Vote for Them – blog by Neil Grant

Vote for Them 1989

(Photos from Bob Jacobs and Bev Dartnall, no reproduction without permission.)

I co-authored Vote for Them, with David Edgar, although it took from 1981 to 1988 to bring it into production. The plays were conceived following a reading of an article by E.P.Thompson in the New Statesman in which he spoke of the radical political views that characterised much of the armed forces during the 2nd World War, which culminated the dramatic 1945 election of a Labour government.  For Thompson this was a set of memories and accounts that had been marginalised in favour of the more dramatic military events so often represented in triumphalist post war films and literature.  The “Cairo Forces Parliament” was one such event, which embodied that radical political sprit, although sometimes subsequently misrepresented and distorted as some kind of proto-soviet.  However it was distinguished by the worldwide publicity which it came to attract including its reporting in Time magazine and the Nazi press, its debate in the real House of Commons, coverage in the pages of Hansard and in numerous pamphlets, magazines and newspapers of the period.

I researched the many stories around the Music for All Parliament, as the Cairo Parliament was properly called, because of its location in the Music for All (MFA) forces club in central Cairo.  During 1943/44, with the land war in North Africa over, the forces based in and around Cairo sought out distractions including political debate, otherwise prohibited by Kings Regulations.  The idea of a mock parliament for members of the forces was supported by the MFA organisers and enthusiastically embraced by those politically interested service people, especially from the army and RAF. It’s important to note that this idea of a mock parliament was nothing new, being common in the 1930s and 40s and previously adopted in the services, allowing “citizens in uniform” to “play at politics” without actually breaching Kings Regulations.

In 1981 David Edgar secured a commission from the BBC to write a 2 part play based on the Cairo events and on that basis we undertook much more extensive research.  Mike Wearing was the key mover for the BBC with David Rose endorsing the commission shortly before his departure to Channel 4. We tracked down and interviewed surviving participants, obtained access to contemporary diaries and documents and developed a much fuller sense of the day-to-day context in which the parliament developed.

In 1982 David’s script was accepted, but then costed as being too expensive for the then available budget. That seemed to be that.  Then in early 1988 David received a call asking whether we would be interested in having the plays re-commissioned as a three part drama, to be produced at Pebble Mill using studio space which had become available following the cancellation of another project. Ironically, it was the Carol Parks, the producer, who had remained loyal to the project despite having to do the original prohibitive costings that had frustrated production in 1982.   And that’s when Vote for Them took off.

The title came from a Daily Mirror campaign, immediately prior to the 1945 election, in which the deliberately ambiguous slogan was developed.  It asked readers to both vote on behalf of those service people under 21 and unable to vote, or indeed still involved in fighting in the far East, and also to vote for a society in which returning forces would come home to a better future.  The slogan had a powerful and enduring resonance, yet avoided explicitly endorsing any political party, though it was universally understood as clear call to vote Labour! In the context of a mock parliament the Vote for Them title was, for us, both obvious and irresistible.

The events of the MFA Parliament, which met only 5 times, attracted such notoriety because of its wider interpretation and representation as a straw poll on the wartime government. This followed the holding of a mock election among the 200 or so who attended the 2-hour meeting and the posting of the results in the Egyptian Gazette by an army press office sergeant who had contacts in the paper.   The mock election result gave Labour a large majority and was seized on by the Nazi press as evidence of bolshevism among the troops and a pointer to post war events.  This and other coverage seems to have been key in the decision to close the Parliament in April 1944, though not before a packed house of over 700 had voted in favour of a decision to nationalise the Bank of England.  That led to the “Chancellor of the Exchequer”, Aircraftsman Leo Abse being detained and posted away from Cairo and later to England amidst much publicity.  The late Leo Abse subsequently became a real MP, and was an enthusiastic supporter of our attempt to tell the story, albeit in a dramatic form in which events or characters were necessarily compressed and conflated.

The production itself was, for me, a completely original and unique experience. The timescales involved were very tight as studio time was already booked, so that the casting, rehearsal and script editing were conducted at a rapid pace.  The rehearsals were in London and although the plays were shot largely at Pebble Mill, there were numerous external locations in the UK as well as the Cairo based shooting. For example, I recall the cinema in Tenbury Wells doubling as a Cairo location; the TA Centre in Brandwood, Kings Heath, providing location for a military gymnasium in Egypt; and the station at Bewdley providing a homecoming venue on Election Day 1945. .

