Alan Taylor
When I worked on a show profiling the contenders in a poetry competition in Cambridge, upon my return to base I decided to write my expenses in rhyming couplets. It was noticed by Jackie, the head of the admin office. She photocopied it and put it on the office notice board.
My other expense claim which earned a spot on the coveted admin office notice board was a fictitious claim for A. Wiseman, travelling to Bethlehem on 25/12/0000. It included hundreds of miles travelled by shared camel. Where the form asks for capacity, I wrote 3 litres, or 6 litres if bricked while head in trough. Other items on the claim included myrrh as an expense and one night top rate schedule A. I justified the top rate because having to share accommodation with the son of God must be almost on a par with having to share with the production team.
Although there was no mention of my name on the claim, Jackie was quite confident that she knew who sent it and returned a copy to me with what looked like a red rubber stamp saying “Rejected – Late claim”.
Pat Heigham
I cannot imagine Ma Jenner joining in the jocularity, or Ann Boorman at Thames!
‘Bricking’ – doesn’t the pay-off include: “But doesn’t it hurt?”
“No, gotta keep your thumbs outside!”
Working on a TV movie about Andrei Sakharov, an office set had a desk prop which was an embossing stamp of the Russian Eagle, so we duly stamped our time sheets before rendering them!
Dave Newbitt
In my memory, ‘Pat’ Jenner was a bit of a stickler and may have come across as somewhat humourless but she was fair (if firm) and did sometimes show a softer side. Not a good idea to try and get one over on her though.
Her No.2, (whose name I have forgotten) was, shall we say, a little more pliable. Late night transport/use of own car was a sometimes contentious issue – the last bus (say the 220 to Croydon) may have been such as to support the claim but I guess a bit of LT super knowledge might have found an alternative.
Dave Mundy
Jackie Howarth, the OBs Admin Manager, was so different to Pat Jenner at TVC. Pat was rumoured to pay all of our meagre expenses and luncheon vouchers from her own tightly closed purse.
Jackie, on the other hand, visited us on OBs and saw life as it really was for those on the road. She always had a bottle of Carlsberg Special near to hand and took all of our expense claims with a pinch of salt and a sense of humour, as Alan has described.
One day on the Sports Unit we stopped at a service station on the M1 near Sheffield to fill up using our trade card. There was a troop of boy scouts on the forecourt, for Bob-a-Job week, washing cars. We had our white Granada washed and gave them a donation. On our expense claims we put ‘£1 gratuity to a boy scout’! Don’t ask!
Alan Taylor
There was the time when Persil did a promotion where they printed a coupon on the packet which allowed you to travel anywhere on British Rail for £1, provided that you were with another passenger paying the normal fare.
For journeys beyond 100miles from base, there were two options for crews claiming expenses. One was a shared car, where the driver would claim the mileage rate and a named passenger would claim nothing. The other option was to claim the second class rail fare.
Persil tickets made it possible for two people to travel to site for one fare + £1 plus the cost of a box of Persil. By pairing up and dividing the costs, each could claim the second class fare and make a little profit to pay for a few beers. The only problem with Persil tickets was that if you were making one or two journeys every week, you need to get through ridiculous amounts of Persil. The solution was elegantly simple. Give it to Jackie and the other girls in the admin office so that they got some benefit from the arrangement too.
Incidentally, my understanding is that the Persil ticket wheeze was devised by one of our EMs, who although no longer with us, should probably remain nameless. At one time he had something of a reputation for sticking it to the crews and playing according to the letter of the rules. Then one day a crew got rather pissed off with a call he made on site and when it came to the attention of the higher management at K.A., they didn’t back him.
He then decided that there was no benefit from dumping on the crews as he would get no thanks from the crews nor management. He changed character virtually overnight, gamekeeper becoming poacher. Whenever there was some degree of latitude or discretion regarding rules, he would invariably choose the option which benefitted the crew.
There were occasionally times where Jackie would say to me that I simply can’t do that. If you were expecting significant expenses, you could claim a cash advance, which would be deducted when you claim the expenses. There was a little form you needed to fill in and it was obviously intended for people who were globe trotting. You had to fill in a simple form “I am required to undertake a journey from ………. to ……….. Leaving on ………. and returning on ………. I require a cash advance of £……….“
I was scheduled to do the Royal Variety Performance from The Palladium. We were working multiple very long days ( 16-18 hours each) and were authorised to stay in the very nearest hotels, which are obviously very expensive.
