"The Amazing Career of Rodney Pratt' - By Richard Riding

Photo: Howard Grey

Rodney Pratt (known as ‘Pratt by name, pratt by nature’) was born on the pavement outside Barclays Bank, Enfield on 1 April 1946. His mother, Hilda the Axewoman, already 15 months pregnant, was doing a job with the Shuttlecock brothers when she ‘come over queer’ and gave birth to Rodney in a groin-shuddering scream on the kerbside as the trio made their getaway from the bank in a stolen horse-driven hearse. A passing Alsatian, on his way to take another mouthful out of the local postman’ remaining leg, picked up the still steaming baby in its slobbering jaws and carried it into a nearby fish shop with the intention of returning later to consume such an opportune snack.

As the dog ran out of the shop a passing welder’s mate spotted Rodney just inside the doorway. Tucking her half-consumed bottle of gin into her ample bosom she put the baby into a copy of the New Chronicle newspaper and took it to the counter. Boris, the one-eyed fishmonger, put it on the scales, gave the contents a second look, scratched his head to release a shower of dandruff and said, “I’m not charging you for that, love, it looks disgusting.” Atilla, for that was her name, hurried out of the shop, boarded a moving tram and took a seat on the top deck. When she opened the newspaper people sitting opposite began throwing up and moving away. Looking down at her lap Atilla was confronted by the ugliest infant she had ever clapped eyes on, and she’d seen many ugly babies in her time, mostly at pre-war Most Beautiful Baby contests held in her home town of Pontefract. The baby, its face creased with wind and its little bottom writhing with non-stop flatulence, bleated like a lamb as it struggled to avoid the gin bottle the nurse constantly pressed to its lips in an effort to keep it quiet.

Lighting a damp Woodbine cigarette Atilla blew a cloud of dense smoke into the baby’s face and considered the situation. When the babe had stopped coughing another woman sat down next to Atilla and engaged in conversation, mostly with herself. After a few moments the woman stood up, broke wind, wiped her nose with Atilla’s sleeve and said “I’d wouldn’t eat that if I were you, I’d take it back to the fishmonger, its disgusting.”  Feeling a damp patch spread across her plus fours Atilla carefully wrapped the newspaper into her string shopping bag, stood up, lurched along the gangway and fell down the tram stairs in body-wrenching bumps, coming to rest outside on the grass verge a few yards or so before the tram was due to stop. Her shopping bag tumbled across the grass and was picked up by a scruffy lad, who scurried off with it through some undergrowth into the adjoining park. Atilla, who was scrabbling on the ground looking for her false teeth, called out “Come back you thieving little bastard, I’ve got my husband’s truss in that bag, he’ll kill me if I don’t give it ‘im back”. But her uncouth shouts and gestures were to no avail. The bag, the boy and her teeth had gone. 

(to be continued)        

'Vi Poppins?'

Yes, I got your last email thanks, but have been out and about ever since.

Thanks for the shots of Vi - superb and what memories! Was her name Vi
Derbyshire? God, didn't the poor old thing look awful - she was probably
only about 50 at the time. I still remember her fondness for us all - "I'll
stick this bleedin broomstick up your arse", being one of the more printable
remarks.

'Those Really Were The Days'

'Oward,

Following our chat this afternoon I have been trying to remember everyone that was at Ewart Studios during the time that we were at Glebe Place. These are the names I have come up with - there are others but I cannot put names to the faces. I am not sure if Gordon Nissen was employed by Ewarts - maybe not. I cannot remember any of the names of the girls on reception, maybe you can.

If you can add any more names, please do.

Do you realise that we started at Glebe Place 40 years ago this year! I started in September and I think you came along a month or two later. Mind boggling.

love,

Richard

EWART STUDIOS, 48 GLEBE PLACE, CHELSEA SW3

1962-1970

Keith Ewart
Michael Warhurst / Company Director
Guy Epps / Accountant
Frank Jeffs / Sound
Christopher Bainbridge / Administration
Peter Graham / Administration
Patrick Morgan / Director/cameraman
Tom Harrison / focus-puller
Vernon Hiles / Rostrum
Peter Griffiths / Rostrum
Alan ? / Rostrum
Roger Crook / Editor
Pamela Power / Editor
Trevor Kinnersley / Editor
Eddie ? /crew
Henry Fix / crew
Francis Harvey / crew
Tony Gaudioz / crew
David Kennard / assistant
Paul Nissen / crew
Gordon Nissen? / crew
Susan Armstrong / Props and messenger
Ray ? / messenger
Austin / messenger (tall black chap)
Vi Derbyshire / cleaner and hag
Bert Beach / Set builder
Johnnie Grey / Set builder
Albert / Set builder
Albert’s son / Set builder
American girl who was short-term receptionist

