A two-headed figure, half man, half woman, looms at you out of the gloom. You turn – and a wild-cat, eyes a-glint and jaws snarling, is ready to pounce. Everywhere you look, nightmarish objects stare back at you.

‘This is our horror room,’ says Mary Paul, whose husband Ken is one of Rediffusion’s chief props suppliers.

Ken Paul’s sprawling premises occupy two shops, three storeys high, in England’s Lane, a part of Hampstead still village-y in character. They house thousands of articles for hire to stage, screen and television companies.

Most of the props borrowed for Rediffusion’s ‘Crane’ come from here, because Ken Paul, while stocking all sorts of antique and unusual props, specialises in Moorish and Eastern pieces. You want a hookah? There’s a choice of half a dozen over in the corner. We’re in a room entirely given over to Eastern stuff, in surroundings as exotic as anything in the Arabian Nights.

Some of the latest additions in this room are those bought from the set of a recent film made in the Near East. (A reversal of the usual procedure, and one that is not too common, for most of the articles stocked are genuine and not reproductions, and are bought privately or at auctions.)

‘When the stuff came in, we noticed the most peculiar smell,’ says Mrs Paul. It was very puzzling – until we realised it was a hang-over from contact with camels.’ Mrs Paul is a blonde, vivacious woman. Her husband, who has a trim, pointed beard, is slightly more reserved. They married in 1942, and started up in business with £100 [about £3,500 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed].

‘We got the lease of one of these shops – the other we only acquired recently – and did it up ourselves. We started with hardly anything – a tandem in bits, an enormous grand piano, a rocking-horse and a doll’s pram.’

Mrs Paul recounts this as if it were all a huge joke – one that has gone on being funny all these years. She’s not always in the shop, but when she is there she finds the business great fun. ‘It’s not like work at all.’

She continues: ‘When we began, we intended just to sell antiques. We didn’t think of lending them until a friend gave us the idea. Our first film order was for “The Scarlet Pimpernel”. It was worth £25 and we were thrilled.’ [The film was 1934, too early for the 1942 establishment of the business; the ATV/ITC TV series was 1955, which seems too late. If the TV series is what’s intended, £25 is £560 in today’s money]

The normal hiring fee is five per cent of the original cost of the article for each week of hire. Where the same article will be needed maybe for months – for the full run of a TV series, for instance – a special fee is arranged.

Ken Paul explains this as he hurries about in the office quarters at the back of the shop. This is where the administrative work is carried out by the Paul’s manager and two assistants. It’s called an office, but really it’s more of another props room.

A huge Victorian cabinet stands along one side, covered with a multitude of unrelated objects. Part of the space inside is used as a drinks cupboard, the rest holds neat drawers full of snuff-boxes, of all shapes, sizes and antiquities; fans of ostrich feathers, lace, and painted satin; and hundreds of postcards. (‘You get people asking what Portofino or somewhere looked like 50 years ago, and you can usually show them.’)

Cups of half-drunk tea or coffee lie scattered among the accounts and order books. You expect to turn the china upside-down and find it marked ‘Spode’, ‘Minton’ or even ‘Worcester’.

You pick up a cup to see if you’re right and you’re distracted from your aim when you find that the cups are resting on a glass-topped display cabinet filled with fabulous jewels.

‘They’re not all real, actually,’ you are told. ‘This diamond set – the tiara, bracelet and necklace – they’re paste. But they’re very fine quality. They came from a duchess who had them copied exactly from her real set, which she kept in the bank.’

There is jewellery of all periods and types. ‘We’re very good on pawn-shop settings. Rediffusion usually comes to us if they need a pawn-shop in “No Hiding Place” for example.’

Jewellery was among the items on the pages-long list of props that Rediffusion hired from Ken Paul for the ‘Crime and Punishment’ drama production. There was also a samovar on the list, a Victorian doll’s pram and two Russian icons.

‘The icons were presents to our two daughters when they were younger,’ says Mary Paul. ‘When we started borrowing them to hire out, they asked for the fee. They’ve been borrowed so often now that they’re part of the stock.’

Another prop that originally belonged to the Paul children is a huge Victorian doll.

It now lives down in the basement, in the room that could adequately rival Madame Tussaud’s ‘Chamber of Horrors’ for monstrosities.

A life-sized stuffed bear rears up on his hind legs as if to pounce when you reach the bottom of the stairs. Behind him, a hideous stuffed monkey. Lying on the floor, glowing wickedly and translucently, the wax model heads of a number of mass murderers.

‘There were more masks,’ you are told, ‘but they were borrowed so often that in the end they melted under the hot lights.’ More grotesque objects are upstairs, among the ethnographical gear, with voodoo carved figures and masks.

Then there’s the naval and military room, with cutlasses, globes, daggers, guns, maps, portraits and heavy bronzes. From here come some of the props which appear weekly in the ‘H.M.S. Paradise’ episodes. Another speciality is blackamoors, ebony-coloured figures beautifully painted, some of them extremely rare and valuable, as is the greater part of the stock.

