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…

The post Voodoo and murderers in Hampstead appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

‘When I first saw this letter with “from the Prime Minister” on the front and “10 Downing Street” on the back, my first reaction was that it would be excellent for props. So I put it in my pocket and never opened it for a couple of hours. Then I read that I had been awarded a BEM and thought someone had been to a lot of trouble to play a practical joke.’

But it was no joke. Len Fraser, production buyer, was awarded the BEM in the New Year Honours List.

Len Fraser has always been connected with show business in some way – his father sold instruments and records in Canada, where Len was born. The family moved to Glasgow when he was seven and his first steps on the stage came some five years later with Sunday school shows. ‘Something went wrong backstage. I was sent out front to pad, so I did a shuffle-dance for some seven minutes.’ Len Fraser grins: ‘It was a hit – I did it for the rest of the week.’

After leaving school, he worked at a petrol station then became a chorus boy at the Pavilion, Glasgow. ‘We were on twice nightly, singing and dancing with rehearsals every morning. I received the princely sum of 25s. a week [£1.25 in decimal – Ed] – well up on what I’d been getting before,’ he says. In the meantime, Len Fraser had joined a concert party which put on shows for charity. They would rehearse and perform in the afternoon and occasionally there would be another performance at a dinner-dance after the show.

Then came stooging in a pantomime and working up a solo act involving patter and dancing. He toured Scotland and England and made trips to Ireland. The war took him into the RAF as a LAC [leading aircraftman] and within three weeks of joining, he had organised entertainment for the camp, including the recruitment of a five-piece line-up which played dance music and jazz – one of Len’s great loves.

In 1942 he was medically discharged from the RAF and started work in a large factory. ‘After six weeks I went to the management and nagged. Finally they told me to go ahead and organise some entertainment. Yes, I could have the canteen, which was enormous, about four times the size of the Wembley one. Massive auditions. I got a five-piece group, comedians, singers, instrumentalists and dancers, and every Friday lunch-time we put on a show.’

There was also a ‘Comforts’ Fund’ with which Len Fraser was concerned. Shows were mounted for a minimum charge or a collection and the money spent on comforts for the troops.

‘After the war, I caught the first train south I could and battled to get back into the business. I was an extra in about eight films. Then came Ralph Reader’s Gang Show for 14 months. I did everything with them. At one point I had 21 costume changes in a night. I used to start off with four layers of clothing on and just strip down.’ He was band manager with Leslie Jiver Hutchinson and His All-Coloured Orchestra, which took him to Belgium and France. ‘In England I was appalled at the amount of colour-bar I met up with,’ says Len Fraser. ‘One night I had managed to get rooms for eight of the 14 members and had to appeal on stage for beds for the other six.’

Next there was a year as entertainment manager in Exmouth. This involved, among other things, running the restaurant and organising baby and beauty shows.

‘After this I was with Linnett and Dunfee, the impressarios, for five years,’ says Len Fraser. ‘It gave me my worst moment ever. Opening night with the first eight rows of the stalls packed with all the “big-wigs” of show business. On the set as the first scene faded to black, I had to whip out and put in seven period props for seven modern ones. The idea was that the light faded up again and lo! a period set – enter the star. But the stage manager switched on the lights instead of fading them up. I dropped like the proverbial duck behind a settee amidst a roar of laughter from the audience. I was clearly visible underneath and couldn’t escape. But worse was to come. The star, who couldn’t see properly without his glasses, walked straight into me and fell into the footlights. The audience was nearly hysterical.’

After Linnett and Dunfee, Len Fraser spent a short time with H. M. Tennent and then five years with Jack Hylton’s ‘Crazy Show’ as stage manager and on props. On August 20, 1955, he finished ‘Kismet’ at the old Stoll Theatre (now demolished) in Kings way. He walked across the road and on August 22 started with Associated-Rediffusion as a setting assistant. ‘I became property master the following January,’ says Len, ‘and moved into production buying in November, 1961.

‘Yes, I still do a lot of charity work, mostly for old age pensioners, prisons and the Star and Garter Homes for the disabled.

‘I always have a ball on these occasions. Sometimes, though rarely luckily, things do go wrong, like the show we did in front of some WVS girls. Two top-line Americans were coming down and bringing a girl dancer with them. All went well, I introduced her dance of the seven veils, and to my horror she started removing them one by one until she ended up in her G-string – to the joy of the ex-servicemen and the horror of the mayor, his wife and the WVS. Still, I have been back.’

