October PDF version - Etcetera

Roger Miles
Hello again. Now, where was I? Well,
actually in Norfolk. The East Anglians had
had television for some time, true, but it
came up from London and the people on it
“talked a load a’ squit, bor, I tell ‘ee.” To
have studios in the centre of Norwich and to
be able to look through the huge plate glass
windows and sometimes to go inside and
have a look around – well, that somehow
was real magic! Anglia Television belonged
to the people of East Anglia and they were
proud of their region. Standing at a bus
stop, waiting to go to work, someone in the
queue would recognise me and say, with
disarming charm, “You’m made a roight
muck up a’ that programme last noight, you
don’ ‘a-know what you be a’doin’ of.” And
often, they were quite right, we didn’t know
but boy, were we having fun!
One of our voluntary duties was to act as
hosts to visitors. I liked showing the ladies
around: they wanted to see the make up
and wardrobe departments of course and sit
in the announcers’ chair. We had a camera
set up so that they could see themselves on
the small monitor in the studio. That made
for some hilarious facial attitudes and they
knew not that dozens of technicians in the
control rooms could see what was
happening.
It was that studio that nearly led to my
downfall. In the early hours of one Sunday
morning I went into the studio to remind
viewers to remove the plug from the wall
before going to bed. Remember when
television used to close down? In doing so,
I banged my knee hard against the table.
The sound engineer had unwisely left the
microphone open a little and an agonised
voice, usually so calm, let out a very loud
four letter word. Now this particular word
had been on television before – Kenneth
Tynan had used it, causing uproar. But this
was different. This was on Sunday morning
– just. So I was severely reprimanded, not
for using the word, but for using it on the
Sabbath! Visiting school parties were good
for a laugh, too. Out outside broadcast unit
was housed in what had been Victorian
stables and I used to tell the children that
was where we kept the horses used in
Wagon Train and Bonanza – but
unfortunately all the horses were away on
their summer holidays.
But there was a serious problem at Anglia
Television, for me anyway. Of necessity it
was local and parochial and that meant that
the same stories would come around year
in and year out. We could guarantee the first
lambs born in January, spring’s arrival with
thousands of daffodils around Norwich
Castle; happy holidays on the Norfolk
Broads (one has to be very careful with that
Don’t forget to put
your clocks back!
phrase) and the first baby
born on Christmas Day. I
often thought that we
could repeat last year’s
broadcasts and no one
would ever know the
difference. In short, I became bored with the
“sameness” of it all and I began to cast
around for something different.
Again, I seemed to be in the right spot at the
right time because I received a telephone
call from Pinewood Studios asking if I would
care to run the Rank Organisation’s
libraries. And so it was that we sold up our
lovely little home in Norwich and moved to
High Wycombe in beautiful
Buckinghamshire. Pinewood studios in the
sixties was indeed a very strange place to
be making a living. My office was a
nondescript brick block with an outside
staircase connecting the three storeys. I
never knew from one day to another what
that exterior was going to be when I arrived
for work. Sometimes it was an hotel,
sometimes a bank that had more than its
fair share of armed hold-ups. On one
occasion I found myself working in a prison
– my office window had bars (made of
plywood) up at the window. One Monday
morning I arrived for work and found myself
walking down a cobbled street and the
buildings to the right and left of me had
suddenly sprouted German names. My
office had been turned into military
headquarters overnight and had a very
large black and red swastika flying from it.
You can still see the office if you watch a
re-run of the film Triple Cross, with
Christopher Plummer walking in and out of
the front door, which, in reality, led to the
coal hole. The job inside that office was
strange as well. We received requests for
pictures and sound effects for everything
imaginable. An exploding iceberg for a
toothpaste commercial, tiny distant figures
skiing down incredibly steep mountains (for
Black Magic chocolates), one day the sound
of creaking logs upon which immense
blocks of stone were being moved to
construct the pyramids. That one? A pair of
wooden stepladders heavily weighted,
dragged slowly along a tiled corridor. The
resulting sound on tape being slowed to
half-speed was very effective. On one
occasion I had to strip to the waist, head
over a bowl of water, lapping like a
kangaroo at a water hole for a “Survival”
programme. I do a very good kangaroo!
Recently, on a visit to Australia, I discovered
a close bond with these charming
marsupials. Next issue? Well now, there’s a
thought…
HOUSEHOLD TIPS & TRICKS
Waterproof shoes
Keep your leather shoes and boots
waterproof and shiny by spraying them
periodically with WD-40 and buffing gently
with a soft cloth.
21
Friendship & Love
Friendship & Love
English gentleman, many and various
interests and activities seeks lady friend to
share funtimes and suntimes in warmer
climes January through March 2013.
Please contact etcetera quoting FL103
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
'Young at heart' 55 year old fella, good
looking, lonely, would love to meet an
attractive lady for company/friendship.
Confolens - Champagne Mouton -
Chasseneuil area. Please contact etcetera
quoting 'young at heart'. (FL102)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Lady finds herself alone in France and feels
it would be nice to meet someone to enjoy
life with, someone with a good sense of
humour, in their fifties but not their dotage,
non smoker, cup half full person, fit and
healthy, music lover.
Please contact etcetera quoting FL104
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
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Book Corner
The Folly of
French Kissing
by Carla McKay
After finding herself
innocently at the centre
of a school scandal,
teacher and poet Judith
Hay decides there is
really only one thing she
can do, and that is leave
Britain. The small village
of Vevey in the Languedoc near Montpellier
seems the perfect answer: life is still very
cheap and the views are pretty. Judith soon
finds, however, that despite her attraction to
the charming bookseller Gerard, not all is
quite as it seems in Vevey. The sunny
climate and rural location are magnets for
people with things to hide. She is thrust into
the role of a modern-day Miss Marple to
uncover a terrible secret...
Currently available at Amazon UK priced at
4,19€ Kindle and 5,99€ paperback as well
as Amazon FR.
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