Albert Barber
For those of us who have been partakers of Location catering, it might be worth mentioning the London Hoovers as they were affectionately known.
Well not that affectionately as at lunchtime they would often be seen taking whole cheeses and cakes and putting them into their bags. The Firsts would often keep them back so that the crew would get a look in.
One Extra or Supporting Artist used to wear a blouson which he stuffed all his ill gotten gains in.
I remember a Grip coming up to me and saying “I’ve just seen so and so and saw him stuffing crisps into his jacket, so I gave him a heart pat on his chest and said it was lovely to see him again. The greeting, nor the scrunching noise, did not go down well.” We chuckled as we passed him later.
Geoff Fletcher
Extras and Walk-ons ability to eat and/or nick copious amounts of food is well known to Unit and Location Managers etc. The poor old AFMs/Seconds often had a tough time keeping them back – hordes of locusts come to mind.
Remember the old location joke?
"How do you kill an extra?"
"Throw a ham roll into the middle of the M25 at rush hour!"
I was once doing an Anglia “Tales Of The Unexpected” on location at a cliffside house down near Southampton. It was set in the Caribbean and the garden was dressed with artificial palm trees etc.
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I noticed some lights further along the beach during an evening shoot around our third day in. Next morning, there was something odd about the queue for breakfast at the catering van. Mixed in with our crew and various young sun tanned ladies and chaps in swimming costumes and other tropical garb were some poverty stricken Victorians dressed in rags. They were getting a few puzzled glances from our lot, needless to say, but seemed quite unconcerned. Several were already tucking into their piled high plates on the catering bus too. I asked them what they were doing on site and it turned out they were walk-ons for a BBC drama shoot further along the beach – hence the lights on the previous evening – and had been delivered to the wrong location by the same company supplying my extras’ transport! I sorted it out and sent them off to their correct destination where they probably enjoyed a second breakfast!
Colin Hassell, Dave Mundy, Peter Cook
A good time to do Wild-tracks, involving all the Supporting Artists, is just before Lunch.
Good idea! Dave always wondered how a certain John Cox was always first in the loc.cat. queue. But not before Mike Brown who had a prodigious appetite specially for pudding!
Patrick Heigham
Gosh! How one story triggers more memories!
Working for Thames on a dramatisation of Phyllis Dixey, Britain’s first strip-tease artiste, we were using the foyer of Wimbledon Theatre for a scene, with a commercials crew using the stage. Both units had catering trucks outside, and as I knew and was known to both sets of chefs, we used to see what was on each of the menus. So maybe main course from one, and dessert from the other!
One First AD that I enjoyed working with – Bill Westley – absolutely hated it when the caterers provided a full English plated breakfast: he would have much preferred a bun in the hand and work to carry on. He would mooch up and down, growling:
"Stop talking! Every time you talk, you miss a mouthful!"
Dave Mundy
The FA Cup Final at Wembley was always a long rig.
At one time both the BBC and ITV covered the match. The BBC catering didn’t turn up until ‘production’ turned up. The ITV caterers knew lots of the BBC chaps from various location dramas and were quite happy to let us have light refreshments. When the BBC hierarchy found out about this a stern memo was sent out telling us not to use the ITV catering as “…it looked bad for the BBC…”’!
I won’t mention the BBC location catering which involved TVC catering department and missing gateaux, so I haven’t.
Dave Plowman
This attitude helped make up my mind to move to ITV.
I was on an OB attachment and ended up on the cup final – probably 1975. Our location catering consisted of an ‘in flight’ packed lunch that Ryanair would have been ashamed of. And lukewarm water for an instant coffee. ITV had the full location catering setup.
Mike Jordan
Not quite like at The Oval where a certain R/D sup used to arrive at the Radio Links Van with a tray of sandwiches from the cafe and say that they would be collected.
Shortly after, a barman arrives with a couple of trays of beer which he puts down and walks off with the sandwiches.
Shortly after again, a cafe person arrives to collect the beers. And we never charged a "Facility fee".
And of course not forgetting the days of BBC provided lunches delivered to Wentworth Golf Course and similar, which were placed in the Riggers Cable Tender. Come lunchtime, by some co-incidence, toasted sarnies were on sale there with a not totally dissimilar contents to those the were (once upon a time) in the packed lunches!
Peter Cook
Thanks for the cue Mike. That would be the ‘Eddie Gold factor’. On the first day at Wentworth golf our lunch boxes would include fruit cake. Eddie was busy. On the subsequent days there would be no cake in the boxes, but identical wrapped portions for sale with rigger’s tea in the afternoon. Eddie had not been busy. A lovely man but a rascal. He was also known as ‘short end Eddie’. Cables would be 3 feet short at the scanner and yet not quite reach the cameras!!
Mike Jordan
Some years later I found the aforementioned working for another company and actually hanging off the back of the scanner holding a cable. Probably just the kettle lead!
My kettle lead story, by the way, is when we took a satellite uplink to Nassau and panic ensued when the truck arrived (having been almost stopped in West Palm Beach when the dock security man panicked as one of the R/Ds came to say “Hi” and he noticed there was no one in the driving seat and the truck (CUU 711V) was moving. He didn’t realise that the steering wheel was on the "wrong" side for him! We had been there a while before becoming desperate for a proper cup of English tea and searched the van high and low for the lead.
I was about to solder wires on the pins and took the lid off – Whoopie! the lead – phew!.
