Spring-Like Weather

For the past couple of days we've been experiencing almost spring-like weather. Carol was on Half-Term Holiday last week. She had to make a doctor's appointment early last week. We didn't go to the surgery on the Monday because from experience we knew that it was likely to be busy, with a long queue outside (I was only the second person in the queue the week before at around 7.45 a.m. when I'd gone to make an appointment myself.) So we'd gone on the Tuesday. It turned out that she would have to have a blood test, so had to go back the next day, at around 9.20 for that. 

The weather was mixed. Some days it was bright and sunny, whilst others it rained. On the Thursday we went to the Heart of the Shires shopping village at Weedon, which is up the A5. We had gone to another a few months ago, on the major roundabout on the A5/A43, just beyond Towcester, called Bell Plantation Garden. We'd had a nice meal in what's called the Plantation Cafe. But when we'd arrived this time we discovered that there was major roadworks on the roundabout. It looked as if they were widening the road and making the roundabout a good deal wider, putting in several new lanes for traffic. We have shopped in the Aldi branch which is nearby in the past. So we had travelled on until we came to the shopping village at Weedon. We'd discovered these places quite by chance as we've been up and down the A5 as it's a good deal less stressful than using the nearby M1 which is only a short distance away. There is so much more to see as you drive along the A5. There are several quite pleasant garden centres and shopping villages and you pass through a few really interesting villages and towns along the way, one being Towcester. Weedon is at the crossing-place of the A45 which goes on towards Birmingham, Warwick and Leamington Spa and is the way we drive whenever we go to Kenilworth Castle. The east direction heads towards Northampton and eventually Bedford. There are some really interesting shops and outlets at the shopping village, selling a range of items such as housewares, antiques, clothes and gardening items. We had a coffee in the cafe and then drove home slowly. Not an entirely over-exciting outing, but considering we hadn't been out all week it was quite a pleasant little outing. We did have a browse in the antiques centre but decided that most of what they had on offer was really over-priced. Our knowledge of antiques has been acquired as a result of watching such television programmes as Bargain Hunt, Flog It and Antiques Roadshow. I had never heard of Lalique, Famille Rose, or many of the more famous makers until I'd watched these shows.

On Saturday we decided that the dogs needed a well-earned outing, and wanted to take them for a walk. As mentioned in earlier posts, it's quite a military operation as you have to be properly organised for these outings as Alfie, our Yorkshire terrier gets very wound up when he knows we're going out. Fortunately this time he didn't get quite so stressed out, but I had to put the cage into the back of the car without him seeing we doing it. It started out quite fine and sunny, but it began to cloud over as we drove up the A5 as we were going to Salcey Forest, somewhere we haven't visited in quite a while. It turned out that there was building work going at the carpark. It looks as if they are building a new visitor centre. The cafe which is there currently is only wooden, a sort of temporary construction. Also, it was extremely muddy as we walked along the paths, which didn't bother either dog, but when they jumped up on us we became extremely covered in mud. Not a real problem because our clothes could be washed easily in the washing machine later. But, again, it was a nice outing. No sooner had we got back home than the rain began so it was as well we went out when we did and had made the best of the day.

Working on 'The Golden Oldie Picture Show'

Somewhere around about 1986-7 I signed up with a walk-on agency based near Birmingham, I think it may have been Dudley or one of the out-lying towns to Birmingham, called Lee-Evans (not related to the comedian Lee Evans. The name was from the surnames of the two ladies who owned and ran it.) I did quite a few bits and pieces of 'walk-on' work for various television dramas. One of the best things I did was for a show called 'The Golden Oldie Picture Show' which was shown on BBC1 and made up of short videos set to pop music but before pop videos became popular when they were originally released. I was booked for two days and the first day was on General Election Day 1987 so that gives you a good idea when it was. I recall driving to Pebble Mill studios in Edgbaston, Birmingham and having to park outside the studios in the road and because of the election having to get through some tight security before going into the reception area to report that I had arrived. The filming I was working on was to be on location somewhere in central Birmingham, in an empty office block alongside the canal which runs through the centre of Birmingham.