I applied for an advance and filled in the form “I am required to undertake a journey from West Acton to Oxford Circus. Leaving on Thursday and returning Monday. I require a cash advance of £500“ ( prices from forty years ago ). Jackie took one look at it and said that I can’t possibly write that, but I insisted that I had filled in the form accurately and filled in all the blanks truthfully. She asked me to do her a favour and write “Nearby accommodation for Royal Variety” on the form too.
Mike Giles
We had an EM in Bristol who would examine car bonnets and windscreens for squashed insects each morning to see if you had done a flyer overnight – that wouldn’t work nowadays – not enough insects around.
But he wasn’t beyond doing a genuine flyer himself, as the other EM, jolly Julius Jack Belasco, as he was endearingly known, was a pilot and occasionally took both of them home overnight. I’m sure that both will have been honest brokers, though, and not claimed the Sched ‘A’!!
Roger Long
I had a fantastic early morning flight with Jack from Lulsgate to the Scillies at 500 feet on a brilliant day. Very memorable , Julian Pettifer was the presenter always very professional, the islands magical.
Did another similar flip with Alan Titchmarsh. But in a Castle Air jet ranger.
Both great fun.
Pat Heigham
No doubt that our job gave rise to some excellent experiences. The Jet Ranger is my favourite whirlybird, and flying with Keith Thompson from Castle Air was exciting. One job – profiling high speed power boats around the Isle of Wight – had Keith hovering with the skids barely a foot above the water, as the power boat hammered towards us head on at about 60 knots.
At the last minute, Keith lifted up and the boat passed underneath. If he had mistimed it, think what the insurance claim might read: “Power Boat Collides with Helicopter!”
Oh,yeah?
Another experience:
Filming aerials circling around the Statue of Liberty from helicopter was a bonus! Looking out the window, I felt it was just like a TV shot, then had to pinch myself as it was LIVE!
Alan Taylor
Checking my car for squished insects wouldn’t have revealed anything. They started appearing in the spring and my car was rarely washed. The EM would have needed to do a detailed inventory one day and compare the results with what was there the next day.
While not actually a flyer, one crew did come unstuck regarding travel and hotels. I can’t remember if the show concerned was a party conference or a golf tournament, but it was from the tip of Kent and accommodation nearby and even quite some distance away was fully booked. At that time you could get very cheap ferry tickets to France as a foot passenger, so somebody had the bright idea of booking hotel rooms in Calais, indulging in a few drinks on the way over, having a lovely meal in France, a good night’s rest in a very affordable hotel and then a snooze on the ferry back to Kent in the morning. It worked very well for the first couple of nights, but then one morning it was so rough out at sea that the ferry couldn’t dock for quite some time and many of the crew were stranded on the boat. I was one of the few people unaffected as my mother was brought up near Deal and I was able to stay with my aunt for that show.
Regarding second class rail travel, many of us lived well outside of London, therefore travelling by train could be quite time consuming by the time you had got to your local station, travelled into London, taken the Tube to the mainline station and then the train, maybe with other trains too, to the destination, often with a cab to site.
Therefore it was commonplace to drive yourself to location, but simply claim the rail fare. However, when most of the crew really did travel by rail ( long journeys, or Persil tickets ), there could be unintended consequences. One could be that the entire crew arrive late because of a delayed or cancelled train. The other is that for most jobs more than 100 miles from base, which would involve an overnight stay, the crew would turn up carrying suitcases and there was nowhere convenient to store a couple of dozen suitcases while we were working.
Mike Jordan
In OBs there was also the “flanker” where we were paid to return to base (travel expenses and time and extra meals) [but we ] stayed onsite at a cheap hotel with possibly shared rooms – [the cost ] was less and of course one could go to the pub in the evening, stay late in bed before onsite time as well.
It was also of course not unknown for some ranks of OBers to bunk down in the truck giving “double” savings.
Talking about your Calais event, once upon a time “back in the day” – don’t you just HATE that term? The folks on another shift wanted to go to France overnight to get cheap ciggys/wine but that time as well the ferries were cancelled. They had to call a convenient colleague to rush down to site to cover for them!
