A Brush With Fame
Chris’s grandad had such a terrible time with James Bond!
My second book, You Can Take the Cat Out of Slough, has a dedication to my parents on its second page. It reads: To my Mother, who barely features in this book because she does very little that could be deemed totally stupid. And to my Father, who does feature in this book.
While Mum has made some attempts to redress that balance over subsequent years, the fact that her father, my grandad, has barely featured in my columns is for much the same reason as stated above. He was a very competent, good, kind man, and rarely did the sort of things I’ve mentioned his counterpart paternal grandad did, such as trying to nip into a WWII German pill-box for a pee. Happily, the pill-box was part of a re-enactment, else I don’t think he’d have lived to wash his hands.
No, my other grandad had no incidents like that, but he did have a few inflicted on him by James Bond. Now, as unexpected sentences go, that last one might be seen as right up there, but I’m not playing with names, the James Bond in question wasn’t a milkman from Hammersmith, it was
007 himself, and he caused my poor Grandad a few problems.
Grandad worked as a props-man for Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, and, had he been allowed to stay in Buckinghamshire, I think he’d have been happy, but no, the shooting of the
James Bond movies had him trailing in 007’s footsteps all around the world. In Japan, he had to endure attempts to disguise Bond as a local, not easy considering he was about a foot taller than all his co-stars, and predictably, he came out of it looking like Spock from StarTrek.
Grandad’s toughest moments came during the movie DrNo. After having to lie face down on a boat’s deck clutching his paint brush while it was blown to bits with machine guns (the boat, not his paint brush) he was then, as briefly touched upon here before, asked to apply his paint to actress Ursula Andress. This wasn’t easy.
Ursula blew movie-goers’ minds in 1961, emerging from the ocean in an iconic white bikini and sporting a dagger tucked into a broad white belt, with Bond watching on. Unseen though, there was a man on his knees clutching a paintbrush on that beach. During filming, the belt kept losing colour in the sea and Grandad had to keep repainting bits of it, his hands still shaking from machine gun fire, and trembling more so at having to kneel before one of the world’s most beautiful actresses, in a bikini, trying to paint her. Just to clarify again there, it was Ursula in the bikini, not Grandad.
And that was how Grandad’s life with 007 pretty much continued, shaky moments with beautiful women, often involving paint. Goldfinger springs to mind. It must’ve been awful for him…
Incidentally, my dad spent quite some time staring at the dedication page mentioned at the start of this column, I think trying to work out whether I’d just insulted him.
He finally seemed to decide I hadn’t. Oh dear.
Grandad had to retouch Ursula’s iconic bikini belt
LIFELONG DANCE FAN BLANCHE FROMENTON CELEBRATED HER 101ST BIRTHDAY AT LITTLE BRAMINGHAM FARM IN LUTON.
Ihad a really wonder ful 101st birthday, it was a lovely day. Seeing my family and care home friends, having a smashingly delicious afternoon tea, chatting and laughing, it was wonder ful. It’s definitely a day I’ll never forget.
“Thinking about my secret to a long and happy life, I’d have to say it must stem back from my school days when I was rather athletic, no alcohol and eating a healthy diet – and perhaps all my ballroom dancing has helped too.”