On arriving at the location I learned that I was working with one other 'walk-on' artiste, a young lady and that we were involved in a short video which was going to be made for 'The Golden Oldie Picture Show' and using the Gerry and the Pacemakers number 'I like It.' The director of this piece was called Laura Simms. We were kitted out in our costumes and I had to wear a grey suit several sizes to big and because of this it had to have safety pins to keep it together at the back. I was to be the boss and the sound lady was supposed to be my secretary and I'm something of a male chauvinist pig which upsets her. It starts out with me alone in my office and I'm plying with a model railway layout. At one point the secretary puts my tie into her typewriter (I know, thinking about it, how many offices today have typewriters in use? I think they have all been replaced by computers using word processing.) She is supposed to wind it down so that my head is almost touching the keyboard. Actually quite uncomfortable. In another sequence I'm staring at her (more like boggling.) to such an extent that I spill the cup of coffee I'm drinking down my shirt. This has to be re-short several times so I have to change my shirt and tie for each 'take.' Later on, for some reason which I forget, the secretary throws me out of the window. I can't think how, but outside there is the canal and there's a sort of ledge outside the window, and I'm supposed to climb up and look through the window at which the secretary winds down the venetian blind and I have water thrown over my hair to make it seem I've fallen in the canal and got wet. This bit it done several times. Another bit has the secretary put a rubber stamp on my forehead which reads 'wolf' or something and, again, this has to be shot several times. The video is shot over two days so we come back the following day to finish filming.

It was great to be treated as 'The Star' of this little mini-movie! It was raining during the filming, and when we went for a lunch break during the day we went to a local pub and had umbrellas held over us by assistants on the way! Although the video only lasted about two minutes I was the central character, very prominent throughout, although the character I was playing wasn't particularly nice. I just wish I had a tape or DVD of it. It was on You Tube, but unfortunately it was removed because it contravened copyright.

Kenilworth Castle Outing

On Wednesday, as it was such a fine and sunny day, we decided to go to Kenilworth Castle. It has been somewhat undecided as regards the weather over the past couple of days and it has been quite over-cast and threatened rain. We wanted to get the most out of our membership of English Heritage. We've been once before, around six years ago. That time I seem to remember it was quite cold and we had soup in the restaurant. They had begun work on building the Elizabethan Garden, so it would be great to visit again and see it completed. Or that was the hope this time. The first time we joined was when we came back from a few days away we had for our first wedding anniversary in 2008 when we'd been to Chesil Beach and on he way back we went to Stonehenge. I find that a really intriguing place and would like to visit again since they've made some major changes there as well as opening a new visitor centre. We passed the site when we went down to Devon last August for Chloe and Steve's wedding.

The Elizabethan Garden at Kenilworth Castle

We drove out of Milton Keynes and went up the A5 and crossed over to Leamington Spa and got to Kenilworth that way. They have made quite a number of changes at the castle since we last visited, notably the Elizabethan garden, which, as I mentioned earlier, was being constructed the last time we visited. Having an interest in history (we  English Heritage joined this time with a discount from BBC History Magazine which I have a subscription to.) and it's amazing to see the place which is quite central to quite a few 'bits' of English history, notably Elizabeth I and her relationship with Robert Dudley. Also, as I'm something of a William Shakespeare fan and the fact that Stratford-Upon-Avon is so near. I did a course earlier this year on Shakespeare's World and part of it mentioned the fact that possibly Shakespeare visited Kenilworth when Elizabeth was there (although there is no definite documentary evidence for this.) as he mentions something in A Midsummer Night's Dream which could possibly allude to the masque that was performed there. The 'play within a play', the 'Pyramus and Thysbe' story is almost a parody of such a masque.

We wandered about the castle and took plenty of photographs, as we almost always do when we visit such places. They have now put walk-ways up along some of the ruined sections of the castle and you can see how the castle was built.

