The Old Un’s Notes
The Old Un is much enjoying the newly released DVDS of The Kenny Everett Video Show, on the 40th anniversary of the programme’s first broadcast in 1978.
Oldie Towers residents played a crucial role in the rise of ‘Ev’. In the early 1960s, our very own gentleman of the road, Wilfred De’ath, then a radio producer, spotted Everett’s brilliance and invited him for an interview with the BBC. But Everett literally jumped ship and preferred to work for pirate radio on Radio London.
Barry Cryer, our MC at Oldie Literary Lunches, wrote much of Everett’s TV work and created the rubberbosomed actress Cupid Stunt, known for flagrantly crossing her legs. Barry had spotted a young actress, after she’d appeared in a nude axemurder scene, saying, ‘It was all done in the best possible taste!’ It quickly became Cupid Stunt’s immortal catchphrase.
The 49th edition of John Julius Norwich’s A Christmas Cracker is now available. Norwich died in June – his memorial service is covered on page 47 of this issue.
He produced his first Cracker in 1970, as a Christmas present for his friends, with gems looted from his commonplace books. Friends and strangers started sending in their own ideas – and soon the Cracker grew into a glorious annual institution.
Perhaps with intimations of approaching mortality, Norwich completed it earlier than usual this year, correcting the final proofs from his hospital bed, contemplating Christmas in high summer.
The Oldie’s fondly remembered Dr Tom Stuttaford, who died at 87 in June, believed in happy pursuits. One of Dr Tom’s tenets, apart from prescribing two to four glasses of claret each evening, was that interests were essential to people’s health.
His passion, shared with his late wife, Pamela Ropner, children’s author, was renovating characterful old houses in Norfolk. Their fifth and last such home, the timbered, 16th-century 36 Elm Hill, in Norwich, was their pride and joy, with its secluded courtyard filled with trees and statues, close to the river. The Stuttafords decided, 25 years ago, that, instead of a rural village, the city would be more fun for retirement. ‘One foot in the grave; one foot on the pavement,’ as Dr Tom put it.
On a dark and wintry night at Christmas in 2010, Radio 4’s Today programme sent a recording team with Sarah Montague, hoping to catch the ghostly footsteps that were another feature of 36 Elm Hill. Alas, the footsteps fell silent that evening. ‘Ghosts don’t like to be talked about,’ said Mrs Stuttaford.
This summer their house was put on the market and now has new owners. The guide price was £900,000; complete, we trust, with the ghost of Dr Tom, stalking the medieval cellar in search of a vintage Bordeaux.
This Christmas Eve marks the 200th anniversary of the first performance of Silent Night. Austrian priest Joseph Mohr wrote the words to a tune by Franz Xaver Gruber, an Austrian church organist. It was first played on Christmas Eve in St Nicholas’s Church, Oberndorf.
Talking of anniversaries, 21st December is the centenary of Frank Hampson, the creator and artist of the immortal Dan Dare.
Square-jawed Dare starred, in rich, luscious colours, in Eagle from 1950 to 1967 – with comebacks in 1977-79 and 1982-94.
Almost a million copies of the first 1950 Eagle issue were sold, but Hampson never made a fortune out of his ‘Pilot of the Future’ – £3,000 in debt, he sold the rights for a pittance.