No.31

ARRIVING IN THE LAND OF PROMISE

Charles Frederick Ulrich 1858-98

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MY FRIEND LEONARD

I met Leonard Lewis 1927-2005 at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire where we were both doing our National Service. We soon became friends for we shared a keen interest in all things connected with entertainment. We joined the station concert party where he was a jack-of-all trades and I provided the music. For one of our shows we had the professional assistance of Ralph Reader the founder-producer of the Scout Gang Show. He was on our station planning that year’s RAF Pageant at Olympia.

One of our cast was a civilian worker Bunny Shayler, a comedian who had his own small group of entertainers outwith the RAF. Leonard and I joined them and we did quite a number of shows around Oxfordshire. I remember going to one village in the wilds where, on our arrival at the hall, Bunny was greeted with “Are you the man from the BBC?” (He rather traded on the fact that he had once been on BBC Midland Children’s Hour). Not long afterwards though, he appeared on radio in Hughie Green’s “Opportunity Knocks”, and I was one of his supporters who accompanied him to the live broadcast in the Paris Cinema, London.

This is a photo of Leonard with me taken sometime in the late 1950s. 

After demob Leonard worked in rep at Morecambe and Ashton-under-Lyne before going to the Library Theatre, Manchester. I met up with him again when he came to Glasgow to join the BBC as a TV production assistant. He and his wife Jean and their three little girls came to live in Lenzie and our two families got on well together.
In 1963 his work took him back to England, and his family followed of course. From then on, his name appeared regularly in Radio Times as director or producer of Z Cars, Softly, Softly, When The Boat Comes In, The Good Companions, Flambards and others. Before he retired, he was executive producer of the longrunning BBC soap “Eastenders”.
I must mention that the playwright Alan Plater wrote a very fitting obituary which appeared in the Guardian on 11th January 2006.

This is a photo I took of Leonard and Jean at their home in Somerset.

When I think of the RAF Concert Party, I always remember Leonard on stage, dressed as a butler, reciting this monologue -

A lady to see you, Mr. Archibald, sir.
The matter appears to be pressing.
Luncheon was served quite an hour ago,
I didn’t awaken you, sir, as you know.
There are times, sir, when sleep is a blessing.
I have here some ice, sir, to put on your head,
And also a whisky and 'polly'.
I don't know what time you retired to bed,
But the party sir, must have been jolly…
…If you'll pardon my saying so.

The lady in question a-waiting below,
Is accompanied, sir, by her mother,
And also a prize-fighting gentleman, sir,
A pugnacious character one might infer,
Whom the lady describes as her brother.
The elderly female is quite commonplace,
A most vulgar person, I fear, sir,
Who shouts in a nerve wracking falsetto voice,
And her language is painful to hear, sir…
…If you'll pardon my saying so.

The prize-fighter person is burning with hate.
He refers to you, sir, as a 'twister.'
He threatens to alter the shape of your 'clock,'
To break you in half, sir, and knock off your 'block,'
Unless you do right by his sister.
The young lady says, sir, with trembling lips,
That you made her a promise of marriage.
She wants to know why she should eat fish and chips,
While you, sir, ride by in your carriage…
…If you'll pardon my saying so.

Sir John has a dreadful attack of the gout,
He is fuming to beat all creation.
My lady, your mother, is up in the air.
She is having hysterics and tearing her hair,
And borders on nervous prostration.
Would you wish me to pack your portmanteau at once,
And look up the times of the trains, sir?
Or perhaps you would rather I brought you a drink
And a pistol to blow out your brains, sir?
...If you'll pardon my saying so.

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THE DOCTOR
Luke Fildes 1843-1927
Nationality - English

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I OPENED A BOOK
Julia Donaldson b.1948

I opened a book and in I strode.
Now nobody can find me.
I've left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.
I'm wearing the cloak, I've slipped on the ring,
I've swallowed the magic potion.
I've fought with a dragon, dined with a king
And dived in a bottomless ocean.
I opened a book and made some friends.
I shared their tears and laughter
And followed their road with its bumps and bends
To the happily ever after.
I finished my book and out I came.
The cloak can no longer hide me.
My chair and my house are just the same,
But I have a book inside me.

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Photo thanks to Prexels.com

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Three Poems by Thomas Hardy

SONG TO AN OLD BURDEN

The feet have left the wormholed flooring, 

That danced to the ancient air, 

The fiddler, all-ignoring, 

Sleeps by the gray-grassed 'cello player: 

Shall I then foot around around around, 

As once I footed there! 

The voice is heard in the room no longer 

That trilled, none sweetlier, 

To gentle stops or stronger, 

Where now the dust-draped cobwebs stir: 

Shall I then sing again again again, 

As once I sang with her! 

The eyes that beamed out rapid brightness 

Have longtime found their close, 

The cheeks have wanned to whiteness 

That used to sort with summer rose: 

Shall I then joy anew anew anew, 

As once I joyed in those! 

O what's to me this tedious Maying, 

What's to me this June? 

O why should viols be playing 

To catch and reel and rigadoon? 

Shall I sing, dance around around around, 

When phantoms call the tune!

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SHE DID NOT TURN

She did not turn,

But passed foot-faint with averted head

In her gown of green, by the bobbing fern,

Though I leaned over the gate that led

From where we waited with table spread;

But she did not turn:

Why was she near there if love had fled?

She did not turn,

Though the gate was whence I had often sped

In the mists of morning to meet her, and learn

Her heart, when its moving moods I read

As a book she mine, as she sometimes said;

But she did not turn,

And passed foot-faint with averted head.

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THE BEAUTY

O do not praise my beauty more,

In such word-wild degree,

And say I am one all eyes adore;

For these things harass me!

But do for ever softly say:

"From now unto the end

Come weal, come wanzing, come what may,

Dear, I will be your friend."

I hate my beauty in the glass:

My beauty is not I:

I wear it: none cares whether, alas,

Its wearer live or die!

The inner I O care for, then,

Yea, me and what I am,

And shall be at the gray hour when

My cheek begins to clam.

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THE MUSIC LESSON
Lord Frederick Leighton 1830-96

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