'A Tale of Two Poets'

Yes, the poet was called Maurice - was he Irish or Welsh? He always stank of meths. Keith thought he was wonderful and used to pay him a fiver for every poem he produced - I think Maurice then used to rush off, drink the fiver, go back home, copy out some more Dylan Thomas and then take it round to Keith in exchange for another fiver!

'The Chelsea Kitchen' by Richard Riding

Yes, for me the Chelsea Kitchen holds very fond memories indeed. Do you remember the waitress I got involved with - Nicole Devauchelle - very petite, wonderful eyes and very photogenic. I painted a portrait of her - not bad either - and gave it to her. Two weeks later she changed her hairstyle and asked me to change the picture.  I've still got the picture! Still got all the photographs I took of her too. Two of the other girls were Claudette and Monica. The Kitchen always employed Portugese waitors, all of them over here to avoid the equivalent of Portugese National Service. The girls used to let us have free wine, served in coffee cups and charge us only half the bill. Remember when we went in there handcuffed together? Remember when we walked in backwards and started lunch with pudding, followed by the main course, followed by the starter?

'A Dirty Brown Habit'

Once Keef asked me if I would like to go to the Biggin Hill Air Fair air display with him, by car. In those days he had a nice little blue Alfa two-seater. When I arrived at Glebe Place he had his son Coki with him. "Witchard, be a good chap, Coki wants to sit in the fwont, would you mind sitting in the back, there's a good chap?" So I sat in the back, God knows how. It was so cramped my nose was wedged firmly up my own arse and I thought I was going to pass out. After we arrived at Biggin Hill' and I had straightened out' I bought a large cwt bar of Cadbury's chocolate and, knowing Coki's weakness for chocolate, fed him most of the bar throughout the afternoon. In due course the greedy little basket went pale and then honked himself practically inside out. When it was time to go home he didn't want to sit in the front. Instead he curled up in the back, under a blanket, and we didn't hear a peep from him the entire journey. I wonder what he and those two pretty girls are doing today.

'The Darkside of the Moon' by Richard Riding

I liked your story of Kennard. It reminds me of a story about Tom Harrison. Apparently, shortly after he started working with Keith as a stills assistant Keef took him into the darkroom to show him how to load 10 x 8 colour film into slides. He showed him how to do it, with the lights on, and then told him to practice it with his eyes shut - which Tom did, perfectly. The whole of the next day was taken with Keef shooting loads of 10 x 8 colour food shots and at the end of the day all the sheets were sent off for processing. No surprise then when the sheets were all returned, blank. Tom had loaded and unloaded all the sheets perfectly correctly, but with the lights on!

'Eye-Eye Captain' by Richard Riding

Yes, I well remember Tony Lawson. I also remember a most extraordinary scene that took place in the Wandsworth Studio canteen. Tony Lawson was working down there one day and come lunchtime he queued up at the counter to order his nosh. Unbeknown to him one of the canteen staff also had a funny eye, only her's was the opposite one to Tony's. When you think of it they must have never seen each other! When he ordered his Buffalo Bollocks and Owl Buttock Pie, or whatever the menu was that day, she picked up her ladel and went for him, calling him a cheeky beggar and everything else under the sun. He was stunned and asked her what the hell was the matter. She said, "I can't help my eye being this way, stop taking the piss", or words to that effect. He, of course, could have said exactly the same thing to her!

