by Roger Moore
When I started on The Saint in 1962 I remember the smogs that were still hanging over London and its suburbs, and in the film studios the shop steward would shout ‘Travellers away!’ so the crew who had a distance to get home could leave before it set in thick. I think the worst case was a decade earlier, in December 1952, when a real pea-souper descended, quite unprecedented, and lasted four or five days due to a mix of pollutants and a cold, windless weather spell. It was reported that up to 12,000 people died.
We don’t grow older, we grow riper.
PABLO PICASSO
Thankfully, steam engines were increasingly being replaced by diesel, and while not hugely less polluting they did have the effect of pumping out somewhat less fumes and we saw fewer smogs as a result.
I don’t know if it’s a child thing or a male thing, but I was fascinated by steam trains and would stand for hours on a railway bridge looking for a train coming, and as it went under the bridge I’d rush across to the other side to see the smoke emerge again. A curious sound, which you wouldn’t encounter near railway lines these days, were the loud explosions, similar to a shotgun going off. The railway companies actually set detonators in the form of large percussion caps on the rails, which were activated by the wheels of an oncoming train to provide an audible warning to match the signal indicators, in case the driver couldn’t see them in the fog.
While we’re on the subject of smells, I’ll be perfectly frank with you and say I’ve never quite understood how some people don’t seem to notice their own body odour. Forgive me, but when you’ve been on as many film locations as me, you get to know which members of the crew to give a wide berth to – and it’s usually the ones who wear shorts, white socks and sandals. They permeate the air with quite the foulest fragrance, backed up with the visual assurance of wet armpits and T-shirts stuck to their backs. It’s not the sweat that smells, of course, but the bacteria on the skin that breaks down as a result and stinks just like a rotting cheese. Break out the carbolic, say I! Remote film locations are not always the easiest places to get a shower or bath, I know, but when you’re filming a block away from a plush hotel, there’s really no excuse.
Of course, I was always brought up to believe ladies don’t sweat or perspire, and was told they simply ‘glow’. Well, I feel I can admit this now: I’ve been stuck in elevators with a few glowing ladies in my time and, let me tell you, there’s nothing very pleasant about it or them!
We can’t leave smells without mentioning the elephant in the room … what we might call the ‘rear activity’. An explosion from the rear quarters. A fart. Trumping. Tooting. Passing gas. Breaking wind or gas. As one gets older one finds one (note I didn’t use ‘I’ here – heaven forbid that anyone should think these things happen to me!) has less control over when they are expelled and the nature of said explosion. Strange as it may seem, both Leslie Nielsen and Cary Grant were quite fascinated by farts; Leslie even had a little hand-held fart machine that he’d take with him everywhere. It was a tiny machine he concealed in the palm of his hand and quite often, mid-conversation on a chat show, he would innocently ‘let one off’. He had a wonderful ability to keep a totally straight face in its wake. He also revelled in using it in packed elevators, and at dinner parties when he was introduced or was chatting with total strangers you could guarantee he’d press the button. There was great comedy in watching other people’s reactions to Leslie’s nonplussed expression. He was asked to leave restaurants on several occasions, and was even moved to window seats aboard aircrafts for letting one off every time someone walked past his aisle seat. He was a one-man flatulence factory.
Long before music streaming was ever thought of, and CDs had replaced vinyl, our only real source of music and the spoken word was the radio or wireless, which was the constant sound in the background throughout my childhood. Our set was almost always tuned to the BBC Light Programme, the entertainment channel, the only other station being the Home Service, which was more news-based. It’s funny but all these years on, I can still instantly recognize the music to certain shows, such as the comedy It’s That Man Again (ITMA), and Music While You Work, which broadcast very lively music with a rapid beat. As a youngster I just loved hearing all the popular tunes and it wasn’t until much later that I found out that the broadcast was designed to encourage the women working in the factories to speed up production.
Radio was a huge influence in our lives – in every way.
Sunday lunchtime brought Forces Favourites with Jean Metcalfe and her co-presenter, Squadron Leader Cliff Michelmore, who was based in Hamburg (and he used the very same Officers’ Mess that I did when I was later stationed there with the Combined Services Entertainment Unit after the war). Despite broadcasting together weekly, Jean and Cliff did not meet face to face for six months, but when they did, they became engaged and married in 1950. After the war, the show was renamed Two-Way Family Favourites, and its theme, ‘With a Song in My Heart’, can still stop me in my tracks.
If I were to tell my grandchildren today that when I was a child all family members came together in one room, huddled around the wireless set, with the coal fire banked up in the background, waiting patiently for the valves to warm up and for the wireless to spring, or rather limp, into life while we all stared at it, despite its lack of pictures – they’d probably think I was mad.
The radio was sometimes overshadowed by my father picking the strings of his banjo or ukulele and the one piece he played over and over again was ‘Whispering’ by Paul Whiteman. Another favourite was ‘Over the Waves’, a classic melody from fairgrounds and circuses that is one of those tunes you just ‘know’ without actually knowing what it’s called or who wrote it. I smiled widely when it later turned up in The Great Caruso (1951) movie, and my favourite scene was when Mrs Caruso (Ann Blyth), about to reveal to her husband that she was pregnant, was waltzing with him to that very tune and then starts to sing.