Thank goodness they have stacked phases there – negative, +120, +240 so the kettle worked.
Albert Barber
Of course there were the riggers private dining areas inside one of the trucks!
I was amazed that they had full English breakfasts, a fridge humming in the corner coffee and tea including toast and marmalade going way before call times.
Dave Mundy
… that was until the ‘money men’ decided that the riggers should return to base and service other programs, resulting that the crew on site had no local refreshments and had to be given time to leave site etc. A real no-brainer when everything worked beautifully, programs were made and everyone was happy.
Alex Thomas
There was a golf tournament near Liverpool (it might have been Lytham) where the caterers prepared all the lunch boxes before the tournament started.
As the days wore on it was apparent that the contents of the boxes were going off.
The pork pies were left out for the foxes who devoured them on their first appearance but would not touch them the next night.
Peter Cook
BBC OB unit LO3 was noted for its catering. A time between the dreadful lunch boxes of the 1960s and the more substantial location catering from Richard’s Evesham mobile kitchen (complete with marquee), there was a spell of a few years when the BBQ reigned supreme.
At Wembley arena on a “Horse of the Year” show we nearly gained Royal appointment status, but Princess Anne did apologise for not taking us up on the offer of a steak. Possible as well because on that same OB I believe that Ian Gibb nearly choked on a piece of meat and one of the crew executed the Heimlich manoeuvre on him.
But Royal Birkdale hosted the open golf in 1976 (the year of the Ladybird). LO3 decided that as their resident Cook I should be given free hand in catering. My camera was always lined up for me and a relief pattern organised so that my slot (on the nearest camera) was manned by others until lunch was finished. Several grills were acquired and it was my task to purchase charcoal and meths for lighting, bread, salad and steak. I ended up providing steaks for US and Japanese staff as well as the Beeb. One day I cooked and sold 100 meals. 2 kilderkins of Fullers London Pride were taken up from base with the trucks but 144 pints went so quickly that riggers were despatched daily to Higsons brewery in nearby Liverpool to resupply. We started the venture with a modest ‘VAT’ kitty and personal cash advances. At the end of the week, using a handy bank trailer where hospitality was generous, I was able to open an account for the unit with over 200 quid, reinvesting in new grills. The old ones were either returned to their rightful owners or had taken such a bashing as to be fit only for scrap.
Geoff Fletcher
Sky Footy with NEP-Visions at Newcastle United FC in February 2005. The day the catering bus didn’t turn up……..
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Dave Mundy
How you all suffered for the general public, who knew nothing about what it takes to give them their expensive Sky Sports fix every weekend!
Pat Heigham
Feature film experiences …
Work on my first movie as a freelance took me to the Canaries.
The hotel was supposed to provide location lunch, but after two days, couldn’t cope. An emergency crew meeting in a desert involved our wardrobe master (a bit loose in the wrist) declaiming:
"We should have Phil Hobbs – I’ve had Phil all over Europe", leading to “Ooh! Brian!” and catcalls from the camera crew.
Eventually, a guy called Jesus (pronounced Haysus) arrived from Madrid and proceeded to produce miracles from the back of a tiny Citroen van!
The camera dept could never understand how the sound crew managed to get their grub first! Simple – in those days, the sound dept managed the walkie-talkies, so a spare bod was dispatched to the wagon and on a different frequency, relayed the menu and put in our orders!
The Bond company (Eon) were well known for looking after their crews.
In Bangkok, the Narai Hotel supplied lunch – at least six Thai dishes, plus a couple of English, and a groaning cold table (oysters, one day!). But, one had to claim the creme caramels first, as they disappeared faster than an ice cube in the heat! The effort was supervised by George Crawford, who happened to be location caterer on the very next film I was on. Not such good grub, so I asked him why not? (apart from the oriental bit) – "Budget, dear boy, budget!"
Another Bond I was on, although I did not go to Egypt, was "The Spy Who Loved Me".
The relayed story, from the guys that were there, was that a mobile kitchen and a refrigerated truck were driven from the UK to the toe of Italy and ferried to Alexandria, thence to Cairo. The kitchen arrived, but the food truck was hi-jacked between Alex and Cairo, leaving the crew with only chops and steaks that George Crawford had brought in hand baggage.
The story continues that Cubby Broccoli scoured Cairo for as much spaghetti as he could find, and personally cooked supper for the crew!
George was also catering on "Firepower", a Michael Winner film, that I took, ‘cos I wanted to go to the Caribbean.
Michael was paranoid about his food, and never had the same as the crew, he was catered for separately in an air-conditioned cabin on location.
However, George had a falling-out with him (not difficult) and resigned, leaving to go back to the UK. Unfortunately for Winner, George’s lady friend was MW’s personal chef, so when George went, so did she!
One other story: an ill-fated serial "Caleb Williams" shot at Brocket Hall, owned by a mate of Lord Romsey (Norton Knatchbull) who produced (he was John Brabourne’s son, I think).
The caterer’s were vaguely Italian, but excellent, and if one enquired what was for lunch, the invariable answer was "Spaghetti Bollock Naked".
Norton had a young Labrador puppy, who was always to be found at the catering kitchen, usually flying out of the door, on the end of the chef’s boot.
On wrapping, we were each given a T-shirt imprinted with a personal catchphrase that the two young leads had picked up on over six weeks.
The chef’s was "I kick Romsey’s dog!"
