Moon Boots and Dinner Suits

by Jon Pertwee

  Another incident I am not proud of involved my ramming Douglas Pier with an Isle of Man Steam Packet boat. It is a long and complicated story with which I will not bore you!

  There is a most beautiful late Victorian theatre in Douglas called the Gaiety. Designed by Frank Matcham and opened in 1900, it has just recently been restored to its original glory. The existence of such a theatre was too much of a temptation for me, so I decided to form a company of local amateurs and servicemen amongst whom were quite a few professionals. My first production for ‘The Service Players’, as the company came to be known, was Night Must Fall by Emlyn Williams, in April 1942, as I had always wanted to play Danny. But as my Welsh accent was not of the best quality, I decided to play it in Cockney and it seemed to work. The following ‘critique’ was to me no ordinary one, written as it was by the ex-editor of The Yorkshire Post, Mr George Brown. As such it gave me tremendous heart and encouragement at that time, and also during the ensuing years.

  Of my performance as Danny, in Night Must Fall, Mr Brown said:-

  Danny, played by a Sub-Lieutenant in the RNVR named Pertwee was really magnificent. Having seen the play in London, and having seen it on the films, we would give Mr Pertwee’s portrayal of Danny as the best of them. He has before him a fine future on the English stage.

  My co-producer was Sub-Lieutenant Jack Williams RNVR, now a most eminent television director. Among the cast was one professional opera singer, Norah Moore (no relation), and one professional actor, an old friend, Kenneth Henry, who played Inspector Bellsize. Mrs Bramson was played by Olga Cowell, the wife of a respected lawyer in Douglas, Robert Cowell, who was also the Steward of the Isle of Man TT. This magnificent grande dame, for she could only be so described, could wipe the floor with 95 per cent of all the professional character actresses I have seen. She was in the Dame May Whitty/Margaret Rutherford mould, and with her grace and impeccable timing was a joy to work with. A tall, statuesque, bosomy lady, she carried herself with tremendous dignity and, like many large people, her feet positively twinkled. A turn around the dance floor with Olga was an experience not to be missed. She also played the piano with great flair and skill, a rare talent that I shamelessly tried to include into whatever play we were doing at the time. For many years I tried to persuade Olga Cowell to turn professional, but she would have none of it. ‘Nonsense dear, I’m just a second rate amateur, no one would ever employ me,’ she said. In every play we presented she received notices from the critics that should have convinced her otherwise, but she was adamant and stayed an amateur, delighting thousands of Manx theatregoers until she died, a great loss to me as a friend and to the theatre.

  Another very talented member of the company was a young character actress called Vera Craine who with her husband Dick still helps to keep ‘The Service Players’ one of the finest amateur groups in Great Britain. I am very proud that the company I started 43 years ago is still going strong and one day before I retire, or, as is more likely in view of my past, ‘am asked to leave’, I should like to return to this idyllic isle and perform just one more play with them. In my second production George and Margaret, aged 22, I played with the aid of a very heavy make-up, Malcolm Garth-Bander, a man of some 65 summers. Now that I am 65, the character make-up being unnecessary, what better way to retire!

  We once went in for a drama festival at the Villa Marina and having performed our entry, decided to go into the auditorium to watch the competition. ‘Yogi’ Parkin, Eileen Peters, Vera and Dick Craine and I found some seats in the middle of the stalls and settled down to enjoy ourselves. A country drama of great moment was unfolding on the stage, performed by an amateur group from Ramsey. Crouched in a chair before a pitiful fire, a rug around her shoulders, was a dying old woman. There was complete hush as she held everyone enthralled with her perspicacity and wisdom. Finally, leaning wearily back in her chair, she said, ‘I’m slipping away, I can feel it.’

  ‘No, No!’ the loved ones cried. ‘Don’t go yet.’

  ‘Yes, I’m going, the candles are burning low,’ she croaked to the now quietly sobbing family. ‘I can feel the draught blowing on me wick!!’

  It was nothing to the draught those sitting in front of us received from the explosion of air and laughter that shot from us at the delivery of that classic line. Quite unable to control ourselves we crawled for the nearest exit and from there to the lawns of the Villa Marina, where we grunted and gasped the laughter out of our system. Vera, always thinking of others, kept repeating, ‘The poor soul, fancy having to say a line like that! Tch! The poor soul.’ The expression on her face was enough to send us off once again into still more agonising hoots of merriment.

