Background

Tony Grant is sure that all  of us Tech Ops people who are now BoFs (Boring old farts) will recall that Frank Rose was Horse, and gave many of us our unique soubriquets. On Tony’s first meeting with Frank he said, “Irish? Oh well I’ll call you Paddy.” And then he said, “No, that’s too obvious, OK you’re Jock.” And so, as far as Frank was concerned, I was "Jock” from then on.

Alex Thomas

I seem to remember that Horse got hold of a roller caption and added his name to it in chalk after the final producer credit.

Sadly his name only appeared on the dress run. It was at the TV theatre so could have been the Minstrels.

	Name	Horse Name
	Alex Thomas	The Woolly Moth
	Bob Stickland	The Terrier
	Brian Hiles	Porridge Boots
	Doug Outten	The Vulture
	Frank Rose	Horse
	Gerry Millerson	The Mouse
	Ian Gibb	Emu
	Ian Hillson	Giraffe
	John Farr	The Scunthorpe Municipal Lavatories Inspector
	John Holmes	The Pastry Cook
	Len Shorey	Hollyhock
	Len Shorey	The lamplighter
	Michael Bond	Bear
	Michael Bond	The Camel
	Mike Cotton	"Rajah" or "Sultan" – even Frank forgot which.
	Ron Koplick	The Bald Eagle
	Terry Wilde	The Fuzzy Bear
	Tommy Dawson	The Badger
	Tommy Holmes	The Stoat

Contributors:

Alex Thomas
Dave Mundy
Doug Prior
John Howell
Paul Kay
Roger Bunce
Tony Grant

Barry Bonner

Brian Hiles’ nickname (so he told me) came from when he was in the army, apparently the CSM shouted at him.. "Hiles you march as though your boots are full of porridge!" The rest is history!

Ian Hillson

It was nice that in later years, certain Sparks continued the tradition of “Horse names” as "Sparks names" among the lighting team – I still remember certain VOs and VSs as "Droopy", "Zippy", "Weazel" (from "Catweazle") , etc.  Myself, I own up to "Giraffe" – extracted from SPE Les Lamont  – for being tall and peering up at the lights, looking for a line-up lamp first thing in the morning.