The plays cast a number of now TV familiar faces such as Billy Hartman, Emmerdale, and Steve McFadden, Eastenders.  Steve played a cycling enthusiast in Cairo and, as part of his impressive preparation, he chose to travel to Sheffield to meet the real person who had inspired the character, arriving at his address on a bike! That went down well.

The dominant memory for me though is the sight of large numbers of supporting actors being managed in the Pebble Mill studio, dressed in contemporary uniforms with Janice Rider anxiously attempting to ensure that some inadvertent anachronism wouldn’t creep in among the recently delivered uniforms: such as a soldier with some aspect of dress or badge not available until later in the War.  And people did write in to point out such details, while another correspondent insisted, forcefully, that the entire story was fiction!

But the most extraordinary letter I received after the plays’ broadcast in 1989 was from the son of a former South African officer.  He was puzzled that we hadn’t contacted his father before representing him on screen. It transpired that there was actually a real life counterpart to our invented Lieutenant Rubin, speaker of the MFA Parliament, and that the real Lieutenant Rubin had been the speaker of a mock parliament among Union Defence Force troops in Egypt.  As we found out, on many occasions, the truths we came across. and often had to omit, were stranger than anything we fictionalised.

Neil Grant

Night shoot in Dorset sand Quarry

Howards’ Way – Les Podraza’s photos

Howards’ Way photos from Les Podraza, no reproduction without permission.

Howards’ Way was hosted at Pebble Mill in the late 1980s, Les was a member of the scene crew.  These photos were taken on location in Southampton.

Cast and Crew of Howard’s Way

Roy Castle Beats Time – Paul Balmer

Stephane Grappelli on 'Roy Castle Beats Time'

Stephane Grappelli on ‘Roy Castle Beats Time’ with The Suzuki Children.

The Story;

I met Stephane the day before this photo at ‘Pebble Mill at One’ – with Diz Disley and John Etheridge – he was riding high with a new Hot Club Trio and platinum selling albums with Yehudi Menuhin. I’d always been a fan of the original 1930’s HCQ line up with Django Reinhardt.

He wanted somewhere to warm up and I took him to Studio 1 which was empty as usual! – he was in seventh heaven.

He had just acquired his wonderful Galiano violin (he had never had money before!) he played non stop for the next two days and refused to stand under the notoriously hot Pebble Mill lighting in case the Galiano dried out – this caused big problems as he stood in the gloom.

The next day for Roy Castle the producer had prepared a surprise – ‘The Suzuki Children’ came on as a treat and formed a circle around Stephane playing their tiny violins. Stephane was very moved and wanted a souvenir photo – I rushed off and found a freelance who took the snap.

Stephane gave me his address and I posted it to him. Astonishingly he wrote back!

This was the beginning of a friendship of 20 years. I eventually wrote his biography, produced a one hour feature for BBC Radio 2 and directed a three hour DECCA DVD ‘A Life In The Jazz Century’ which was nominated for a BAFTA in 2002.

When we cleared Stephane’s Paris flat in 1997 the photo was still amongst his souvenirs.

Pebble Mill was full of surprises!

Paul Balmer

Trinity Tales – Paul Balmer’s photos

Photos by Paul Balmer, no reproduction without permission.

‘Trinity Tales’ was produced in Pebble Mill by David Rose in 1975.  The six part drama was written by Alan Plater.   It was a contemporary take on Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’. The series followed a group of rugby fans, who swap stories on their way to the Cup Final at Wembley.

Please comment if you can identify which of the ‘Trinity Tales’ these photos are from.

Brass Band Competition – Pete Simpkin

Dunchurch Silver Band

This shows Barry Lankester and I producing the annual Local Radio Knockout Contest organised by the West Midlands Brass Band Association. This was typical of the programming of the early days of BBC local radio….and the way in which the building itself was used to communicate with the public.  A community organisation would get the programmes organised and we would get them on air.

Barry Lankester was the driving force behind all sorts of artistic productions involving over the years literally thousands of local music makers from bands of all types, classical and pop , choirs and many others trooping into Pebble Mill, usually at weekends to record a multitude of broadcasts encouraging and entertaining the listeners.  The band shown in the picture is the Dunchurch Silver.

Pete Simpkin