  As Divisional Officer of Foretop Division, I was allocated an office and a writer (office assistant) in the shape of Ordinary Seaman Claude Newman, the famous ballet dancer from Sadlers Wells. He was a life-saver for me, and although impossibly temperamental and disrespectful of my superior rank, an unending joy to have working with me. His being a pro, and therefore understanding my language was an unexpected bonus.

  As a result, when not involved with ‘The Service Players’, it was not long before Claude and I had formed a concert party company to entertain the ship and anybody else on the island who wished to enjoy our multi-talents.

  Another kindred soul was Sub-Lieutenant Raymond Roberts, a brilliant classical pianist who after the war made a considerable name for himself on the BBC talking in the intervals of concerts and operas about the life and times of the composers concerned. Ray was our permanent accompanist and musical arranger as well as being a most congenial companion. Another member of the Company was Sub-Lieutenant Tommy Thomas, a Welshman of good voice, who was married to the grand-daughter of the late great Marie Lloyd – sufficient theatrical connection there to guarantee him a place.

  One of our most successful ‘bits’ was for Yogi and I methodically to take the ship’s piano to pieces, while Ray Roberts played the Warsaw Concerto upon it. Our particular piano came into more pieces than most, and when the iron string section was finally apart from the wooden section, and lying on the floor like a piece of junk, Ray would continue playing the melody of the piece, by lying on the floor alongside it and banging on the strings with his pipe.

  Why this desecration should be funny I don’t know, but it is - very! If you have a piano to spare, try it out on your family and see for yourself.

  It was producing and appearing in concerts and variety shows that gave me the incentive and experience to brave the music hall stage after the war as a stand-up comic. ‘Yogi’ Parkin, Ray, Claude and I put on shows of over two hours’ duration that defied description. In the main we extemporised, starting with the thread of an idea and developing it as we went along. Yogi was the compere who continually referred to notes pinned all over the scenery and I was the comic and interrupter. Most of the monologues and sketches we performed were germane to the ship’s company and the Navy, so were practically incomprehensible to the many outside visitors who also attended the shows. They would sit there with stony faces whilst the Sailors, POs and Officers split their sides with merriment and Ray Roberts with legs crossed and smoking a pipe gave the entire show a musical background as if he was a 1920s pit pianist accompanying a film on the silent screen. This astonishing accomplishment continued unabated for two hours or more of sketch, song, burlesque, dance, mime or even thought-reading. The latter item being performed by the famous Arabian Thought-Reader ‘Alley-Ben-Alley-Cat’ (me), turbaned (to conceal the earphones) voluminously trousered (to conceal the cables) and booted (to enable wires to be connected to metal plates on the heels). I, Alley-Ben-Alley-Cat, would walk on to the stage and, taking a chair, sit in such a position that my metal-plated heels made contact with two metal studs on the floor, under which two continuing wires led to a dressing-room off stage, where a wireless operator sat with a local telephone directory, a morse key and a pair of earphones that were connected to a hidden microphone in the auditorium. ‘And now the sensation of
the century, mind-reader extraordinaire, Alley-Ben-Alley-Cat,’ announced Yogi to tumultuous applause. ‘Would any lady or gentleman like to take this telephone directory and pick out a name, address, and telephone number?’ he asked of the fascinated audience. ‘Don’t tell me what it is, just point it out to me.’ This done, Yogi would shout ‘Alley-Ben-Alley, the gentleman has chosen a name on page 33, first column, 28 names down. Can you give me the answer to this devilishly difficult question? Now concentrate hard, Alley, concentrate hard.’ All this time while Yogi pattered on exhorting me to even deeper concentration, the wireless operator off stage would be frantically looking up the chosen name and number in his telephone directory. Once found he would hammer out the answer in morse, each piece of information being relayed by me to the by now riveted audience.

  ‘I’m getting the name Firkenshaw, yes Firkenshaw,’ I said slowly as if in a trance.

  ‘Good, good,’ said Yogi. ‘Now the address please, Alley.’ If the address was a long one Yogi’s patter and exhortations for concentration were considerably extended and sometimes a trifle too loud for me to hear the morse-signals with clarity.

  ‘Please meester, don’ta talka so much, you a-ruin my concentration.’ This request had to be shouted loudly and angrily to let the operator off stage know that I wanted him to repeat the last piece of information.

  ‘I have it, yes I think I have it now,’ I cried eventually. ‘The address is 16 The Drive, Onchan Head, Douglas.’

  ‘Absolutely correct. And now the number, please, Alley? Tell the gentleman the telephone number.’

