest edition of his bible, Timeform. perhaps Terry Wogan’s recommendations were a final test of the correctness of his calculations? 

He was a punctual man – because of the army, he used to say. it was a good thing in a man who took you to school – i don’t think i ever arrived late. punctuality, he said, was a question of always arriving early and he used to apply the same reasoning to listening to the radio (and watching tv: he used to bunk off washing up with the old-fashioned excuse that he was ‘warming up’ the television for post-prandial viewing). 

So he switched stations a little early and we’d hear the end of one song before Wogan’s racing tip and the beginning of another, in case it was one my father liked. we already listened to ‘Junior Choice’ on Radio 2 on sundays so the likes of ‘Three Wheels On My Wagon’ and ‘Two Little Boys’ were familiar. though his interest in music mainly tended towards the classical, he did have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the lyrics of 30s pop hits, as heard on the wireless with his mother. and in the early 70s two songs captured his imagination via Terry Wogan to the point of buying the single on 45rpm vinyl: the first was ‘Clair’ by Gilbert O’Sullivan – perhaps not surprisingly as Claire (with an ‘e’) was the name of my elder sister; the second was ‘Midnight At The Oasis’ by Maria Muldaur. (‘let’s slip off to a sand dune/real soon/and kick up a little dust.’)

It was 1974. the immediate thing i remember about that year was that India and Pakistan both came to England for a test series. we went to Wales on holiday in the summer and listened to the test match on the radio while we stayed in Colwyn Bay with my great aunt Kip, who still had tinned food from the 40s in her cupboard, and magazines to match. while we were were there, Turkey invaded Cyprus, which resonated with my 10-year-old self as a kind of ‘away match’ in return for the Greeks besieging Troy. sport and war were interchangeable; countries sent teams abroad, or armies.

When i’d had the stroke, 40 years later, and my marriage had collapsed, i spent nearly two years staying with my parents. my father was slowing up. i once asked him what was the scariest thing he’d had to do in the course of his national service, which was spent in germany. he knew instantly. as an officer in the Black Watch, aged perhaps 19, it had been his job once to roust the members of his platoon out of a brothel where they’d been cavorting. it was a scene i couldn’t imagine him in.

Midnight at the oasis… and then suddenly Terry Wogan’s brought to an abrupt conclusion, we’re returned to Radio 3 and – my father asks me – what instrument is that playing in the orchestra? (the oboe?) 

He’s cut himself shaving and a smidgen of toilet roll with dried blood is on his cheek. i look at it and dread the days when i will be an adult.

(This was written as a reply to Lizzie Francke-Daniels’s posting of a photo of Viggo with his pet pony)

Viggo had that pony with him on the set of good. He got to know him on hidalgo.

pépé was so good. he was a human in pony form. i can see why viggo loved him so much. he was a fanatical san lorenzo supporter and an addict for that argentinian tea viggo drinks all the time, mate. that and very pure dark chocolate.
pepe came everywhere with viggo. even to the auschwitz set. when viggo put his ss uniform on, pépé knew something was wrong. he whinnied constantly in his rough, raspy voice. even when all the jews were howling during the takes (that was the time when the robin hood set sent over word: a bit less howling, please! those were the days…)… you could tell there was a pony in there. a pony at auschwitz!
viggo – in character – fought for it: what worse sign of human stupidity could one ask for? he had final cut too. but with time for 1 take left before sunset, he agreed – under horrendous pressure – to have the pony sedated. the take – all 4 minutes of it, in and out of the blockhouses – worked. i turned to my companion – a sky news newsreader who was only there because her husband arranged the mahler tune they used so brilliantly for the concentration camp band to play, and who was recently on tv round the clock giving updates for the late queen (she has short, blonde hair, looks a bit like charlize theron if you close your eyes 😉 ) – i turned to her, tears in my eyes, and embraced her…
and the awful thing was, the pony died of complications from the sedation. he had a pet passport which prohibited use of codeine, but in the confusion he had left it at the hotel, which was up in arms about having to put up a pony in the same bed as the star! only viggo’s smile calmed the whole furore down…

