Going Bach to the past
QUESTION
Does anyone recall a cartoon history series that used Bach’s rousing Toccata And Fugue in D minor over the opening credits? THIS was Once Upon A Time . . . Man (or Il Etait Une Fois L’homme), a French animated history of the world, directed by Albert Barillé.
First broadcast in 1978 and here on ITV in 1979, it was a factual history of the world wrapped in a format that was very appealing to children. Its 26 half-hour episodes took us from the creation of the Earth, through Early Man, the Romans, Vikings, cathedral builders, the Hundred Years War, the Spanish explorers, the Elizabethan era, the American and French revolutions and culminating in a ‘what happens next?’ episode.
The opening credits were striking: Bach’s powerful Toccata And Fugue takes us through the evolution of man, major historical events and ends with a man running for his life to climb into a space rocket to escape the destruction of Earth.
Barillé used recurring characters to represent different archetypes throughout the series. There was Maestro, who looked like a whitehaired Captain Caveman, a wise old man, forever rummaging in his beard for useful objects, who usually served as the head of a tribe, as priest, adviser to the king or an inventor. He functioned as a guide to viewers, taking them through the more complex ideas.
Peter was the hero of the piece, a kind, resourceful everyman. Peter’s faithful friend Jumbo was a giant of a man, not the sharpest tool in the toolbox, but a good man and provided some humour.
The antithesis to Peter and Jumbo were The Pest, a bully, and his henchman The Dwarf.
Pierette, Jumbo’s wife, spent most of her time working at home. She had a friend called Psi who was usually Peter’s wife or girlfriend. Their children, young Jumbo and young Peter, went around together.
Despite an emphasis on French and Western history, Barillé’s cartoon was an entertaining romp.
Peter Smith, durham.
QUESTION
In one of his TV shows, presenter Andrew Marr refers to a union leader in the north of England called Maclean who called his workers out on strike in 1917. What is known of him? RATHER than a strict union man, John Maclean was a communist agitator and anti-conscription activist. Born in Pollokshaws, Glasgow, in 1879, he trained as a teacher and eventually gained an MA from Glasgow University in 1904.
In 1903 he joined the Social Dem-
QUESTION
ocratic Federation (SDF), the first Marxist organisation in Britain, emerging as a talented orator. During the summer holidays, he toured Scotland’s industrial heartlands, preaching Marxism.
In 1911, he joined the newly formed British Socialist Party and became a vigorous anti-war and anti- conscription campaigner. In October 1915, he was arrested for the first of many times under the Defence Of the Realm Act 1915 (DORA) and fined five pounds for harming the recruitment drive.
Sacked from his teaching post, Maclean devoted himself full time to the Marxist cause. In February 1916, he was again arrested and charged with six separate offences of sedition. On April 11, he was found guilty on four charges and sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. However, a public outcry forced his release on June 30, 1917, having served 14 months and 22 days of his sentence.
When the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia in 1917, Maclean was appointed Soviet Consul to Scotland. He opened an office for the Consulate at 12 Portland Street, Glasgow. This was not recognised by the government.
In April 1918, the police raided the Consulate and again arrested Maclean. This time 11 charges were brought against him, including incitement to strike, sedition and rabble-rousing.
At his trial at Edinburgh High Court in May 1918, Maclean defended himself, and his speech from the dock has entered Scottish Socialist folklore: ‘I am not here as the accused, I am here as the accuser of capitalism, dripping with blood from head to foot,’ etc. Maclean was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to five years’ penal servitude.
In July 1918, fearing his prison food was being interfered with, he went on a hunger strike. After sustained national and international pressure, Prime Minister Lloyd George agreed to his release in December 1918, shortly after the signing of the armistice.
On release, he was granted a royal pardon by the King for the two prison sentences of 1916 and 1918. Maclean refused it. For the remainder of his life he continued to agitate on behalf of the communist cause, calling for a communist republic of Scotland. It found little support among the working classes in Glasgow. Maclean died, aged 44, on November 30, 1923, at his home in Pollokshaws. At his funeral parade, led by the Clyde Workers’ Band, more than 20,000 people lined the streets to his final resting place in Eastwood cemetery.
martin Holder, Irvine, Ayrshire.
QUESTION
I note that the new Minnie Driver movie is called Hunky Dory, also the name of a David Bowie album. What other films have been named after songs or album titles? FURTHER to earlier answers, the musical film Sweet Rosie O’grady from 1943 and starring Betty Grable was suggested by a song of that title written and recorded in 1896 by Maude Nugent on a Berliner gramophone. I have one in my collection and it plays well after nearly 116 years. I often wonder if CDS will still play in 2128.
W. R. Violen, Holland-on-sea, Essex. If all humans disappeared over night, which animals would thrive and which would suffer most? PREVIOUS answers ignore the threat of the world’s nuclear power stations. Left to their own devices it would be less than two years before every single one of them went into meltdown.
There are automatic water pumps and generators in all nuclear power stations to stop this, but they all need power to operate.
Without people there to maintain them and generally keep an eye on things, it would eventually lead to failure. Within two years, this planet would be swathed in a cloud of dense radioactivity. Nothing would survive on the surface of the Earth, despite what people say about cockroaches and scorpions and the like. The deep-sea dwellers would realistically be the only form of life to survive.
John Hiller, Chorley, Lancs.
QUESTION
Is there any evidence that drinking whisky can have medicinal benefits? FURTHER to earlier answers, my doctor obviously believed whisky was good for you. I went to him when I was 14 with an extremely bad cold.
He told me to drink whisky ‘but don’t tell your mother I said so’. derek Harvey, málaga, Spain.