Saints, Priests and Annie Oakley

It has been a sad time recently with many famous and well loved characters passing away. Several of them played a massive part in our childhoods both on TV and the big screen. One in particular was Sir Roger Moore. His portrayal of 007 has no doubt become one of the top favourites among many Bond fans. He had previously made his name playing Simon Templar in the TV series The Saint. It was based on the novels by Leslie Charteris. Incidentally, the stick man logo of The Saint was designed by Leslie Charteris, something I never realised until recently. Not quite sure why he made it. dare I say, such a camp looking figure.

Many actors had previously and since played Simon Templar including Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy and Val Kilmer, but Sir Roger's portrayal of the gentleman thief has been the most distinctly charismatic and memorable. Every character he ever played always had that extra something. The raising of the eyebrow, the twinkle in the eye, the clear soft voice, the gentle charm, he had the lot. I've found an episode of The Saint from the late 1960s featuring Sir Roger along with the lovely Angela Douglas. Unfortunately the quality is not that brilliant and the soundtrack does simulate the revenge of the chipmunks, worth a watch though. I do have a reason for including this particular episode featuring Angela, it involves a little connection, I will reveal all shortly.   As the sound was so poor on The Saint video I've included a trailer of Carry On Cowboy featuring Angela minus the chipmunk tones! The clip includes a little fight scene with Angela getting stuck in with Joan Sims, hair and nails abound, a real classic! Dear Joan, another one of my top favourites, sadly no longer with us. Such a talented lady.

Angela appeared in several of the Carry On films during the late 1960s. She has had many TV and film roles in both comedy and drama. She is now a successful author and married to Bill Bryden top theatre producer, director and playwright. Angela has a book coming out shortly, I will pop some info on here as soon as it is published. 

But where is this connection I hear you say? Well, be patient. Originally I had noticed only one connection, but have since discovered another one, this time loosely related to myself. 

As some of you only slightly mature readers of this article may well remember, Angela was married to film and stage actor Kenneth More who passed away in 1982. Kenneth appeared in many superb films, one of which was Reach For The Sky, a biopic of Douglas Bader a WWII RAF flying ace. Why his story was so unique is that Bader had lost both his legs in a flying accident in 1931 but still went on to become one of the RAF heroes of WWII. Kenneth appeared in so many excellent movies it is difficult to know which ones to mention. Apart from Reach For The Sky there was Battle of Britain, Genevieve, The Admirable Crichton to name but a few. One of his co stars in Genevieve was Dinah Sheridan whom my mum and I met at a charity event in Kent some years ago. A very nice and friendly lady, sadly she passed away in 2012. But, it is not Kenneth's excellent film roles that plays the vital part in my connection, it is the fact he played a certain priest during the mid 1970s in a series based on the books by G. K Chesterton, that priest was of course Father Brown. When I originally started writing this piece it was going to be centred around a certain continuity cock up within one of the episodes in the new version of Father Brown, with the title role brilliantly played by Mark Williams. Then I heard of Sir Roger's death and I wanted to write something about that, found the episode featuring Angela and realised the link. Now, before I enlighten you all on the little BBC blooper I will explain my other link. Well, if you have read my first post on this blog regarding the Chiltern 100s you will know that I was born in Chesham, Bucks. I now realise that both Angela and Kenneth were also born in Bucks.10 miles south of Chesham at Gerrards Cross. So I suppose you could say that is a little bit of a link. 

FATHER BROWN GIVING ME THE PIP
Now, back to Father Brown and the little problem of a continuity cock up perpetrated by the BBC. Oh yes, naughty Aunty. Under the circumstances they should have known better. The episode in question was Theatre Of The Invisible in which a radio production team arrive in Kembleford to record an episode of a popular quiz programme. They are also looking for local people to become contestants and of course Father Brown and his duteous parish secretary Mrs McCarthy (magnificently played by Sorcha Cusack) put themselves forward. Naturally of course, it is not long before murder is soon afoot! As the end of this episode approaches, in a scene at the local police station the Inspector and Sergeant are seen walking through into the front office where a radio can be heard announcing the start of the said quiz programme. The "pips" are heard signaling the hour. But, hang on, replay that bit again, yes, I thought my ears were not deceiving me, the "pips" are most definitely wrong! I heard five short pips and one slightly longer one. No doubt many of you are thinking, so, what is the problem, that is correct.  It is, in this present day, Father Brown is set in the early 1950s, a time when the pips were slightly different...........

The "pips" first came into being back in 1924 when it was suggested by a leading horologist at the time, Frank Hope-Jones, that the BBC should broadcast a much more accurate time signal to be heard every hour, on the hour. The signal would be generated at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and then sent down a GPO line to the BBC. (For the slightly younger reader GPO was the General Post Office, the old equivalent of BT, well, sort of.) This signal would comprise of six short pips, commencing at five seconds to the hour and ending on the hour. Now I would have to delve deeply into the complexities of oscillators, chronometers etc etc to explain just how the pips were created. But to be honest, in this instance, I don't think that is really necessary and it would send everyone to sleep much more quickly than a mug of Ovaltine. Notwithstanding the fact, I don't really understand meself! So hearing the dear old 6 pips resonating from your radio every hour continued up until 1971 when an international agreement decided that all broadcast time signals should be synchronized with International Atomic Time which is continuously accurate. This caused quite a problem across the globe. UK GMT time was based on "natural" time which depends on the rotation of the earth and in turn is subject to some variations because of the fact the earth "wobbles" on its axis. Given all the mathematical calculations, allowing for earth and its "wobbles" and how slow or fast it was rotating, experts decided that the hourly pips should rise form 6 to 7 as and when required. Again this caused a problem, as how would you know if you had just listened to 6 or 7 pips. 

Finally, on 31st December 1971 at midnight the new GMT pips signal was heard, five one second pips then the sixth had been extended from 1/10th of a second to 1/2 of a second. A compromise had been realised. So you see, there is no way 5 pips and a long last pip would have been heard in the early 1950s. Bit ironic, the BBC getting their own pips timing wrong. For any of you who may be interested in learning a little more about Frank Hope-Jones and his work with time pieces and indeed his brother Robert the inventor of the theatre organ, go to this excellent website The "Other" Hope-Jones I bet there are many people have never heard Hope-Jones brothers and their significant achievements. 




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