'The Great Ewart Carbon Paper Scam' - by Richard Riding

Back in the 1960s the administration of Chelsea-based Ewart & Company (Studio) Ltd was entrusted to one Christopher Bainbridge. Chris was a very affable, well-turned-out and well-spoken chap who would not have looked out of place working in a bank. It was his job to ensure the smooth running of a hyperactive TV studio where a demand for anything from an elephant to a double-decker bus had to be met often within hours rather than days. He had a small office within the confines of what can only be described as a madhouse. With sometimes two TV commercials being produced in one day the activity in the small ground-floor studio was frenetic, with sets, props and ‘artists’ t0oing and froing without rest almost all day. Set building for the following day’s shooting would often continue all through the night and as the set-builders left at dawn Keith and his film editors would already be sitting at the Steinbeck in the darkened Editing Room viewing the rushes of the previous day. Meanwhile all around there would be a cacophony of noise as props were manhandled down an all too narrow adjoining passageway into the studio. Often Chris would be hovering with clipboard checking that everything required for that day’s shooting had arrived or was at least on its way. Woe betides if anything was missing or was late, it would be Chris who received the flak. I cannot remember whether or not Chris had a stutter before he joined Ewarts or whether it resulted from the daily dread of working for Ewart & Company. Certainly it was at its worst when, with arms flailing like a flesh windmill Keith would lapse into one of his regular outbursts. It was a real experience to watch flecks of saliva collecting at the corners of his lips before turning into a vitriolic froth.

One day a smooth-talking rep from a stationery company visited Chris. Some sort of deal was struck with the new supplier and the well-pleased rep departed on his way to his next victim while Chris returned to his daily routine.

A week later a van delivered some large heavy cardboard boxes, addressed to ‘Christine Brainbridge of Ewitts’. These were eventually lugged upstairs by a couple of Bert Beach’s trained apes and when opened revealed hundreds upon hundreds of sheets of carbon paper. “Oh well”, said a somewhat dismayed and puzzled Chris, “I don’t remember ordering quite as much as this, but at least it will keep us going for a year or two”.

A week later there was another delivery of six boxes, and another half-dozen arrived the next week, and so on. In the meantime Chris had contacted the supplier to tell them that there had obviously been a mistake and he asked them to come and collect the 18 of the 24 boxes of carbon paper delivered to date. They referred Chris to the contract he had signed, which referred in black and white to a regular bulk order for carbon paper. But Chris had presumably misread the quantity ordered, which was enough to supply the administrative needs of the Indian Civil Service for the rest of the 20th Century!

During the ensuing weeks a further 32 boxes of carbon paper arrived. Chris, unable to bring himself to tell Keith the problem, had been stashing the boxes away in cupboards and under tables in all the first floor rooms at Glebe Place. Boxes were hidden in the kitchen, in wardrobes in the flat on the top floor, in the props cupboards and before long boxes of carbon paper occupied every spare area of storage space in the building. Also, every room at Bainbridge Towers was filled with boxes and the Thames was in danger of being blocked by the steady flow of boxes being lobbed off by Chris on his way home each night via Battersea Bridge. The situation can best be likened to Walt Disney’s interpretation of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in his wonderful film Fantasia!


Chris was now desperate, the only place left in which to hide the steady flow of boxes was the studio itself. And so when shooting was not in progress Chris a lugged boxes downstairs and secreted them around the studio. By this stage it was only a matter of time before Keith would discover one of the boxes. Every time a delivery van pulled up outside the studio Chris dreaded another load being deposited at the front door – his stutter steadily worsened and then a new problem loomed on the horizon.

Keith had a German relative by the name of Uncle Walter who made periodic visits to the studio from his Austrian hideaway to check the books. There were unkind suggestions that Uncle Walter was Hitler’s brother. Despite being a millionaire he lived solely on cream cheese, crackers and natural yoghurt, though occasionally he would treat himself to half a rich tea biscuit. He would stay for perhaps a fortnight during which time the clerical staff waited in fear of their lives whilst the great bear of a man probed ever deeper in his quest for some kind of accounting anomaly. Uncle Walter only ever smiled when he saw a baby crying or if he succeeded in finding something amiss with his nephew’s accounts.

The week leading up to Uncle Walter’s visit left Chris a nervous wreck. He had lost weight, had become pallid and suffered three double hernias through lugging boxes from pillar to post. He had even developed a stutter when thinking silently to himself. With the arrival of the great bear from Austria imminent the time had come to confess.

By this time Keith was finding it difficult to work in the studio – cardboard boxes had halved the floor area and the gantry sagged under the weight of several thousand sheets of carbon paper. Somehow he still had not noticed the encroaching walls of boxes. The studio loo too was stacked high with boxes and the little patch of ground at the back of the studio had so many boxes piled on it the neighbours on both sides were complaining that the pile was depriving them of light.

