Shooting 007: And Other Celluloid Adventures (4 page)

With twenty minutes of the service remaining and no chance of easing my way past the choir, the hint of acid urine on clothes soon attracted the attention of my fellow choristers and the elderly vicar. The situation now turned into a Brian Rix farce, where the audience – sorry, congregation – were still unaware of what was going on as the unusual fragrance had yet to reach them. Sadly this was not so for the poor old vicar, who probably thought it could be emanating from himself. The elderly members in the choir, who most likely had similar problems in life, recognised this particular aroma and sat there, hoping it was not them relieving themselves, while others had no idea where this strange scent came from and quietly looked around to see who it could be. Eventually all looks turned in my direction, leaving my wretched life hanging in shreds. Fortunately, the choristers – bless them – reminded themselves where they were, so my assassination took place after the film – sorry, the service – was over; not that it mattered now – I would be dead when Alf heard about this!

At the conclusion of the service we walked back to the vestry, the pace possibly rather quicker than usual. Aware of my imminent demise, I rushed to the toilet and locked myself in, leaving the choir with bowed heads in final prayer to the Almighty. I too prayed, asking for divine forgiveness, protection and mercy. Then I made sure that everyone had left before leaving the sanctuary of the church.

Taking my cassock and surplice home to be washed, I had to face up to the anger of Alf, who found all this to be ‘f***ing embarrassing’ or, as Dad put to Lil, ‘It’s that f***ing film stuff he goes on abart!’ How could I challenge Dad’s wisdom – a true Cockney through and through! Speaking of my dad here, I write of a tough man who was quiet and polite in company but an entirely different animal as a soldier, which I will come back to later.

To bring this sad episode to an end: Mr Elliott decided that my services would no longer be required in the choir, so now it was necessary to find another source of income to help finance my legal visits to the cinema – which Alf kept on ‘abart’!

The year 1945 would bring the end to the war, with street parties all over London. Croxley Road was no exception and I would be required to play all the popular tunes of the day on the piano: ‘We’ll Meet Again’, ‘She’s my Lady Love’, ‘Lily of Laguna’ – all Lil’s favourites. Rationed food suddenly appeared on linen-covered tables and there was beer a-plenty. We also remembered those who had not survived, and some gave silent prayers for those who never came home, while others reflected on what could have happened had we failed. The high mix of emotions around the table is impossible to describe; the joy full of sadness even though we had won the war.

After the celebrations, my school days would also soon come to an end, leaving me with little idea of what I would do in the workplace. It is possible that I would have given way to the idea of being a musician, but even Lil had given up on that unlikely idea, perhaps realising that the answer was already planted in her son’s dreams, even if he didn’t recognise it. In the meantime, I would wait and see what came along – what life had planned for me …

I hesitated about giving this honest assessment of my early background. I was risking making a fool of myself. What would be the point? Perhaps it was a necessary part of life’s journey that pointed me in the direction of my future. At the same time it is a personal responsibility to tell of the background from which I came, if only to keep the record straight. As you see, I have no problem with this and hope to continue this way for the rest of the book.

It was 1946: one year after the end of the war, when I finally reached the age of 14. My schooldays were over and now I was ready to join the world of the working man. Liberated from the disciplines of school life, I could earn a wage. Small it may have been, but at least it allowed me to visit the cinema without sneaking in through the back door. Those days had passed; I would pay from now on.

It was possible to stay on at school until the age of 15, should I have decided to, but there was little chance of that happening with this young man. My incarceration at Essendine School was over, I was out of jail. A pleased smile on the headmaster’s face suggested he agreed enthusiastically with my decision; I knew we had something in common.

It is interesting – if not downright strange – that, with my love of the cinema, it had never occurred to me to be a part of it, in whatever capacity. However, it had not escaped Lil’s attention that this industry had given me so much pleasure and, realising where my interest really lay, she decided to do something about it. Without telling me of her latest plan, Lil found a small film studio in Maida Vale, Carlton Hill Film Studios, where the manager, Mr Robert King, agreed to interview me. As I waited for this ‘miracle’ to happen, the inevitable lecture quickly came: ‘Alec, this interview is very important. Now make sure you get this right!’ The message was loud and clear; Lil knew well that I was a cheeky little bugger who could easily spoil my own chances of winning the position.

Hair combed, smartly dressed, sitting upright, I was on my very best behaviour as I sat opposite the studio manager in his office at 72a Carlton Hill. The interview appeared to go well as I worked at convincing Mr King that I would be an asset to the studio in any capacity he may offer – clapper boy, stills cameraman … I showed him the Kodak Box Brownie camera I carried, hoping this would impress him. It didn’t. We settled for tea boy!

Smiling, the kindly manager put his hand up, interrupting the obviously rehearsed chat I had practised with Lil. He was suitably impressed with my cheeky performance.