  After a moment’s more concentration the number was given and our devastating demonstration of thought-reading came to a cacophonous conclusion. To ring the changes, the same principle was applied to dictionaries, the Encyclopedia Britannica and even the Bible, when Alley-B-A-C was replaced by a ‘turbaned archbishop’ with holy regalia and accoutrements kindly supplied by our stage-struck Padre.

  Alas, the famous thought-reader’s career came to a shuddering standstill one night when Yogi, passing too close to Alley-Ben-Alley, inadvertently knocked off his turban to reveal to a shocked audience an embarrassed Sub-Lieutenant Pertwee sitting there with earphones on. The familiar sound of hoots, jeers and cat-calls followed the retiring ex-mind-reader as he hurriedly, and not for the first time, made for the hills.

  Sydney ‘Yogi’ Parkin was short, plump as a partridge, taciturn and laconic with a dry sense of humour that I coveted and attempted unsuccessfully to emulate.

  ‘You know your trouble my friend? You talk too much,’ said Yogi. ‘Why don’t you try being more pauciloquent?’ Even his choice of words caused me unstinted envy.

  Another strange thing about Yogi Parkin was that when he ran, he travelled at the same speed as when he walked.

  Calling Yogi my ‘friend’ once resulted in an extraordinary reaction and being brought very quickly to heel. This error of judgement was made in 1941 when giving him a rather vulgar tie for his birthday. My wording on the card had read ‘To my good friend “Yogi” to make him sartorially more elegant’.

  ‘But my dear chap, I’ve only known you six months. To be allowed the privilege of giving me gifts and calling me a friend, you will have to know me for at least five years. After that time I promise you, I will give the matter my complete consideration.’ I have known him for just on 44 years and at our last meeting when I inadvertently called him a friend, it didn’t seem to rankle unduly.

  On and off the stage he was a fine exponent of that dry approach to humour that so long was the métier of the late Naunton Wayne. With his taciturnity and my brashness we made an excellent double act, and I would place our version of the classic Leslie Henson and Fred Emney sketch of The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God high up on the list. For this sketch we were admirably assisted by the ship’s Padre, himself no slouch on stage nor in the pulpit. One special charity night to aid our poor Soviet Allies we performed at the local Palais an hour’s cabaret of song and dance that was entirely Russian. For this function I enlisted the Russian-born wife of a local Manxman to teach me the words of several traditional Cossack songs phonetically, and I wrote them down the same way to facilitate the choir’s learning of them. ‘Chom chom neprichoff, ah ooh meenyah near zackoff, ah ooh meenyah tserlou coochkou yashka miltsa priddy baskoy.’ We had no idea what it all meant but dressed in borrowed blouses, fur hats and seaboots we lustily sang our hearts out to the evident delight of all assembled. Yogi was an excellent bass and had seconded into the choir the most beautiful girl on the island, who possessed, as do so many Manx, a voice as glorious as her appearance. Her name, which I have previously mentioned, was Eileen Peters and she was obviously more than a little in love with Yogi, something for which I hated her, as I was more than a little in love with her myself. Ordinary Seaman Claude Newman caused a near riot that night when in the middle of a solo from Petrushka, a role for which he was much renowned, he unknowingly split his trousers from stem to stern, revealing his hirsute posterior, quite naked but for the straps of his athletic supporter. It was this revealing moment that brought the evening to a splendid sansculottic conclusion.

  *

  Inevitably, it had to come. Life was too good to last. The RAF in England, getting to hear that there was virtually no food rationing on our fruitful isle, sent over large empty planes, with small empty crews to Ronaldsway Aerodrome, to scour the island for meat, eggs, bacon, butter, cheese and drink. This booty, once properly bought and paid for, was then flown back to the mainland, to be heartily enjoyed by RAF Officers’ Messes all over the country.

  Naturally, this continuous drain on the island’s produce could not go on for long, and soon after a raid of some dozen or so planes had left, laden like Christmas hampers, rationing came to the Manx for the first time in their long history. Sadly this also applied to petrol, which up until that time had been available just for the asking. It seemed as if my lovely Bugatti was doomed never to hit the open road.

  Around this time I had a very nasty experience indeed. Admiralty were once again on the prowl for French-speaking Officers, to be involved, I suspected, in the forthcoming invasion. I had managed to avoid all such foolhardy participation up until then and was not too happy at the appearance of an Admiralty press-gang in our midst.

  They arrived on HMS Valkyrie and after going minutely through my papers decided that this time, schoolboy French though it might be, it would have to suffice and that I was to report to the Admiralty in London quicker than forthwith.

