BENNY HILL - It's well-documented now of course that our Benny was,er....a man who fleetingly enjoyed the company of women - on a regular basis ! Which is as politely euphamistic as I can put it.But clearly he didn't wait for the 70's and 80's to start enjoying himself........
" Each week the crew used to lay bets on who would be the lucky lady.After the show he always invited me round to his dressing room so that he could provide the wherewithal to buy the crew a round of drinks,just 'in case I'm busy'.It was a speedy,if sometimes embarassing way of finding out the answer to the bet,and in the end I gave up going. "
TOMMY COOPER - Bond's experiences confirm that he was indeed similar to contemporaries like Tony Hancock and Frankie Howerd,as the off-screen cliche of the insecure clown....
" An after-the-show drink with Tommy Cooper would be a very downbeat affair,full of introspection and self-doubt. 'Did you think it was funny ? Did so-and-so work ? No,but seriously,did you think it was funny ? Are you sure ?' "
An unfortunately downbeat note for us to end on,so let's stick with the public upside -
Q. "Doctor,it hurts when I do this" A. "Well stop doing it then !" -Priceless. And one reason why I could never have become a GP.
ON THIS PAGE.....Here's a look at author Michael Bond's early career pre-Parsley,in both his own words and mine
And particularly relevant in his case because it was to consist largely of writing and television work......
......two seperate careers that would only belatedly overlap with the creation of The Herbs.
The Herbs and The Adventures of Parsley
CLASSIC BBC KID'S ANIMATION DEVISED & WRITTEN BY MICHAEL BOND
War,writing and round to Aunties
Michael Bond was born in Newbury,Berkshire in January 1926.
His earliest adult years were spent in the armed forces,although he was still doing basic training when
WW2 drew to a close so never got to fire a shot in anger.
He spent the immediate post war years serving in the Middle East in general and Egypt in particular,
before eventually being de-mobbed in October 1947.
After a brief period of re-adjustment,he joined the BBC and worked as a nuts 'n' bolts service technician
for the Monitoring Service at Caversham Park,Reading -a Government-funded news gathering organisation that had kept tabs on German communictions during the War and was to find renewed relevance during the Cold War.
He combined this slightly mundane day-to-day existence with a passion for writing,inspired by a childhood spent in a house " where books were part of the furniture ".
He'd had his first ever article published in August 1947 whilst still in Egypt " suffering a surfeit of sanddunes " -a short story for a magazine.
And a steady,if unremarkable stream of articles,short stories and even radio plays followed.But it was always his 9 to 5 that enabled him " to keep body and soul together and to pay the return postage on my manuscripts."
" I wasn't unduely distressed :writing is one of the few occupations where lack of commercial success carries with it no great social stigma -rather the reverse- and being a Capricorn I was determined to get there in the end.
In the meantime,I grew proficient at recognizing the dull thud of manuscripts from a distance of fifty paces or more. "
Small screen,big dream " Bored with the routine of maintaining the same pieces of equipment week in week out and feeling the need to do something more creative " he started to look at other avenues within the Corporation.
But it was a struggle.
" Transferring from one department to another in the BBC wasn't easy.Understandably,having trained you for one job,they have always been reluctant to waste their investment. "
Fortunately,as it turned out,Government cutbacks in 1956 meant Monitoring Service staff were asked to re-deploy within other areas of the Beeb,and.........
" I jumped at the chance and before the week was out,found myself walking through the entrance to the BBC's Lime Grove studios and into the make-believe world of television. "
It may have been a long time coming and more by chance than design.But once in,he soon got lucky again with the creation of the Beeb's first ever media competition -Independant Commercial Television.A new,cash-rich organisation that could offer BBC staff far better salaries for the same work.And as so many jumped ship Bond found himself
" thrown in at the deep end of a rapidly emptying pool " and better-disposed to stay and cherry-pick the vacancies.
A future in focus He soon found his particular calling as a camera operator,inspired by a genuine love of the cinematic imagery he'd grown up watching.
And a job he described as " almost too good to be true. "
" For new entrants who stayed the course,promotion was rapid.The normal progression via general dogsbody, camera-tracker grades three,two and one,then,if you were lucky,being allowed to try your hand at operating a camera,went by the board. "
This fast-tracking was also driven by an increase in the amount of hours that the Beeb were actually allowed to broadcast- a government response to the spiralling number of tv sets being sold and the fact that people wanted to see programmes on them rather than the blank screens they were faced with for large parts of the day.
So," progress which had in the past been largely a matter of waiting for others to grow old and retire was considerably accelerated. "
And for the next 10 years Bond surfed the wave of this increased output,working as a cameraman at various studios in London.