‘When we’ve supplied a lot of the props, we like to see the final production – whether it’s on television, the stage or the screen,’ say the Pauls. ‘Sometimes, though, it can be quite a harrowing experience. You see a big fight scene, all your stuff gets knocked about, and you think – “Now I know why so-and-so came back damaged”. It’s sad … but you can’t mind too much, and on the whole people are very good about looking after our props.’

After the horror room and the military room, it is a relief to wander into the gracious atmosphere of the Victoriana room, where all the trimmings of that leisurely age are stored.

It is an even greater relief to pass into the next room and find yourself in a fully-equipped pub – bar, stools, prettily-painted handles for pulling a pint.

‘All fake again,’ you’re told.

But if you’re lucky, there’s a real drink waiting for you in that Victorian cabinet…

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THE notice on the wall at Casablanca police station was in bold, black Arabic. From above a “rogues’ gallery” picture of a hunted criminal glared the Moroccan equivalent of WANTED.

Mr. Henry Federer, senior designer of the Crane series (Mondays), knew this was the kind of minute detail he had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar to record.

He focused his camera on the poster, knowing that he might need a Moroccan “wanted” notice once filming moved back to London.

No sooner had Mr. Federer clicked the shutter than an inquisitive Moroccan policeman tapped him on the shoulder. Four hours later he finally managed to convince the authorities that he was really quite harmless.

This escapade, one of many, was necessary. For Crane‘s Moorish atmosphere and its accuracy is part and parcel of the success of the series.

Mr. Federer, a genial Austrian, has taken 3,000 pictures in Morocco, which now form a kind of Moroccan reference library—a huge pictorial aid to memory.

He photographed Moroccan life in detail. His camera recorded the inside of houses, the shape of arches, the style in furniture, the patterns on tiles.

“It was difficult,” recalled Henry “because the Moroccan, although tremendously hospitable, would rarely invite you to his home. I just had to go into houses, shoot a picture and apologise for coming to the wrong address.”

The Moroccan instinctive mistrust of the camera was also an obstacle. “One day I tried to photograph some women who were queueing for milk,” said Henry.

“I turned away from them while I adjusted my camera. But when I turned round to shoot all of them had quietly slipped away. It was quite uncanny.”

The result of this photographic safari was a wealth of accurate detail on which Mr. Federer can draw when he is designing the sets at Wembley studios.

A good example of his camera technique are the mosaic floors. A genuine Moroccan pattern square is copied from one of Mr. Federer’s photographs. The pattern is cut into a paint roller. Then the mosaic is painted into the floor of the set with the pattern squares repeating themselves.

In the bazaars, Mr. Federer played the national Moroccan sport — bartering — to get props like camel saddles, colourful pottery, bead curtains and crazy metal pots and pans.

But surprisingly enough most of the Moroccan atmosphere of Crane could be caught with genuine Moorish props hired from one of four firms in this country.

Property master Mr. David Lusby told me: “I reckon we could do the Kasbah from Putney.”

Very little on the Crane set has to be made specially. Said David: “When Cleopatra was being made at Pinewood, Moroccan props suddenly became terribly scarce. Today it is the reverse. A lot of the stuff used in Lawrence of Arabia has come into Britain.”

The biggest headache for the property buyers is trying to match for studio takes items used during location in Morocco.

One of the most difficult during the Crane series was trying to find a left-hand drive 1954 black Ford Mercury. Buyer Mr. Len Fraser told me: “It was just impossible. We couldn’t get one anywhere.

“Then one day I was driving along and I saw a green lefthand-drive Ford Mercury in front of me. I tailed it for three miles.

“It turned out to be a 1955 model. I could hardly believe my luck. All we had to do was to take it to the studio and paint it black.”

Many of the traditional costumes for Crane were specially brought back from Morocco. But when a garment has to be made, details come from Mr. Federer’s photographs or from the Moroccan Embassy library.

As Mr. Ernest Hewitt of costume design said: “We take tremendous care to see that costumes are accurate in every possible detail.”

When the series first went out a VIP delegation from the Moroccan Embassy visited Wembley to make sure that there were no gaffes. They went away satisfied.

A Moroccan Embassy spokesman told me: “We have been surprised and pleased with Crane’s accuracy when dealing with details of Moroccan life. It’s a good show.”

The post Wanted for Crane appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Ray Dicks and I did, in fact, reach the deck of H.M.S. Victorious at Portsmouth to investigate the possibilities; but the ship was snatched away and sent to the Far East because, they said, global strategy comes before telly. In any case, to mount a seafaring O.B. would involve some 20 tons of assorted hardware and 40 bodies. So we abandoned the idea and bent our minds to film with all its obvious advantages for such a project. Again, the Admiralty made encouraging noises and it was arranged that the general manager, Ray Dicks and I would be flown to Malta and translated to H.M.S. Eagle at sea while she was working up her new air squadrons. Eagle had just completed some modernisation costing a cool £30,000,000. All mod. cons. They told me: ‘you will be amazed’.

