Interesting Movies From The Past…

Inn For Trouble 1960 is one of the funniest films I’ve seen for years. It features Peggy Mount and David Kossoff as Ada and Alf Larkin in a screen spin-off from its popular TV series. Alf’s faithful service and loyalty of 25 years to Belcher’s Brewery is rewarded with the management of his own Pub – The Earl Osborne, a remote and under used drinking house, but it seems their management of the establishment could be a short one. However, they do find some very comical ways to raise business, and when in the end a main road is planned to run right beside their public house, they find they are at last, sitting pretty! A very funny and fast moving comedy that also has a great supporting cast in Charles Hawtrey, Lesley Phillips, Irene Handl, Graham Stark, Ronan O’Casey, Stanley Unwin and of course Graham Moffatt from the Will Hay Comedies.

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Interesting Quotes From The Past…

‘Being a personality is not the same as having a personality.’ Alan Coren. 1938-2007 English writer.

‘It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’ Woody Allen. 1935- American film producer.

‘Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.’ Stephen King. 1947- American writer.

‘I must say that I’m interested in leisure in the same way as a poor man is interested in money.’ Prince Phillip. 1921- Duke of Edinburgh.

‘Work is much more fun than fun.’ Sir Noel Coward. 1899-1973 English entertainer.

‘When a man opens the car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.’ Prince Phillip. 1921- Duke of Edinburgh.

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Interesting Movies From The Past…

The Runaway Bus 1953. Written, produced and directed by Val Guest is a comedy with a colourful cast. Starring Frankie Howerd, Margaret Rutherford, Petula Clark, George Coulouris and Terence Alexander. Heavy fog prevents all flights from London Airport, therefore a number of passengers are put on a coach for Blackbush Airport where the fog is lifting. Driver Percy Lamb played by Frankie Howerd doesn’t realise that thieves have hidden gold bullion in the luggage boot of his coach. What follows is a fast paced comedy with lots of twists and turns and a number of red herrings. I watched and enjoyed the film many years ago on television, and a recently purchased DVD left me with no doubt the film had suffered very little from loss of enjoyment in all those years since 1953.

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Interesting Pictures From The Past…

I snapped this delightful picture when my granddaughter Shannon stopped to talk to this gentleman who was feeding the birds in Kensington Gardens in West London. Just a stone’s throw away is the area known as Bayswater, a myriad of shops, restaurants, and hotels, a place the family love to visit and stay for a few days. Chinese foods, Indian foods, and some of the best pubs in London offering first class ‘Pub Grub’ is just a little of what the area has to offer. There is of course Whitely’s, a huge multi-shopping complex that was developed from its original Victorian past. Several of my stories have been set in and around Bayswater and it will always be a favourite part of London to me.

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Interesting People From The Past…

Admiral of the Fleet the Earl of Cork and Orrery; William Henry Boyle, was Rear Admiral Commanding the 1st Cruiser Squadron from 1926-28, and afterwards commanded the Reserve Fleet and then the Royal Naval War College 1928-32. He was First and Principal A.D.C. to the King from 1936-38.

Count Maurice Maeterlinck was a Belgian poet and dramatist. He was born in Ghent in 1862 and began practising law until success followed his first poetical works Serres Chaudes in 1889. His play The Blue Bird aroused wide interest, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911. By 1914 his works had been recorded on the papal index.

Eden Phillpotts was a novelist and dramatist, who worked firstly in an insurance office then studied for the stage, but in fact became an author. He specialized in scenes of English life in Devonshire, particularly that of Dartmoor, and wrote many poems, plays, and novels. His works included The Human Boy, Children of the Mist, and Widecombe Fair. He was born in 1862.

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Interesting Movies From The Past…

‘The Night Caller’… Armitage Films 1965. Still, after all this time, has some very scary moments! The title shot of The Thames is evocative! It features John Saxon (later to work in the US), Maurice Denham, and Patricia Haynes – I fell in love with her!… I just adore tall beautiful women… Later she appears in a ‘TV Steptoe’ Also has David Gregory and Romo Gorrara – two favorites of mineRomo went on as a stunt actor –both established hands from many a Butcher Film!  And of course the velvet soft tones of John Carson lend an air of quiet authority. (John retired to South Africa after many British Film appearances) Very decisive is the performance of Alfred Burke, who from 1965-1975 became a household name as Frank Marker in the popular TV series of Public EyeThe Night Caller is available on DVD from Amazon. Some title releases: The Night Caller from Outer Space 1966.