We wanted something to eat and went into the restaurant which is built inside the stable block. It was very busy as there were children's activities going on within the castle so a great many families with children, one in particular was very noisy and screaming. Carol had to queue up and I went outside to find a vacant table to sit. It became quite over-cast and there were a few drops of rain unfortunately, so after around 3 hours we decided to return home, but this time we went home via the Motorway, getting on the M6 near Birmingham which joins the M1 further south and gradually home to Milton Keynes.

Learning To Drive, Lorries and First Cars

I was learning to drive at the time I went off to work as a Student A.S.M. at the Everyman Theatre in 1969 (details of which are described fairly fully in an earlier blog post.) During the season break I returned home and did my driving test in Bedford but failed miserably. Not keeping up with the traffic and failing to turn either right or left when I should have done were the reasons for the failure. On returning to Cheltenham I continued with some more driving lessons and then passed successfully. My parents bought me my first car, a Ford Anglia which came in two shades of green and cost the princely sum of £75. Amazing when you think about it, but I suppose in 1969 with amount people earned per week, that was probably quite a lot of money. I think my first proper wage was somewhere in the region of £10 per week. The cost of a gallon of petrol would probably have been in the region of 30p. That little Anglia, christened Henrietta, got me about quite successfully. It had one peculiarity. When it rained and you needed to use the windscreen wipers, they went fast when you drove slowly and slowed down whenever you drove fast. Don't ask me why. Just the way the car operated. So, if it was raining and you were driving up a hill and in a low gear, the wipers sped up. Going down the other side of the hill and you went a good deal faster, they slowed down. 

It took me a good deal of time to pluck up courage to go off and drive on my own, probably because when you learn to drive you always have someone in the driving seat next to you. When you first learn to drive on the public highway, it takes some time to get used to having cars coming towards you, even if they are on he opposite side of the road. When I did eventually get used to driving myself then there was no problem. That little car lasted a few years. I had it when I worked at Colchester Rep, then Midlands Arts Centre and drove me up to Liverpool. I think that was the first time I'd driven on a motorway. At that time you had to drive through Birmingham because Spaghetti Junction hadn't been opened then so to get from the M1 to the M6 you had to negotiate the centre of Birmingham. It seems so simple now when driving north. When I went to work at Greenwich I had to drive into the centre of London, after one of the shows we did, because I had my own car, it was decided that I could use it to return some props to the suppliers around Covent Garden. I'd never driven into the centre of London before and had to go round Marble Arch during rush-hour which was not something I had ever contemplated doing before (and, frankly, don't really want to do now, as it happens.) I think I just more or less shut my eyes and just went for it (metaphorically, not really, you understand.) I do remember once when I worked at the theatre in Watford having to drive a large lorry into central London with a load of furniture on the back, including a piano. Unfortunately this lorry had a fault. You could only turn off the engine by stalling it. I went with another A.S.M. in pouring rain and we got lost in Covent Garden and went the wrong way down a one-way street and ended up having to reverse out, which wasn't something I wouldn't wish to repeat.

Trip to Birmingham

I had an appointment in Birmingham on Saturday lunchtime, so Carol drove us there. I had to be at an agency office to register at 12.30 and have photographs done for this television extra agency's casting book and website. We had to get to the Jewellery Quarter, and thankfully, once we left the M6 Motorway and headed for the centre of Birmingham, it was really well signposted. There were plenty of places to park, and it cost £1.20 for two hours. My major worry was not just being able to find the place, but parking. In Central London you would never ever consider driving in and finding a place to park, and would travel there by train and cross London my Underground, but this area of Birmingham seemed really quite pleasant. 


Compared to the last time I went to sign up with a television agency (see earlier post) it seemed a good deal more friendly and organised. The photographer did at least give you the chance to see the photographs he had taken, as they were done digitally and once they were taken were displayed on a computer monitor. One was re-done. I will send them further photos of my own which can be put on their files. The other agency took photos, but you didn't have the option to choose which were the best, or to re-take any. 


We didn't stay in Birmingham once the appointment was over and drove back to Milton Keynes immediately. There was a really strong wind blowing, which made driving quite difficult. We stopped off at Tesco's in Buckingham to do some shopping before driving the rest of the way home.