Unhappily, our general manager couldn’t go but Ray Dicks and I set out for Malta. Just like the man said, we were met on arrival by a naval pilot, a truck and an aeroplane. Somewhat to my dismay the aircraft was not a helicopter but a Gannet; a large, pregnant, hideous machine stripped of its gadgetry and roughly converted to courier duties.

In a cosy 87 degrees, we stuft’ed ourselves into flying clothing; into overalls and mae west and dinghy and crash-hat and radio.

It all took time.

‘If you get an order to bale out’, a polite and patient sailor told me, ‘just roll over the side clear of the aerials, dwell a pause and pull the rip-cord. When you enter the sea, the dinghy should inflate. If it doesn’t you should…’ And off we went, at 50 feet over the Mediterranean so that a parachute would have been of academic interest. Eagle was 20 miles out, paddling along majestically into wind while one of the young gentlemen practised decklandings in a Vixen. I studied the situation and listened to the R/T. Evidently, the Vixen was being gauche and we would have to wait. ‘That was a bolter’, announced the radio – in other words, the pilot had misjudged his approach and opened the taps to miss the angled deck. This, I felt, was exactly where I came in, years ago. I was always kept hanging about the ship while something unsatisfactory went on below.

Then we were invited to land. Hook, wheels, flaps; all the vital things. We went into the arrester wires (better than discs) at 100 knots and came to rest neatly abreast the island. An elegant flight of steps was offered and we were greeted by the commander, wearing a telescope as is proper when receiving visitors however dubious their origin. We were taken up to the compass platform to meet the captain. We had come aboard.

They looked after us magnificently. The domestic arrangements were a revelation to me. The wardroom was run like an efficient hotel and the cast included a hall porter and a head butler – in bell-bottoms; very rare. Everything worked, including the elaborate air-conditioning. This astonished me. In my day, H.M. ships couldn’t produce a glass of cold water without a major crisis below stairs. The telephone in my cabin said to dial 999 if I was in any way unhappy. A deferential steward arrived to discuss my dress for dinner. Ray and I were O.K. for dress by courtesy of Rediffusion’s wardrobe who had equipped us with white tuxedos, ex ‘Crane’, perhaps, but natty and much admired, we thought.

Our host officer took us up to the island to watch the afternoon’s flying, and then we were bidden to take drinks with the commander before being introduced to the wardroom. Our lives had been programmed and it was never a dull moment. We were shown everything, from the radar to die prop shafts.

For sheer visual impact, apart from the noise and the people, it would be hard to beat the effect of a Buccaneer coming on to the deck at night and swooping into the wires at 150 m.p.h. The ship had to hustle to get enough wind down the runway. A Buccaneer weighs 23 tons and cost a million pounds sterling. When I was a practitioner in these matters, I trundled to the deck at a stately 90 knots or so. I am glad I flew when I did and not in one of Eagle‘s sophisticated electronic monsters. It is all done by computer, they said. If a transistor doesn’t fancy its programme, something regrettable can happen – and fast.

Eagle carries, as a peacetime outfit, the strike Buccaneers (of nuclear capability) a squadron of Vixen fighters, a squadron of radar Gannets, a squadron of anti-sub-marine choppers and a flight of Scimitars to cope with the prodigious thirst of the Buccaneers. Altogether, she is a complex thing; 44,000 tons, 2,500 men to support a floating airfield 800 feet long. Indeed, the price of Admiralty and of keeping the Queen’s peace.

It seemed to me that fair comment upon the whole arrangement was made by an elderly artificer whom we encountered in the lower steering compartment. No longer is this ship steered, albeit remotely, by one of those old-fashioned, simple devices called a wheel. No; a sailor lolled in a swivel armchair and steered to within ¼ of a degree with a joystick. The artificer took me aside ‘You know, Sir, this lot really worries me…’ I knew exactly what he meant.

When we were due to leave the ship they told us calmly that we would be launched by catapult. It has been a long time since I did this interesting trick; and the first time ever for Ray Dicks. So we climbed laboriously into all our clobber and signed one of those forms which blames it all on you if anything goes awry. The ship was downwind and, as we taxied on to the catapult, I had a good view of the sea; very blue, wet and deep. The steam catapult is inexorable. I put my head against the pad and clutched the cockpit sides. I thought about insurance, and then the turbo props screamed up to peak revs and off we went. From nothing to 100 knots in 100 feet; an acceleration of three times 32 feet per second per second – or something.

Back ashore we sorted ourselves out and went off to visit Rediffusion, Malta. The next day we left for England. Our Comet had a thrombosis in its hydraulics so that we festered for four hours in Naples. Then Miss Gracie Fields joined us and eventually we took off for London. We arrived late, tired, cross and in torrential rain. We were home from the sea.

And another thing; we are indeed going to make a programme, on film, about H.M.S. Eagle. Charles Squires will direct and, no doubt, give his own peculiar flavour to the story of this most extraordinary ship.

The post Back to see appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.