1310 About Livingston Stanley and Burton and about me

It is rare that what is planned lives up to expectation so I celebrated my birthday yesterday by drinking several glasses of bubbly and enjoying food when it was fancied, and writing until the early hours and delighting in the humiliation of Chelsea, and the Russian who came over here to prove that money can buy anything, forgetting that even if you buy bodies you will never reach souls. We liked Chelsea only with Murinho because he has soul so all who believe in the great game will join me in wishing further humiliations until he takes his money home and we can begin to regain our Premier league. Of course will not happen. I mean it is like Barnsley or Cardiff winning the FA Cup this year?

To day, getting up too late for breakfast and too early for lunch and feeling like neither, I dabbled in this, and that, for half an hour and then checked my expectation that English cricket was to be humiliated just as English Rugby had been, along with Newcastle Football, and then later in the afternoon the Boro.

Sunderland was not humiliated but just bored everyone for the first half in frustrating the more skilled opposition and put up a little show towards the end when it was evidently too late and we were past caring. Me thinks Roy, and the chairman and their financial backers have begun to lose the plot. You have to remember the soul of this club with its history of glorious defeats. I arrived at what has become my usual parking spot in time to walk into the city centre and obtain a book from Smiths about the basics of acrylic, so that although I had commenced to use the medium, I have progressed in my approach and now want to understand before using further. I want, for once, to be able to create what I feel and see, because the concept alone is not enough and getting others to make it real is cheating contemporary or any other form of art. You can do what you feel and think and call it art as long as you do it.

I say obtained the book because I used a gift card so technically someone else bought, as someone else bought, with another gift card at M and S, both from Christmas, a prawn sandwich and a custard tart for lunch followed by some chocolate covered peanuts kept in the car for the next time I went to the pictures and they had only lasted so long because I had forgotten they were there.

Earlier I experienced ghosts of my time and before. They were mostly good ghosts, some exceptional and engaging beings. I discovered that the film of the search in Africa by Henry Stanley for Dr Livingstone, Forbidden Territory, was being shown which along with a BBC film series decades ago, descriptively titled, the Search for the Nile is about the hold which an idea and an objective can have on the lives of human beings. It is all about what captured the imagination of the British public and their homeland was about to create the British Empire. This film is more about Henry Morton Stanley than Doctor Livingstone, and even though I had seen the film before, I had forgotten of its important chords.
Towards the end of the film when Stanley, having been made the heir to Livingstone's missions to find the source of the Nile and help to bring about the de facto end of slavery, he is reportedly shouted down and ridiculed by the men and some women of the Royal Geographical Society over his claims because he was a journalist and not one of them. I know that experience only too well when I was one of three who voted over the immediate amalgamation of the Association of Child Care Officers into the too quickly generic British Association of Social Workers and I still find it difficult to forgive all those who once they saw the disaster of forcing those dedicated to working with children, working with adults and vice versa, the refused or who then denied the extent to which those employed to care for children, committed acts of physical and sexual violence against them, with the BBC still calling what happened in Jersey abuse. I was once given the opportunity to address a fringe meetings of the Labour Party at its annual conference on subject of mental health along with Barbara Castle David Owen and David Ennals, and saw the chasm open in the faces of those sitting in audience, including some who became Ministers, as soon as I had pointed out there was not one reference to child care or welfare among the hundreds of resolutions submitted by constituencies for consideration (Child care was then a specific service covering children in care or being prevented from coming into care or appearing in the juvenile courts, and provided by social workers, and different from child welfare provided by health visitors and the parents and other relatives).

Stanley was born in the days when you were described as a bastard on the birth certificate (1841) and was placed in the workhouse after his grandfather died and after completing elementary education he was employed as pupil teacher in a national school, a similar situation to my mother half a century later. He is said to have been taken in by a local wealthy man assuming his surname and consequently pretended to be an American when the couple died, denying he was a foreigner. He was reluctantly called up to the Confederate Army and taken prisoner by the other side which he then joined, but did not begin fighting and then joined the navy where he quickly deserted. He took up the cause of Native Americans as a journalist had some adventures in the middle East went to jail but talked his way out of the situation. After publishing a book about his adventure he was taken up by the founder of the New York Herald. How much of his story was been checked by contemporaries is not stated.