" When I joined,7 crews were responsible for almost the entire studio output in the UK.10 years later,as a senior cameraman,I helped form the 17th crew in London alone. "
Bearly a living It was also during this period that he had his first book published -a collection of 8 short stories entitled "A Bear called Paddington"(1) .It was 1958,and by the Christmas of that year the entire first print-run had been sold and a perennial kids' favourite had been born.But despite the fact " my career as a writer had been mapped out for me and it was to keep me increasingly occupied for the best part of the next 20 or so years........for the time being it was still very much a part-time occupation and I still had to earn my living " - which is somewhat of a surprising revelation to those of us who assume that a best seller automatically brings financial security.
But,despite its' great success,and that of the equally popular sequels,his bread and butter stay at the Beeb was indeed to last another 8 years.Although most of those years were enjoyed rather than endured.
Because,despite leading " a strange,slightly nomadic existence moving from studio to studio,from production to production " he found great satisfaction doing the actual filming itself.
" Carrying out a long,smooth track from wide shot to a big,pin-sharp close-up is very satisfying,just as making a smooth landing in a plane must be.In both cases,no matter how many times you repeat the manoeuvre,there are alway those occasions when you know you could have done it that little bit better. "
But ....." nothing is forever and people move on "..........
Emerging,blinking into the light And Bond's moment of reappraisal was reached in 1966.
Because,by then," a lot of the excitement had gone out of the job " Something he attributed largely to the reduction in live transmissions in favour of pre-recorded footage.Because," knowing that it was no longer a total disaster if you didn't do things right first time meant the adrenaline didn't flow in quite the same way." And he also had the added responsibilities of being in charge of a crew,which meant that " you could be tracking in on someone giving their all and a voice would whisper in your ear ,' can I have next thursday off ?' ."
The days of fast-track promotions had also gone and things had settled back down to a far more ordered,and leisurely progression.As his mothers' tireless scrutiny of the BBC staff magazine's obituary page neatly illustrated -" I see 4 more have died this month she would inform me,with a certain amount of satisfaction in her voice. " But he knew it would take a higher strike rate than that to make any more significant headway.
So,in April 1966," I returned to the real world ",to finally try and make it as a full time writer.
And the verdict on life at Auntie's.....? " I was sad to leave the BBC,for it had been an enormously enriching experience. In the beginning they had been adventurous days: adventurous on both sides of the camera,with everyone-presenters and technicians alike-still finding their feet.The impossible was often asked for,because everything seemed possible.Frequently it was a case of every man for himself, but also there was great pleasure in working as part of a team knowing that when things went wrong help was close at hand "
But " since I had privately set myself the target of being a full-time writer before I reached the age of forty it was time I took the plunge. "
So whilst he may have been a couple of months late in the execution,he was at least clear of thought (and lighter of pocket) to prepare for his next project.............
.................Now I wonder what on earth that could have been ?!
"Guess who I saw at work today......" A brief peek at some 60's tv luminaries.
If you want to skip straight to the next bit,"The Making of Pt.1",then please do.
But just before we move on,I can't resist doing a bit of BBC name-dropping on his behalf.
Because,having worked on everything from News and Current Affairs,Comedy and right through to Children's progs, he'd " been lucky enough to meet,work with,photograph,or simply view at close quarters,practically anybody who was anybody. "
So here are just a couple of his observational titbits.And whilst they're hardly earth-shattering,the real fun lies in trying to guess what we might have actually learnt without the involvement of the publisher's legal department.
But at least he can truely say "I was there !"
So that was M.B's working life up to 1966 -right up to the Herbal Happening. And if you found it interesting, you may also like the links below.
The story of how The Herbs came into being is told here : "The Making of" page.
Note 1 A 1st edition copy of the first ever Paddington book printed in Oct.1958 and recently on sale for
£ 700 . Yes.That's seven hundred of your english pounds if you please !
A Couple of Links relating to this page
LIME GROVE STUDIOS :- The older I get,the more I think that the process of making a lot of tv and film is often far more interesting than the actual end result.
Anyhow,Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush was where Michael Bond spent a lot of his time filming.And where he also attended a reunion party in 1990 to mark their closure and subsequent demolition for a new housing development.
So this site is well worth a look if you'd like to delve a bit deeper.
1950's BRITISH TV A site all about the early years of British TV.
Hard to believe that a character like "Mr.Turnip" could hold the kids' spellbound.But any generation has to take what it's given,and it's no big jump from a turnip to herbs I suppose,even if the methods of execution were light years apart