He’s been back to quite a few other places, too, time and time again.

Julia Helps

Bryn Siddall, senior production buyer, adds:

‘Possibly I have worked closer to him than anyone else in the company and, during the last 12 years, he has been more than just a colleague. Anyone who was in contact with him while he was property master will remember his almost legendary devotion, not only to his own department, but to the studio in general. Len seemed to have a finger in every pie and his apparently limitless theatrical knowledge was available to anyone who needed it. Animals, musical instruments, trick effects all benefited from his interest.

‘When, four years ago, he joined the buying department, he was able to give full rein to his imagination. There is yet to be a “prop” which he has failed to track down, and he pursues the elusive with the tenacity of a Highland terrier. It seems that at last Len has found his ideal niche and with his almost insatiable curiosity, old world courtesy and dry sense of humour, he has become a favourite of our suppliers. His friends, especially those with children, find his generosity unlimited.

‘Len never mentions his work for charity, but by picking up the odd scrap here and there one can see that he gets a terrific kick out of bringing enjoyment to others. Over the years he has provided entertainment at hospitals and prisons, and all with his boundless energy. Normally one would have to read one’s own obituary to see what people really think. To judge from the amount of mail he has received after the award, Len has proved the exception.

‘He received the news of the award in his usual calm, unflappable manner, and his only comment was that so many people deserved the honour more. Possibly us, his friends and colleagues, can assure him that we disagree.’

The post Len Fraser BEM appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

After what he refers to as ‘a lifetime in show business’, Des McCormack has learned that you should never be surprised by the unexpected.

He learned that lesson the hard way, when (at the age of eighteen) he applied for his first job in the theatre, and was employed in a touring pantomime.

‘It was “Cinderella”,’ he reminisces, in that distinctive voice – midway between hoarse and fruity. ‘My father and mother wrote off to the manager to get me fixed up. He fixed me up all right; he wrote a letter back saying I could start my theatrical career by playing one of the flunkeys, and “looking after P…” He was crafty, you see; we thought the “P” stood for “properties” – and it did – but it stood for “ponies” as well… I still remember one train-call, doing the trip from Salford to Bridlington in a horse-box. Just me and four ponies…’

Nowadays ‘looking after P…’ can stand for ‘personnel’ or ‘props’, or practically anything from panics to panel-game-players. But Des sits back behind his desk on the first floor of Television House, and takes life as it comes, regarding every new trick of fate with a faintly astonished curl of the lip and one raised eyebrow.

If only he had followed up the flunkey role instead of the property-master, Des might have developed into a deadpan comedian in the Aldwych farce tradition; Ralph Lynn without his monocle, amalgamated with Tom Walls minus his moustache.

‘Oh, I have appeared from time to time – perforce,’ he admits dryly. ‘I once played one of the Broker’s Men in panto; and I was so ruddy awful at the first house that I wasn’t asked to go on at the second. So I stuck to being on the stage staff. It’s more regular employment – and there are enough bad actors in the world, without me.’

Just how many actors there are – good, bad or indifferent – no-one knows better than Des.

He was on tour when he was eighteen months old, accompanying his parents as they travelled the country with a musical act. It was all in the family tradition; his mother was already with the circus by the time she was eight, and grandpapa played the flute and piccolo in the pit orchestra at Bury St Edmunds, where he first looked over the footlights and saw grandmama on stage.

Des’s father was a Dublin man, who started by managing a cinema in Galway.

‘Did you ever hear of Cladaugh, in Galway? That’s where I came from really; they call it the city of the tribes – the people are supposed to be descended from survivors of the Spanish Armada. And you can still see traces of it in some of the Cladaugh girls… They have their own wedding ring; like this one I’m wearing…’ He shows it to you; two hands holding a heart between the finger-tips, surmounted by a crown. ‘I picked it up when I was over there last. They make them for the tourists now, really. Still, it’s interesting… Might make a programme out of it.’

Des has always been interested in almost everything. He has been involved and interested in every branch of show business, he claims – except sound radio and ice show.

After schooling, divided between Gloucestershire, where he lived with his aunt, and a later spell in Warrington, where his family made their home, he started work in the theatre, and has never stopped.

(Somewhere along the line, he seems to have picked up a brother called Stephen, who also went into television.)

But in Des’s early days, television was still a gleam in the eye of John Logic Baird. He toured for Prince Littler, in such shows as ‘White Horse Inn’, ‘Glamorous Night’, and ‘Careless Rapture’, as property master or carpenter.