‘You can start in three weeks; your wage will be one guinea per week.’

A fortune – twenty-one visits to the cinema, sitting in the front seats! To my relief – and Lil’s – no questions were asked about academic qualifications; perhaps the gentleman had been thrown off guard by this small talkative lad. Even so, he made it clear that I would need to wait a little longer before I became a cameraman, or even part of a camera crew, although that would possibly come in time.

Carlton Hill Studios in 1947. Early memories of a 14-year-old tea boy and occasional clapper boy who had the audacity to ask if he could put the clapperboard in to see himself on the screen (front row first from left). Names I remember include George Bull (gaffer, third row second from right), Donald Wynn (smiling with moustache, fourth row third from left) and sound mixer Charlie Parkhouse, standing next to Donald Wynn.

The weeks before I started work passed slowly, giving me time to consider what I would do when the big day arrived. The image in my mind was working on the studio stage with famous actors, directors shouting through a bull horn, ‘Action! – Cut!’, cameramen with caps back to front, a Charlie Chaplin image, of course.

When the big day finally arrived I found myself working in a department called ‘filmstrips’. Filmstrips were strips of film used for educational purposes, to project images at venues where lectures were held for the government’s Central Office of Information. Essentially, a series of photographs are transferred on to a 35mm negative via a rostrum camera from which positives are made, finally ending as projected images. This was definitely not what I had had in mind and far from what I had expected, but at least it was a beginning, where I would have the thrill of seeing real films being made, if only from distance. Eventually my patience would be rewarded, though it would be five long months before I finally arrived on a film set – a frustrating time for a 14-year-old lad desperately in need of becoming a tea boy! But at least the long journey had started. John Campbell, a school friend and fellow conspirator in the art of cheating ways into the cinema whose passion for films matched my own, asked me about vacancies at the studio; with my promotion to the film set the studio manger agreed to meet John.

At last my moment arrived; now came the start of a career which I would be totally committed to, and I believed this was life’s plan for me on planet Earth. The first thing to do was to join the film technicians’ trade union, the Association of Cine-Technicians (ACT). My membership number was 10578 – Brother Mills had arrived!

To repeat myself – which you will note I am prone to do – I was a small lad whom ladies described as ‘that sweet little boy’. It was a terrible start: I was a man now, a fellow worker. Even so, I quickly realised that this ‘sweet little boy’ thing could be turned to my advantage and that perhaps going along with this awful outrage could be useful. One fast learns the need for friends in the film business.

In my new surroundings I was polite and courteous to everyone on the set; if asked, I would get the ladies’ tea. Deep inside, though, something was starting to bother me. In my world of actors and technicians, not one had a cockney accent, which – to my shame – concerned me, giving me with a feeling of being left out in the cold, excluded from the circle of all these exciting people. Was this another mountain to climb? I now realise how stupid and ridiculous this was, but having grown up in a typical London family it was inevitable that I would have developed the cockney slang, along with its quips – inherited from Alf, of course. Although my accent was not particularly heavy, I was aware that a strong cockney manner could at times sound aggressive, even if softened with its traditional sense of humour. My problem was whether anyone would take me seriously.

Carlton Hill Studios in 1947, working on
Vengeance is Mine
using an old Vinten camera. Valentine Dyall was the star of the picture (seated in front of the camera), with cinematographer Jimmy Wilson (second row, first from left), George Bull (gaffer, second row second from left), Charlie Parkhouse (sound mixer, to the right of the lamp), Bill Oxley (camera operator) and the focus puller known as ‘Mo’ Pierrepoint because he had the same surname as the last British hangman.

Confirmation of this came when actresses moved from that ‘sweet little boy’ to ‘that sweet little cockney boy’. Obviously I had to do something to sort out this personal problem. I would hate to be called a snob, which most certainly I am not, but at the time I foolishly believed that my tone of voice together with my cheeky cockney manner was not helpful to me or my career. So came the ‘Rain in Spain’ consciousness, where a slow transition would take place. With hand on heart, I can honestly say that this was a natural fine-tuning rather than a corrective phase. I knew that I would never completely lose my cockney accent.

Of course, there are many in the film industry with different tones of voice, but for me it was a question of being labelled as different from my colleagues – stupid, I know! One successful cockney in the public eye was the hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, who came from an East End background. Please make allowances for my bad memory, but I seem to recall Sassoon admitting to having elocution lessons in order to lose his cockney accent to help him achieve success in the world of hairdressing. Like the hairdresser, I recognised the hidden rules of life, the need to adapt and work hard to climb up the invisible ladder which – as you will read later – was difficult enough, anyway, while at the same time, quietly admitting that I couldn’t afford elocution lessons. Alf would have killed me if I had asked his help in this.