Following the succession of the son of the founder of the paper Stanley was able to persuade his employers to fund an expedition to find Dr Livingston who had disappeared into the depths of Africa for a period of six years. He landed at Zanzibar hiring 200 porters, with one internet source mistyping this as 2000, and embarked on a 700 mile expedition during which many died from disease and fighting, and one source suggests that he exaggerated his stern treatment of his entourage to prevent desertion because this was favoured Victorian approach, among the reading public, as even Missionaries were known to flog those paid small sums to help them.

It was on November 10th 1871 then he met up with Dr Livingston, although here are disputes about this, and more so if the famous words, Dr Livingstone I presume was said, or just the make up of the paper's editorial, who to day the whole thing would be filmed on through a Satellite transmitting computer to 24/7 live Although the two men failed to establish the source of the Nile they did prove that it was not Lake Tanganyika. He published a book on this expedition which helped to make the image of Livingstone although the fame also brought to attention his own origins which contributed to his view of events being questioned by the 'establishment' until Livingston's family confirmed that the letters brought back by Stanley from Livingstone were authentic.

Three years later Stanley returned leading an expedition involving 356 people, and which traced the river Congo to the sea, after 999 days, with only 114 survivors including himself as the only European. He published Through the Dark Continent. He then embarked on a new expedition financed by the King of Belgium designed to acquired land under the front of scientific and philanthropic work. His later expeditions were also marked with controversy but he survived attacks and late in life he married, adopted a child and became a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament. He was knighted and became a legend. Spencer Tracey and Sir Cedric Hardwicke starred in a film about his meeting with Livingston and their lives in 1939. His great grandson is a South African film maker.

I had known more about David Livingston having acquired a 1974 edition of the Tim Jeal Biography. He was a medical Missionary with the London Missionary Society rather than setting out to be an explorer of the African Continent and was the first European to see the Mosi-oa-0'Tunya which he named the Victoria Falls after his Queen.


In his childhood Livingston became an avid reader, which can be a dangerous occupation for a young person as it brings knowledge, curiosity and fires the imagination. His fundamentalist father attempted to stop this but David continued to examine the relationship between religion and science. His first work was in South Africa where as an abolitionist of the slave trade he hoped legitimate work opportunities would bring about its ending, He was badly mauled by a lion, partially disabling one arm and causing him a lifetime of pain. He married the eldest daughter of a missionary in 1845 who was born in Scotland but lived in Africa from the age of four.

He had little heart for traditional missionary work, quickly coming to understand and respect African cultures and his interest became more one of exploration, but whereas other European expeditions were armed with commercial and territorial ambitions, his were small with few porters and paying their way. He returned to Britain to publish a book about his experiences and approaches and this brought him to public attention. This led to British government sponsored Zambezi expedition which he was ill equipped to lead and where during its six years his wife died of malaria, leaving his children effectively orphaned. He then commenced his search for the source of the Nile following on work of Richard Burton, John Speak and others where their findings that the source was somewhere between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria was roughly correct. Livingston's conclusion turned out to be the Upper Congo River, confirmed by Stanley subsequently.

Throughout his life he was a constant opponent of slavery but had little impact given the commercial and other interests involved in turning an open eye to the trade. However he became well known internationally and his disappearance aroused interest and led to the Stanley search. The disappearance was unintentional as only one of 44 letters reached Zanzibar. While his heart was physically buried in Africa, the rest of his body was carried 1000 miles by his close attendants so that it could he returned to Britain where he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Paradoxically his good relations with African leaders helped subsequent colonization. There are innumerable statues and memorials to him throughout Africa, Scotland, in London and Canada and the USA. The most interesting legacy in popular culture occurs in the Get Smart Again film where Max says Dr Hottentot I presume.

The Search for the Nile film led me to Alan Moorehead's book, the White Nile 1972 edition and a particular interest in the extraordinary explorer and man of letters and everything else, Richard Francis Burton where there is general agreement that he achieved success as a translator, linguist, poet and writer, as orientalist and ethnologist, and as a soldier and as hypnotist in addition to his exploring. Some know him more for bringing the Kama Sutra to the attention of Western Europeans and for his unexpurgated translation of the Book of One Thousands Nights and a Night! He is considered to be the first non Muslim European to make the Hajj to Mecca (in disguise) 1853. It was during the subsequent expedition with several British officers that his party was attacked and outnumbered with the consequence that he was impaled in the face with a javelin, one officer was killed and Lieutenant Speke who was to accompany him on subsequent expeditions, was captured and received eleven wounds but managed to escape with a weapon fixed to his head. In 1855 Burton rejoined the army to fight in the Crimea where it is said he was adversely mentioned in relation to the subsequent mutiny.

