Brian Blessed
Roger Long
Mr Blessed worked on the BBC “My Family and other Animals”, shot in Corfu on film in the late 1980s as Spiro the Taxi driver. Brian was larger than life and twice as noisy.
‘Gerald’ was an unknown child thrust into the limelight: one actor booming like a foghorn, the other timid and reluctant. A challenge to the humble recordist, but great fun as the island was quite magical and we were there for 20 weeks (child actor restrictions).
Unfortunately we were beset by lethal accidents, a special FX technician was killed by a Lycoming wind machine he had taken the safety guard off, a prop man died in the lunch crew, one of our sparks was nearly garrotted by a safety chain after the genny towing Spiro’s taxi hit an overhanging bough.
The locals all said that this was a curse because we had taken St Spiridon out of his case in the cathedral and paraded him…
I read Mr Blessed’s account in his book, his was very colourful but, in my humble opinion, not accurate.
No wonder witness statements have less credence now.
Peter Cook
Brian recently (Autumn 2016) directed ‘The Hollow’ at the Mill at Sonning. He made a good job of it although there was a bit of nepotism, Hildegarde Neil and Rosalind Blessed both had lead parts.
However he sat in the audience and was happy to chat during the interval. Success does not appear to have gone to his head.
Alec Bray
‘The Hollow’ at the Mill at Sonning was a very good show.
Ian McCaskill
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Bernie Newnham
Long ago I made a film for Breakfast Time about BBCtv preparations for Christmas – symbols, announcers, VTs etc. It ended with Ian being Ian –
It was mid evening when the forecaster came along to Pres A to record the late weather. I had a Lime Grove crew with me – maybe Tim Healy? – and Nigel Farrell, we just worked around what was happening. I expect the tech-ops late man was down the bar by then.I did my usual Alfred Hitchcock impression – I discovered quite early on in making BT films that if you wanted someone to do something – go through a door, or a Chinese meal, or whatever, it was a whole lot easier just to do it yourself and get it done. And I thought in any case I was very well qualified to direct a weather forecast.
Pat Heigham
There’s a clip of the famous incident when the magnetic letters misbehaved, and the ‘F’ of FOG fell off in shot – in closing, the weatherman said: " I’m sorry about the ‘F in Fog’.
Bernie Newnham
It’s in “Good King Memorex”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7A5dy20Qj8 at 5.29 –
but like "Play it again Sam" he didn’t actually say it.
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Ian Hillson
I remember tuning in one morning to hear the "Vorsprung durch Technik" episode go out on air – wonderful stuff. I’m glad to see it’s mentioned in his Beeb obit:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38294661
“… Former BBC weather presenter Peter Gibbs recalled how McCaskill had arrived at work late on a cold day as his car would not start.
Gibbs said: "He actually went on air and his introduction was ‘I now know what Vorsprung durch Technik means. It means your car won’t start’, with a real twinkle in his eye.
"Someone very high up from a well-known German car manufacturer was on the phone within minutes of him coming off air and the car was fixed very quickly. "I don’t think we’d get away with that these days." …”,
Ian Hillson
Someone thinks "Vorsprung durch Technik" was Ian McCaskill’s most famous saying from December 1981 (!) – if this was the case, the term wasn’t widely in use then in this country – as it was 1983 when ad agency BBH first used it the UK, so Audi would have nothing to complain about.
I bet Ian was up before the BBC Beak for saying it though, I would have liked to be a fly-on-the-wall for that one!
Nick Ware
We (Royal we, as ever!) once went to his home to shoot the "Who would live in a house like this?" bit for “Through the Keyhole”. Twickenham, I think it was.
As we arrived, we found him in the garden pegging out the washing. I jokingly said, "Those clouds look a bit dodgy to me!" He grinned and gave us his full weather forecast performance for the day. He was right, of course.
In the kitchen, his wife was on the case with coffee etc. One of the friendliest of countless homes we visited. An all round genuinely nice chap. R.I.P.