When the war cut across his life, Des joined the Royal Armoured Corps, as a tank driver-operator. He was working in mine-sweeping tanks; Shermans fitted with chain flails that beat up the ground ahead and detonated any mines in the vicinity – and managed to pick up a leg wound in the process.

Scarred but civilian, he returned at last to the theatre as if he had never been away, and after a spell in pantomime (his first love, but this time without the ponies) at Golders Green, he joined Mrs John Christie (the late Audrey Mildmay) at Glyndebourne. He worked on their first post-war season of opera, taking Britten’s ‘Rape of Lucrece’ with Kathleen Ferrier first to Sadlers Wells and then abroad to Amsterdam and The Hague.

In 1946, the Glyndebourne Children’s Theatre sent out a touring company, playing to schools all over the country – ‘in everything from barns to cow-sheds!’ They started at Toynbee Hall, and soon had a repertoire including ‘Tobias and the Angel’, ‘She Stoops to Conquer’, ‘Abraham Lincoln’, and ‘Great Expectations’. Original producer – Mr Anthony Quayle, and a young but very experienced stage-carpenter – Mr Desmond McCormack.

This was followed by a season of melodramas at the old Bedford Theatre, Camden Town (‘Everything from “East Lynne” to “Trilby”, but not for long’) and then Des found himself stage-managing eleven shows a day, in a strange, unfamiliar medium called television, at the Birmingham Radio Exhibition. Pye were demonstrating colour television (the previous year, another unknown called Michael Westmore had been in charge, at Olympia) – and somehow the electronic theatre got into Des’s blood at last.

There were a couple of final flings in the ‘legit’ – a tour of ‘Meet Mr Callaghan’ with Derek de Marney, and a season at Canterbury Rep. – but Des and television could not be parted, and he began to work on a free-lance basis as a stage manager at Lime Grove. (One of his first programmes was a children’s serial written by an unknown author called – but come to think of it, he still is unknown, so who cares?)

‘I once appeared in a serial called “The Railway Children”, with Ronnie Marriott. We were a couple of farm yokels; I know I had on a check suit, and I just had time to throw down my stage-managing clipboard, and pick up a bowler hat, and then rush on to say my lines… Which mostly consisted of “Arrrr”, as far as I can remember. Friends who saw it said I gave a very convincing portrait of an Irish bookmaker.’

Then came 1955, and – as so often happens in this series – came the dawn. He joined A-R as a trainee floor-manager, and while still on the training course at Viking Studios was offered the job of assistant production manager at Wembley; where he stayed from 22 August 1955 to 30 December 1957 – during which time he did everything, from ensuring that the dressing-rooms were in that state in which an artist would wish to find them, to editing our distinguished forerunner, ‘The Wembley Wail’.

And now he sits, as we said earlier, behind a paper-strewn desk, as assistant studio manager (TV House), taking life as it comes.

‘We might have five crises at once… Or it might be a completely peaceful day,’ he says optimistically. ‘I might be out chasing people who haven’t turned up – or acting as general information centre for the studios – or – well, I try to be the oil that keeps the machine running.’

Setting, lighting, rehearsal rooms, tube-hours, liaison with schedules, liaison with artists – even seeing that the crews get their tea-breaks – all of these are just a part of Des’s job.

‘I’ve had three and a half years of it now, and I can’t say they’ve been uneventful; but on the other hand they’ve been so crowded with little incidents – there’s no single thing you could pick out.’

Little things… Like the time Studio 1 was flooded, when the drains went wrong just before transmission, and the actors in a Robert Tronson production had to splash around as silently as possible in inches of water, while the camera cables were dragged up out of harm’s way, and Des helped to build a barricade of sandbags to dam the rising tide.

Or that time when the Mole-Richardson camera ran amok during a rehearsal of ‘Double Your Money’, and Don Gale crashed through several rows of audience chairs, finishing up on the rostrum, and claiming that he had held focus every inch of the way.

‘You see what I mean,’ Des sighs. ‘There really aren’t any particular highlights. 1 just sit back and contemplate the shows we’ve done, and – excuse me.’

He breaks off to answer a persistent telephone, as the day’s sixth crisis breaks loose. Either the performing seals are trapped in the lift, or there’s been a camera breakdown in Studios 7 and 8, and for once Jim is Out…

But whatever Des may do, one thing is certain. He will never have time to sit back – and contemplate.

The post Track in on… Des McCormack looking after P——! appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.