so with viggo in character, between the 7th and 8th takes, the sun racing towards the horizon, someone gave pépé codeine… and the rest was history.
viggo was barely present for the last day’s shooting. and then he went straight to the set of appaloosa in arizona, which happily for him was full of horses. and where he’d also arranged to meet his human partner, ariadna gil, with whom he’s been happy ever since. so maybe pépé’s demise was a good thing?
(but that ‘no animals were harmed in that shoot’ credit on good? hmmmm) 😉

(with apologies to simon gray)

in 1950 dick wrathall received his official discharge from the black watch, in which he had been serving his 2 years’ national service, latterly as a lieutenant. he enrolled as a student at corpus christi college, cambridge, a short distance away from trinity hall, where his grandson alex is now a student.

he soon discovered ‘the red shoes’, a film that was still playing 2 years after it was released; a film so splendid in its technicolor and its vision of a war-free south of france that it became the *ultimate* film for dad. he saw it at the arts cinema in a falstaffian rising figure, at least 10, 15, no, 20 times. for those who – amazingly – *haven’t* seen it, i’ll give you a taste.

we’re at a party where the impresario boris lermontov, played by the sublime anton wahlbrook, is talking to lady neston:

– how would you define ballet, lady neston?

– ooh well, one might define it as the poetry of motion, perhaps, or…

– one might. but for me it is a great deal more. for me it is a religion. and one doesn’t really care to see one’s religion practised in an atmosphere such as this.

lermontov stalks off, prompting lady neston to sigh: attractive brute!

for the more romantic: taking a moonlit ride by the mediterranean in a horse-drawn carriage, julian kraster – music-student-turned-resident-composer for the ballet lermontov, played by marius goring – says to victoria page, played by moira shearer:

– one day when I’m old, I want some lovely young girl to say to me: where in your long life, mr kraster, were you most happy?

and I shall say: well, my dear, I never knew the exact place. but it was somewhere on the mediterranean. I was with victoria page.

what?! she will say. do you mean the famous dancer?

yes, my dear, I do. but then she was quite young. comparatively unspoiled. we were, I remember, very much in love.

fast forward to the end, when tragedy takes over. as she’s about to dance the ballet ‘the red shoes’, boris purrs in victoria’s ear: vicky, little vicky. there it is, all waiting for you. sorrow will pass, believe me. life is unimportant! and from now onwards you will *dance* like nobody ever before!

but it’s too late. she’s doomed. it’s monte carlo station. vicki has thrown herself from the terrace – and been hit by a train.

a frenchman says: pas d’espoir.

the crowd gasps.

– julian?

– yes, my darling.

– take off the red shoes.

what did ‘the red shoes’ mean to dick wrathall? *not*, as you might guess, the wonders of the ballet. elsewhere in life dick quoted winston churchill’s definition of ballet as ‘buggers dancing’.

to penetrate the mystery of ‘the red shoes’, maybe we have to look at boris lermontov himself. he is – to use another churchill phrase – ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’. not unlike a certain dick wrathall. perhaps he recognised himself?

a final anecdote: dick was on his way off set. he knew he liked movies, but he didn’t any more know what *kind* of movie.

– ‘violent saturday’. 1955! *in colour*!!

– oh, lovely!

– it’s got *lee marvin* in it!

cue vigorous nodding of the head.

(the discovery – since dick’s death – of a 2008 list showing his top 25 movies, compiled in 2008, has revealed that among them was marvin’s best film, point blank.)

at the end of 90 minutes of ‘violent saturday’, he looked at me with a half-smile and said:

– lee marvin.

and I looked at him and said: *lee Marvin*!

and I realised then that was the point of watching all those films together: we didn’t have to say any more than that.