Finally Chris summed up the courage to confess. On entering Keith’s office his heart sank for there was Uncle Walter berating the telephonist for requesting a new biro while the old one had sufficient ink still for a couple more sentences! Chris bit the bullet. Sounding like a sten gun with the trigger jammed in the on position he confessed to the whole unhappy saga. Uncle Walter closed his eyes with glee whilst Keith went into paroxysms of venom. His face went scarlet and within seconds flecks of foam issued like a demented fire extinguisher. Chris ducked at every expletive and his whole life flashed before him as Keith let vent his fury. Uncle Walter meanwhile was manipulating his calculator like a one-armed paper-hanger. As Keith’s fury subsided Uncle Walter gleefully informed Chris that he owed the company £1,230 6s 8d. He was about to explain a repayment scheme when he was interrupted by the return of the telephonist asking Chris to go to the front office to sign for another consignment of carbon paper…

'Death On A Stick' - by Richard Riding

Another character at Ewart Studios was one Vi Derbyshire who made nocturnal regular visits to the studio in an effort to clean up after a day’s shooting. Vi was way past her sell-by date and was probably born before records of births were kept. She lived in a Pickwickian-style tenement block at the aptly named World’s End. I once gave Vi a lift back to her coven – I think her broomstick had packed up, and I recall being appalled and somewhat unnerved by the place. I can’t remember the name of the block, something like Peabody Buildings, or maybe Mau Mau Mansions. The place was so dark and damp it gave me the creeps and probably a lot more besides. I gather the landlord had been promising gas lighting since the turn of the century; the nearby Thames caused the damp. I politely refused Vi’s invitation to stop for a bowl of toad spawn because I couldn’t swim, particularly in the dark.

Vi Derbyshire was nearly 5ft tall and had barely sufficient skin to cover her wiry frame. She wore glasses with lenses made from milk bottles and had traded in her teeth for some unnatural sexual favours with a blind docker at the time of the General Strike. I can only liken her to a female version of Steptoe senior! Her vocabulary would have made even a Glaswegian ship welder’s mate blush and her frail looking sinewy body somehow contained extraordinary strength. I discovered this after making some snide comment about her aesthetic beauty. She squared up to me with her favourite broomstick, using it deftly like a stave like something out of Robin Hood. After threatening to shove it ‘where the bristles wouldn’t show’ she then attacked me. Even more terrifying was her cackling laugh; the deafening noise made by the joints in her elbows and knees I can only liken to a thousand castanets in full flood.

As I said, Vi used to appear at the studio each evening as shooting for the day ended, when there was always a mad rush to dismantle the day’s set, constructed the night before by Bert Beach’s merry men. The studio had to be cleared up so that he could build the next set for the following day’s shooting. Depending on what product had been the subject of the day’s filming Vi had a Herculean task each evening. After a day’s shooting the studio often resembled the aftermath of a riot in an abattoir. Sometimes there would be a hundred weight of jelly or a couple dozen chicken carcasses to clear up. In addition there could be several dozen half-eaten offal sandwiches trodden into the studio floor, or a baby nailed to a table. Armed with various brushes, shovels, cleaning fluids and a pick-axe Vi would attack everything with great relish, her toothless gums clacking every obscenity under the sun as she cursed the perpetrators of the chaos that surrounded her. She accused everyone of being ‘effing animals’ or ‘effing bastards’. In fact every sentence ever uttered by Vi was preceded with the word ‘effing’. She also threatened to castrate ‘Keef Ewit’ and every member of the studio, her gums slavering at the thought.

At the end of her shift she used to pop back her teeth, if she could find them, give everyone a V-sign and, mouthing yet more obscenities, slip out into the night and back to the horrors of World’s End.


May 18, 2003

'The Bow-Tie Caff' - by Richard Riding

One place that I do remember is a greasy-spoon caff, called the Bow Tie, that was in Chelsea Manor Street, on the opposite side of the road to the darkroom. Patrick Morgan used to have breakfast there every morning, and then spend an hour and a half on the bog regretting it. By the time he was finished there it was time for lunch and back to the Bow Tie. I think the caff had been condemned during the war as a hazard to health. It was later offered to the germ warfare centre at Portman Down but they refused, saying it was too dangerous! Hitler was interested but the British Government would not play ball.

From the outside the Bow Tie looked like an aquarium. This was because of the inch-thick veil of greenish Mazola cooking fat that oozed down the inside of the windows at the speed of a glacier, but twice as lethal. Inside, grease-coated blow-flies the size of sparrows careered around the smoke-filled room as though on instruments, knocking over 2ft high bottles of Dad's Sauce like ninepins in a bowling alley.

