John, I see you were born in London in 1932 and attended Watford Grammar School. Given that you started working for the BBC in 1944 you must have planned to be an actor from a very early age. Was that always your ambition? Did you have early training?

Three nos. I had no plan to be an actor, no ambition, and no training. When I went to Kings Langley’s Rudolph Steiner school (locally known as the “do as you like” school), at the age of ten, I was cast in the annual school play, Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed outdoors in the garden. But that was it, and I hated doing it, it seemed kind of gay; I was not turned on to acting, and had no thoughts along those lines. 

Your first show on BBC radio was The Will Hay Programme in 1944 where you acted as D’Arcy Minor, the swot of St. Michael’s. How did that come about? And was it fun working with Will Hay?

My family lived in Chipperfield, Herts, in those days, and I was coming home on the bus after school one day in August, when a man came up to me who I recognized, for he lived down the road. His name was Alick Hayes, and he asked me if I was a good reader. I told him yes, and he said could I come over later, meet his wife Zillah, have a cup of tea, and read him something out of the Evening Standard, so after supper I did. He tested me for fluency, to see if I could read without stumbling, and he was pleased that I could. He then explained that he was a BBC producer, and was about to start a new BBC radio comedy series, but the young actor he was going to use had just got sick, and he had an emergency, and maybe I could help out.

The show was The Will Hay Programme (The Diary of a Schoolmaster) and the part was that of a very clever young swot who said very long multi-syllabic words instead of shorter ones whenever he answered the schoolmaster’s questions. Mr Hayes wanted me to play it, just the first show, and he said it would save him from having to find another actor quickly from an acting academy. It was going out live in front of an audience from the Paris Cinema, a basement BBC studio off Piccadilly Circus, in just three days’ time.

I raced home, told my parents, said please let me do it, it sounds like fun, and it pays money. So my mother took me up to London next day, and that is where I met Will Hay and the rest of the cast – one schoolmaster and three students, so-called. Smart was the cheeky one (played by the very professional actor Charles Hawtrey), Beckett the dumb one (Billy Nicholls, on his day off from the RAF), and D’Arcy Minor, the studious swot (me). The joke was that I was the only real schoolboy (eleven years old). Will Hay was repeating the same schoolmaster act he had done in several of his films (Good Morning Boys, 1937, etc). It will be remembered that the comedy came out of the fact that he was a hopeless teacher, and the students took over.

That first day I remember well.
Continue Reading Just William Society Magazine interview

Me looking dazed after meeting Piers Morgan and Jerry Springer at the Britweek dinner at the Beverly Wilshire

Yes. It is now eight years since I started this site. My readers (I have a few, sustained without the help of advertisers) will have noticed that I am surrounded by eminent law-firms, and that this site is hosted by a very successful entrepeneur under the name of Lexblog. Why am I allowed to continue? They are not, after all, my peers, or at least, I am not one of them. So what am I? Do I serve a purpose, and why am I being allowed to continue?
Continue Reading EIGHT YEARS ON! is it really eight years?

Some people, aka celebrities, are simple, brilliant, unsullied, and innocent souls.  They deserve to be left alone by the masses (aka us.)  Usually women, and who are we talking about?

Sandra Bullock comes to mind.  As does Barbara Walters, Betty White, Princess Di, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Helen Mirren, Angela Lansbury CBE, and Lynn Redgrave OBE. (the Brits with their intimidating honorifics know how to do this.)

Who, then, are these countless commenters who bestow their deathless pronouncements to protect their heroes at the end of any newsworthy story?  I believe they are fans, yes, but they think they are today’s Greek Chorus, who were a body of people invented by the ancient Greeks to add their voices and give meaning to the onstage events of life’s dramas. Note that the performers wore masks.

But THEIR voices are false. On the report of my attempted attendance at Lynn’s funeral, a fusillade of comments appeared after the Daily Mail’s report.  I repudiate their verdicts.Continue Reading Beware the Beloved

April 23, 2006
The mystery of what happened to my family has just been cleared up.

Mr. Maggart, not happy with being Lynn Redgrave’s secret lover for the past 25 years, apparently thinks nothing of helping her get me evicted while hiding behind a video camera, but wishes also to hijack my family, steal my