By LL

I’ve got to go in to work today, a strike day, but really it’s just because I want to see Kitty. She’s so funny with such perfect timing and she just doesn’t realise it. Sheila was in the other day going on and on about drawing down pensions – which she calls ‘pinsions’ – and whatever newfangled thing they’re going to be replaced with in this ‘proactive’ world. Finally she stopped; there was silence for a moment.
And then Kitty said: Excuse me, but what is a pinsion?
She’s 31 and not quite a grown woman. Another time….

https://fb.watch/dwpxO7NsCi/

Booing in Walthamstow. This is what happened to prime minister Winston Churchill on 4/7/45. 4 weeks later, he was out of power – despite the country being at war with Japan.

The Tories made a net loss of 189 seats in the General Election of 1945, while Labour made a net gain of 239.

Among Labour politicians elected for the first time in 1945 were:

Harold Wilson, Ormskirk

James Callaghan, Cardiff South

Hugh Gaitskell, Leeds South

Michael Foot, Plymouth Devonport

Barbara Castle, Blackburn.

Flash forward nearly 77 years. 4 weeks after 27/5/2022 – and the St Paul’s incident – is the day after the Tiverton and Wakefield by-elections.

The consequences of being booed. Just saying.

So, yesterday was the 70th Jubilee, right? 70 years since HM Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne.

Actually, no.

George VI died (Wikipedia tells me) on 6 February 1952. Which means that yesterday we celebrated the 70 years, 3 months and 27 days since Elizabeth came to the throne. What 2 June represents instead is the 69th anniversary of the coronation. So, what exactly are we celebrating? The 70-year, 3-month, 27-day anniversary? Or the 69th?

Is the jubilee now in line with Johnson’s revival of imperial measures? A system that everyone thinks they prefer despite the fact that no one really understands it. Is this what ‘the British people’ have become? With their Queen of England who doesn’t even go to the service at which 400 people are at this moment celebrating her quite meaningless 70-3-28th anniversary – because Liz would rather stay at home with her feet up, watching her only real interest, horse racing?

She’s havin’ a laugh, as Andy Millman would say.

The 1st time we went out as a couple after we had a child was to see Hannibal. It was February or the beginning of March. My wife’s parents were staying, Hannibal was on at Colchester Odeon, we’d enjoyed The Silence Of The Lambs (it had been one of our 1st dates in Paris) and also, crucially, we just didn’t think. We were too tired for that.

We drove there in the dark. I’d done my research, though, and Hannibal was written by David Mamet and starred Julianne Moore (as good as Jodie Foster) AND Gary Oldman, as well as Anthony Hopkins. But it was so appalling. Maybe a sequel’s nearly always bad?

We went home and went to bed. After a year’s worth of waiting for a night out – THIS.

Now we’re divorcing, you have to ask yourself: did we ever get it back?

Whatever ‘it’ was…

In late 1979 my family got a video cassette recorder. It was early in the life of the VCR and the reason was simple: my father was in advertising and OCCASIONALLY would watch a tape of a work in progress. But really it was a perk – something to show the neighbours and our teenage friends.

We recorded films (Sunset Blvd, Jason And The Argonauts and Play It Again, Sam were early entries, I remember) and watched them again and again. (Woody Allen never recovered the early form shown in that Herbert Ross movie, IMO. A controversial opinion – till he was accused of child abuse…)

The videotapes were made by Thorn and cost a lot. I numbered them and tape 2 was devoted to pop music. I used to record things off Top Of The Pops (no remote; I’d sit there with 2 fingers on the keys, not buttons, waiting…)

I remember taping Martha And The Muffins’ Echo Beach. I rerecorded over it quite soon but a fraction of it remained, the introduction.

I’ve just discovered that the sleeve of the single shows a map of Chesil Beach, near which an old friend now lives. And the title refers not to an actual beach but to a reference in Hiroshima Mon Amour by Ultravox! (John Foxx era), which would have meant a lot to me at 16. I know it’s out of fashion and a trifle uncool but…