Up West by Pip Granger

Author:Pip Granger
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407083896
Publisher: Transworld

11

The Entertainers

In the forties, fifties and even into the sixties, almost anyone could bump in to their favourite stars of stage, screen, radio, music hall and sporting arena in the West End. Star-spotters simply had to stroll around the streets, sip a pint in a pub or have a coffee in one of its many coffee bars. What’s more, having spotted someone famous, you would not be blinded by flashbulbs or shouldered aside by a phalanx of men built like gorillas, but without the apes’ charm or hair. In fact, you’d almost always be greeted with a smile and graciously given an autograph while the exalted one would chat amicably to you about this and that.

My father was friendly with the Goons, for example. I remember Michael Bentine vividly: he had mad hair and one of the most expressive faces I’d ever seen. He was fond of children, I believe, because he’d amuse me with his funny voices and walks while he waited for Father to finish one of his lengthy telephone calls. Spike Milligan obviously really liked children, but his moods were more unpredictable than Michael Bentine’s. When he was ‘up’, though, his store of voices and ditties were magical. My brother and I would laugh until we cried.

My main memory of Harry Secombe is of his accent, so similar to that of one of the ladies around the corner at the Welsh Dairy. I also sensed that he was a gentle, even-tempered man who was unfailingly pleasant to children. He had a comforting presence that the other Goons – and my father – did not possess. Something about the fourth Goon, Peter Sellers, unnerved me. I think it was that he seemed utterly indifferent to children. To be honest, I don’t think that he ever even noticed us.

It’s extraordinary to remember how accessible stars were to their public, by today’s standards. By the simple expedient of diving in to a phone box, pennies at the ready, you could call the reception of any one of the West End’s luxury hotels and find out if the likes of Tyrone Power, David Niven, Ingrid Bergman or Laurel and Hardy were in residence.

Owen Gardner, who lived in St Martin’s Lane, was an inveterate autograph hunter. ‘We used to find out where they were staying,’ he remembers, ‘and then you would ring them up. You see, in those days, there weren’t the dozens of hotels there are now; they stayed at the Savoy, the Dorchester – maybe the Ritz, but not very often – and you could ring ’em up.

‘You’d see their pictures in the evening paper, and you knew they’d be there, there or there, and you’d just ring them all up and say, “Can I speak to Mr So-and-so, please,” and they’d put you through, and you could speak to them.

‘They never had minders in those days. If they were going out for the theatre, you could go down to them and you could say, “Hello, how are you? Good evening” and you’d give them a piece of paper for the autograph.

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