  A call was put through to the RAF and a ride was arranged leaving Ronaldsway for London within the hour. Hurriedly packing my green ‘Pusser’s’ suitcase, I bade an emotional farewell to all my friends, convinced that my chances of ever seeing them again were slim. Yogi, who always had tremendous confidence in my ineptitude, shook my hand, and said with his normal laconism,

  ‘Goodbye, old man, see you tomorrow no doubt.’

  The plane I was to fly in was a clapped-out, patched-up Wellington Bomber. On entering it, I was told by the self-possessed, bum-fluffed pilot that to keep out of everybody else’s way I should best lie down on a canvas stretcher just aft of the main wing spar. Naturally, there were no windows to look out of, so far from being a flight of interest, the journey looked like being a crashing bore. The Wellington was a noisy twin-engined aeroplane with a fuselage of a strange criss-cross design covered in a hard varnished canvas. It looked as if this ‘doped’ canvas had been sewn on to the frame by hand and by the time we were half way to London, it was very forcibly brought to my attention that it had been, and very badly sewn at that. For whilst I was lying on my stretcher, deafened by the noise, and sick from all the turbulence, there was an awe-inspiring rending noise and a six foot portion of canvas ripped off the fuselage right alongside where I was lying, and disappeared into limbo. If the plane had been pressurised I would have gone into limbo with it, but as it was, I lay strapped on to my stretcher, terrified out of my life whilst 10,000 feet beneath me the be
auteous fields of England swept hurriedly by. There was no question of my moving to another part of the plane as I was paralysed not only with fear, but also from the intense cold. Not for me the warm fur-lined jackets and boots of the crew, just a thin Naval Officer’s Burberry and sensible shoes from Gieves.

  By the time we had got to Northolt, just outside London, I had turned a most interesting melange of blue and purple, from two hours icy blast upon my person. I was led stiff legged and zombie-like to the bar, where I inhaled several large rums, the quicker to facilitate the return of my senses.

  The only good thing to come out of that hideous experience, was that presumably due to my frozen bodily state, my brain had become equally iced up. For once again the Admiralty passed me over in favour of another, brighter, more fluent linguist. I was back on the Isle of Man the next day, and was warmly welcomed by Yogi. ‘Back already?’ he said, eyebrow raised quizzically. ‘It only seems like yesterday you left.’

  Sad to relate there were only a few more peaceful weeks left to me on the island. I had just about reconciled myself to the fact that the loss of the Tahitian posting was not such a tragedy after all, when I was hurriedly drafted to the Security Staff of Naval Intelligence in Great Smith Street, Westminster.

  Now I was faced with a dilemma. What was I to do with my two beautiful machines? After much consideration I decided that ‘Scott’ would have to be found foster parents and ‘Bugatti’ I would take to live with me, wheresoever I was going. But how in wartime does one transport a bright, azure blue, two-seater racing car across the Irish Sea unobtrusively? The answer is, one doesn’t. In fact it seemed as if there was no way to transport it at all, until I did a favour to a bashful young skipper of a destroyer, by introducing him to a Manx girl that he had fancied from afar for some months. It didn’t require much arranging, as she had been secretly nursing a passion for him, as well. Not that he was to know that until well after I had named my price. This was to transport my Bugatti across the sea to Liverpool Docks. Yes, he would be very happy to, he said. All I had to do, was get it alongside his ship by dawn the next day. So with the help of the ‘Blue Beauty’s’ nannies I pushed her to Douglas harbour, where she was immediately slung aboard and deposited on the bow. I wish I had had a camera with me that wet and windy morning, for it was an extraordinary sight to see a Destroyer setting off into the teeth of a gale with a shiny blue racing-car sitting just forward of its gun turret. She arrived that evening and was duly left on the dock for me to collect at my leisure. When I was able to take delivery some weeks later she was in a most sorry condition. The salt water soaking she had received had done her no good at all, and it took quite a few weeks of work to restore her to her previous pristine state. To get her to London I enlisted the aid of an infamous con-man who increased his plausibility by adding a totally spurious ‘MC, DSO’ to his name. With his wife and small ‘goo-gooing’ son beside him he towed me by night the 210 miles to London with a three-litre Red Label Bentley. You must remember that there were few private cars on the road at that time and petrol was rationed and unobtainable except for very special people and purposes. I don’t know what he said to the many Police who stopped us on that journey down but he must’ve convinced them that resplendent in our uniforms, we were very special people and that our journey was of a very special purpose. His use of a distractingly beautiful child was a trick I was to put to good effect years later when transporting dutiable furniture across the border into Spain: my blonde baby daughter Dariel distracted the customs officials delightfully and we paid not a peseta.