The clientele, mostly pop-bellied lorry drivers with terminal acne and covered in livid scarlet boils, used to sit 'reading' Reveille or Parade coughing up damp Woodbine fag ends and oblivious to the constant dive bombing of the dogshit-covered flies. The woodworm infested tables were covered in grease-soaked plastic table cloths on which the occasional knackered fly could be seen doing the breast-stroke across a sea of grease in a last desperate effort to escape its inevitable fate. In the corner, half-submerged under a pool of lard and covered in 1950s vomit, was a juke-box long silenced by a surfeit of grease. A thick haze of burning chip fat fortunately hid the black hole where the 'chef' carried out his atrocities. At least he had the sense to wear a gas mask.

The Bow Tie was run by a character who looked like a cross between Arthur Mullard, Michilan Man and Margaret Rutherford. Weighing at least 20 stone he had a face the colour of a dirty sheet. As he 'cooked' so the grease streamed in rivulets down his cheeks, dangled from both chins like harpstrings, before contaminating (he called it flavouring) whatever he was 'cooking'. There was always at least one fag burning in his mouth, tipped with two inches of ash. Though he coughed ceaselessly the ash miraculously stayed in one piece, no doubt held together by grease but nonetheless a true art form if ever there was. His customers, and everyone else within a 50-yard radius, suffered from his terminal flatulence - every time he walked, or rather skidded, across the greasy floor a sound like muffled gun shots coincided with each laboured step. His problem became even more apparent whenever he bent over to pick up another dead mouse for the casserole!

I think Trev used to eat at the Bow Tie whenever his personal grease level fell below 90%, or when his boils showed signs of healing. He of course loved the place and used to starve himself for several minutes before eating there. A day or so later he would come out having eaten a hundred-weight of grease-saturated chips, each the size of bananas, and the equivalent of several feet of sausages of doubtful but possible human origin. You could always tell if he had been to the Bow Tie, his glasses were covered with a film of grease and a glazed look of passion remained on his pebble-dashed face for hours afterwards. Poor Trev, he even had boils on his mac! I remember that his catch phrase was, "alright matey?" - the usual reply was - "only when you go away, Trev", or words to that effect.

May 16, 2003

'A Brief Note from Bert Beach' - by Richard Riding

(Translated from the original hand-written scrawl)

Dear Olive Neilson,

Old what-his-name has reminded me that it is your whats-it birthday. My wife, what’s-her-name, joins me in wishing you a very happy day out there in Florence and we’ll both be raising a glass of Meths to you both on the day.

We are still here in Chelsea Manor Street, but the house isn’t. My son, what’s-his-name, was looking for a gas leak in the wife’s lower regions but couldn’t light the blow-lamp. In the darkness of her voluminous nether garments he began to suffocate and asked for a match. Just as I lit the match – boooooooom, but even noisier than that! The wife was found in Glebe Place, totally intact and still wearing her mahogany jodhpurs and divers helmet, but doing handstands on the roof of No 48; at old Keith what-his-name’s old what’s-it studio. We still haven’t found our son. The whole thing is a bit of a mystery because we are not on the gas. Must have been someone the missus ate.

Since the house was blowed up we have been living in my 1957 Dormobile van just outside where the house used to be. The van has clocked up 99,000 miles, 18 times, and I think it is coming up for its first set of new tyres. I thought I had the ringing in the ears – tetanus I think they call it, but it was the wheel rims on the pavement. I don’t drive on the roads no more, they’re too dangerous nowadays, specially down them one-way streets where everyone except me is driving in the wrong direction.

The lads here send their regards. Albert is now 113 – deaf as a post, blind as a bat and he’s got that Altz-thing-a-me’s disease, and unlike me can’t remember anything. He now does my accounts and the odd bit of welding. Johnnie is 98, weighs 35 stone and died in 1986 and again in 1994. I don’t think you know the other lads, in any case they’re all inside, watching the telly.

The building trade is not what it used to be. I remember the days when we had at least eight jobs on the go and never got round to finishing any of them. We used to do a lot of work for Mr Ewart but his wife, whats-her-name, set their son on me the last time I went round to fix something. I think she’s married to a parrot now.

Anyway Olive, if you ever want any work done over there in Florence let me know in good time – as I said, the van is not what it used to be – never was come to think of it. We can fix anything, good and proper. The missus is still doing handstands round in Glebe Place but I know she’ll join me in wishing you all the best.

Yours,

Bert Beach
(By Royal Disappointment to Prince Albert)