‘I did not know you could sing,’ says Caruso.
‘Every mother should know a lullaby,’ she replies.
What a moment!
We got most of our news from newspapers and the wireless, of course, but our dose of visual news footage was supplied by a visit to the cinema to see the Pathé Newsreel – which reported things days, if not weeks, after they happened. There was no live link-up by satellite; no twenty-four-hour rolling news. However, there was always a mad dash to leave at the end of the programme – which in addition to the newsreel also contained a short or supporting film, along with the main feature – as the national anthem was always played, and nobody really wanted to stand rigid waiting for it to end, nor risk missing the bus home.
There are so many sounds around towns and cities that you never hear any more. ‘Any old iron, any old iron?’ from the rag and bone men, trotting around on their horses and carts collecting old clothes, scrap metal and just about anything else people were going to otherwise throw away. You’d often find a trail of horse dung left behind, as with the drayman and coalman’s carts too, which, if you were enterprising, you could shovel up and sell for a few pennies down at the local allotments.
Then there was the call of the bread man in his little van, the milkman with his cry of ‘milko, milko’ and even the chimes of the ice cream van – I know they still exist, but they’re not as prolific as they were in my youth, when you used to see them on every street corner. Occasionally the ‘knife man’ would appear on the street in his van, and you’d hear a grinding noise and maybe even see the odd spark coming from the back of the van as he sharpened carving knives, clippers, shears and just about anything else housewives would present.
Every road in London seemed to have nightly works going on, and on every corner there would be night watchman standing guard, usually with a coke brazier. We children would take along a potato and ask him to bake it for us in the red flames, and the taste – delicious! – was almost as good as the comforting, warm aroma.
Another early advert. ‘They’re delicious, t
hey’re irresistable, they melt hearts ...’ The chocolates, not me.
In later life the sound I loved best was that of applause for a young aspiring actor walking out on stage. Standing in the wings, just before the curtain goes up, you wait for the audience to hush then take the brave steps out. Oh, the anticipation on their expectant faces! Mind you, it was swiftly followed by the great disappointment of seeing me!
Although film studios didn’t have audiences, they did have appreciative crews who were sometimes kind enough to offer a round of applause when I got through a scene without fluffing the script. Unique to stages in studios the world over is the smell of dust, paint and burning filters on lamps that often went ‘pop’, blowing a bulb at a crucial moment!
Though phased out by the early 1970s, the ‘three-strip’ Technicolor cameras, which arguably offered the very best colour, were huge custom-made machines that actually ran three separate strips of film through them at the same time. The camera was so noisy that it required a huge ‘blimp’ of soundproof housing and the actual camera, plus the blimp, weighed a ton. Imagine trying to get one of those into a car to film a driving sequence?
The first sight of the young Ivanhoe.
WARTIME MEMORIES
Which war you ask? Well, I may be old but I’m not referring to the bloody Boer War, that’s for sure! World War II (1939–45), or (1942–1945 for American readers), dominated my teenage years and so plays a big part in my early memories. So very many things happened, yet oddly, what springs to my mind was the great outbreak of impetigo that afflicted many children at that time, along with a scabies epidemic. With these skin infections you’d come up in rosy red sores, which would later burst, leaving behind a golden-crusted scab not unlike a cornflake. It was known as the seven-year itch. The prescribed cure was sulphur, which was used a lot in baths and has the most foul, chemical odour you’ll likely ever encounter. The very mention of it sends a shudder down my spine. Though nowadays spas and health farms likely charge a fortune for one to bathe in the stuff.
Sulphur bath anyone?
Though effluvious, the smell of sulphur didn’t worry us too much in Stockwell as, if the wind was blowing in from Vauxhall, the whiff would be overtaken by that of Sarson’s pickle factory and its unforgettable mixture of stale vinegar and onions. I’m not sure which was the lesser of the two evils, but for every sweet-smelling apple pie I encountered I suppose there has to be a foul-smelling pickle somewhere?
I was actually aged eleven-and-three-quarters (the three-quarters being all-important) the day that war was declared, first with the broadcast on the radio by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and then with the chimes of Big Ben ringing out across the city. I don’t think, as children, we ever appreciated what brutality war inflicts – my friends and I were more interested in picking up bits of shrapnel the morning after an attack. Fortunately, my street wasn’t directly hit but we were all affected when the gas mains were ruptured or the electricity lines went down. At one point we had electricity but no gas, so my father turned the electric fire on its side and put a kettle on the bars to boil water! (Don’t try this at home, please!)
Perhaps the biggest impact for any child was rationing, particularly the rationing of sweets. Quotas were imposed on everything from petrol, elastic and sugar to bathwater and food. I remember so well the ration books my parents were issued with, and how Mum had to register at specific shops – a butcher, a greengrocer and the like – and had to produce the book to make a purchase, subject to having an allowance, or coupon, left that week. It must seem strange to younger readers to think that we had just eight ounces of butter, one egg, and just over a shilling’s worth of meat per week, and just one pound of sweets in any given month, often much less. As for fruit, well that wasn’t rationed but was extremely hard to come by – and I never saw a banana until 1947.