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The Village of Avebury…

The Avebury Stones…

The Avebury StonesThe Avebury Stones

The village of Avebury is seen as a mecca for those who believe in Paganism, Wicca, and Druidry. The Avebury Stones surround the village in the fair county of Wiltshire England, a county renown for it’s fine quality hams and fresh country vegetables.

The summer solstice and pagan festivals held at Avebury attract visitors from all over the world, as Avebury stands on the St. Michael ley line that runs from Cornwall to East Anglia – and in the village itself ; The Red Lion Public House can offer you one of the most ghostly inhabited pubs in England!

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Wemyss Bay…

‘Friends of Wemyss Bay Station’

I have always loved all-things Scottish and Wemyss Bay Station (pronounced weems) is no exception. This Rail Station on the West Coast of Scotland is famous for its wonderful displays of flora over the years, winning many awards for the best kept station in these parts. The station was designed by James Miller and built in 1903 for the Caledonian Railway and is still fully functioning today. You can also catch a Steamer here for The Western Isles. The Station’s renown floral showings were once nurtured soley by the station staff, but these days a loyal band of folk known as ’Friends of Wemyss Bay Station’ are ready devotees to its old world charm.  ’Friends of Wemyss Bay Station’ can be found at: www.friendsofwemyssbaystation.co.uk

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Bletchley Park… Home of The Codebreakers

Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes England was a secret for over 30 years. Once it was Britains best kept secret. The Enigma cipher machine was developed and used here during the second world war to break the German codes. It was very successful and believed to have shortened the war by around two years, saving countless lives.

Today the park is open to the public as a heritage site and museum, and Marilyn and I explored the wide range of exhibitions and learnt how its codebreaking successes worked. More incredible than fiction, the story of Bletchley Park was a desperate race against time. The mission of codebreakers like Alan Turin, was to crack Germany’s coded communications, such as those sent via the German Enigma machine. Bletchley Park was Churchill’s secret passion; he called the codebreakers his “Geese that laid the golden eggs but never cackled” 8.500 people worked at Bletchley Park during the war and all done with amazing secrecy.

Colossus was on view; this was the world’s first semi-programmable electronic computer and developed for Bletchley Park. The size of a small room, it used over 2,500 valves, and the rebuilt version is operational today.

Bletchley Park was the world’s first large-scale codebreaking centre, and there is much to see and do there. Marilyn and I enjoyed our day, visiting the Mansion House, a number of well-staged exhibitions, the fine Cafe, and the codebreaking huts. The Park is situated in a beautiful parkland setting, with a lake, wildlife and an American Garden Trail commemorating the special relationship formed here.

Bletchley Park is online @ www.bletchleypark.org.uk

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Enid Stamp Taylor… Actress

Enid Stamp Taylor was born on Sunday the 12th of June 1904 in the agreeable, late Victorian, seaside town of Whitley Bay in the North East corner of England. She was the only daughter of Army Major George Stamp Taylor and his wife Agnes.

Some years later they had a son and named him Robin Geoffrey. But tragically, he died at the very young age of only ten years whilst away from home and at boarding school.

Regretfully, the distraught parents separated in 1918, and Enid and her mother moved to London in order to stay with friends. It was here, that Enid’s interest in the stage began to blossom. She had reluctantly entered a beauty contest and then won the first prize of a part in the chorus line of a top West End show. The quality of her voice and exacting diction soon led her to stage training under Rosina Filippi, and in 1923 she toured in the ‘The Lady of the Rose’. During the thirties and forties, along with her agent Al Parker, she successfully built a powerful film and stage persona. 

In 1929 she married the prosperous businessman Sidney Colton, and in 1934 they had their beautiful daughter Robin Anne’. However, two years later the marriage was over and consolation came in the form of another businessman by the name of Louis Jackson, and for a while they lived happily at Catherine Place, Westminster; close to Buckingham Palace.

Sadly, Enid died alone, and during the bitter cold winter that followed the summer of 1945. She had collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage in the bathroom of her Park Lane address and was found by the maid in the early hours of that subsequent terrible Monday morning.

Some of the photographs included from time to time on my weblog pages -because this site is dedicated to words and pictures, a picture is worth a thousand words… come from Robin Anne’s own private collection. They are… those treasured memories that we like to keep as images of a near forgotten world.

And now, she sleeps so prettily, beside the little picturesque church of St. Nicholas in the quiet and charming Surrey village of Alfold, and where now and then… I refresh a single red rose to her memory.

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