You don’t get older, you get better.
SHIRLEY BASSEY
We were introduced to ‘blended’ chocolate, which was neither milk nor plain, nor very sweet come to think of it, and consequently it wasn’t craved in any large quantities, which perhaps pleased the government.
We were also encouraged to ‘Dig for Victory’ and grow our own fruit and vegetables and there’s no doubt we were healthier for it. There were no processed meats, over-sugared foods and desserts nor were there any leftovers or food waste: everything was planned and everything was used. I’m afraid we didn’t dig for victory in our family, though. Our flat did have a garden but it was shared, and as nobody seemed keen on keeping it, it pretty much all fell to weed, I’m ashamed to say.
Nightly blackouts were compulsory in houses, and no light – not even a crack – could be shown to the outside world. One evening my mother was sitting knitting socks on four steel needles in front of the fire and my father was sitting opposite her in his armchair. It was before dark, but they fell asleep, only to be woken by the sound of an air raid warden’s whistle and shouts of ‘Put that light out! Put that light out!’ They both leapt up and my mother dropped her knitting needles to the floor, only for my father to step on two of them, which went directly and quite deeply into his foot – deep enough that he couldn’t get a grip on them and couldn’t remove them by hand. He limped out to the workshop shed to find a pair of pliers and ... well, I’ll leave you to imagine the rest.
The blackout blind.
WHAT IF …?
Casino Royale (1967)
As far back as June 1964, producer Charles K. Feldman, who owned the rights to Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, went on record stating he was going to make a movie to rival the Harry Saltzman–Cubby Broccoli productions: ‘I want an English actor for the role and the ideal man is Roger Moore.’ Apparently, when quizzed by the British press during the production run of The Saint, I said: ‘I have always fancied myself as Bond and if I’m not too tied up with Simon Templar I shall be delighted to do it.’
Feldman instead chose to make a spoof of the story with David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen. As for me? Well, I had to bide my time for a decade until I fulfilled my fancy.
I was evacuated for some years but later returned to London towards the end of the war, when I started work. One of the most terrifying daily dangers were the buzz bombs or doodlebugs, from 1944 on. No one was really sure what they were at first, as they weren’t dropped from planes, then we began to realize they were in effect self-propelled pilotless aircraft which, when they reached their maximum range, would simply fall out of the sky and deliver their explosive load directly below. They had a strange tearing and rasping sound, a bit like a two-stroke motorcycle engine until, suddenly, the motor cut out and it fell silent – and then you knew it was going to drop nearby and so rushed to take shelter. South London was on their regular flight path and there was a particularly bad incident in July 1944 when a flying bomb fell in the main shopping centre of nearby Lewisham; it penetrated an air raid shelter, causing fifty-one deaths and many casualties.
Soon, they were replaced by the far more frightening V2 rockets, much larger and more destructive, which gave no notice at all of their arrival. At my place of work in D’Arblay Street in the West End of London, we had a rotation list of bomb spotters, which meant we’d have to go up on the roof to watch and listen. When we heard the first faint buzz coming towards us we’d blow whistles to warn everyone in the building to take cover – under a desk usually, though many people used to hide under the stairs, reasoning that whenever you walked down a bombed-out street the stairs were always left standing.
The sight of Big Ben always thrills me.
Big Ben was and still is, of course, one of the defining sights of London and symbols of Britain. It was never silenced during the war, but it did fall dark. Just up the road from the famous clock tower is Buckingham Palace and whenever I’m in that area I think back to before the war, when my parents took me to see the changing of the guard. I could only have been three or four. There, for all to see, were the immaculately turned-out guards with th
eir precision drill and bands playing stirring music – the ceremony is still one of London’s most popular attractions, epitomizing the pomp and military ceremony for which Britain is famous. Mum and Dad had just bought me new shoes – sandals – and I remember sidling up to one of the smartly dressed guards in his bright red tunic, big bearskin hat and highly polished shiny black boots. I placed my new sandals alongside his size elevens and, nudging him, exclaimed with great pride, ‘Look! New shoes!’
He said something out of the side of his mouth, which I can probably guess was along the lines of ‘clear off’. It makes you proud to be British!
Young children have a total innocence about them and often ask what they think are the most logical and innocent questions. I remember one such incident during the war years when I was with my Aunt Nelly on the top of a London bus, going around Trafalgar Square.
‘If I started as a seed growing under Mummy’s heart, how does the seed get there?’ I asked.
Such thoughts of the birds and bees proved highly embarrassing for my dear maiden aunt, who sat silently for the rest of the journey.
My Aunt Nelly always wore a beret with a big long hatpin in it, in case of any unwanted attention. Sure enough, one night at the picture house in the Elephant and Castle, a fellow started moving his leg in towards hers and, what’s more, then placed his hand on her leg, without so much as a ‘Hello, how are you?’ She kept calm, casually reached up to her hat, removed the pin and, with all the force she could muster, stabbed it deep into his thigh. He screamed and ran out, with the needle still embedded, never to be seen again. I dare say he never got to see the film again, either.