This did not prevent Royal Geological Society funding an expedition to find the source of the Nile. As with the other explorers of the Day it was only afterwards that the writing of their exploits brought their work to the wider public attention. It was after this expedition that the two men quarrelled and shortly before they were to debate issues at the British Association for the Advancement of Science Speke was killed in a hunting accident, although there is the suggestion that his wounds were self inflicted.

In 1861 Burton married a Catholic but did not adopt her faith and joined the Diplomatic Service serving in Equatorial Guinea, Brazil and Damascus, and after some problems to Trieste (Austria-Hungary) a post which required little work enabling him to write and travel. He was knighted in 1996 and when his travel books were not well received he then made his contributions to the Karma Shastra Society. Much of his work was scandalous and pro Muslim rather pro Jewish and which led claims and counter claims, He died at Trieste in 1890. After his death his wife burned many of his papers to protect his reputation, and action which some subsequently criticised her. Her actions does not surprise given his openness about his interests and reputation for aggressiveness, his drinking, drug taking and general love of shocking people. It could be argue that his placement by the government in a non job in Trieste for twenty years was a splendid way for the British government to try a sideline a problem individual who had become well established in the public eye.

My own interest in Africa and with Missionary work was fired up b the visit of a missionary priest to the John Fisher School which everyone attended around 1953/1954 and led to my requesting to study Latin which had been dropped when I dropped from the A stream to the B for the fifth form year as he had emphasised that before one could go adventuring saving souls, one had to go to university and to study Latin

After all this seriousness I ended my day starting to write by playing chess against the computer, and having some soup at six on return for them match, and then burning to a nice crisp surface a small shoulder of minted lamb with I eat with a glass of red wine, coca cola and a large glass of orange juice, but without vegetables, followed by a small custard tart and strong coffee without sugar. During this I enjoyed the first colour version of The 39 Steps with Kenneth Moore, although the film is inferior to the 1935 Hitchcock Black and White film, subsequently re-shown in a London Theatre (was it the 1980's or 1990's) and which is regarded as one of the great films of British Cinema, but I also liked the 1978 Robert Powell starring edition with John Mills, Timothy West, Eric Porter and David Warner and which is the most faithful to the John Buchan Book.

Yesterday I then became fully engaged with this week's Lewis which was another brilliantly crafted work which takes the relationship between Lewis and his Sergeant to a new and higher level. My only reservation is that as with the villages of Mid Summer's Murders, Oxford is becoming a very dangerous city as the body count from Morse and Lewis accumulates. The episodes concerns four connected deaths by someone who has disappeared and may have committed suicide. However the main focus is with the past of the Sergeant and his knowledge and involvement with those who perish and which brings him into the line of fire with spectacular consequences.

1786 New Tricks

I believe the sixth episode of the sixth series of new Tricks is the last. I could probably find out if this is so before completing these notes, but I am confident that that not just the present series of six episodes has been rounded to a nice end, but the entire project. The concept was at the outset a great one, the solving of crimes which have lain unsolved in police station around the UK or which come to the attention because of a contemporary event . Instead of creating a new team of bright young things full of courage and passion you bring together three retired individualists from the police force, reflecting the changes in policing attitudes and behaviour since the 1950’s. And more over you bring together three outstanding, familiar and much love TV actors. who have also performed in distributed films and on the theatrical stage. You also commission other well known talented actors to participate in the self contained episodes and you have all the ingredients of something that will stand the test of time. The six series may not be of the ranking of Morse, or Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister but they are close to them and will be shown repeatedly on the different channels for generations to come.

I begin with James Bolam because he is my favourite of the three old codgers who comprise the Unsolved Crimes Team U.C.O.S headed by Angela Redman as a semi independent unit in a constantly battle to tackle historical crimes which interest then versus those senior officialdom wants sorted.

James Bolam has played a major part throughout my TV watching life and is special in addition to his work for being a local lad from Sunderland, born a year before me which makes him 71. While he appeared in such shows as Z Cars and films such as The Loneliness of the Long Distance runner and A Kind of Loving, it was the series the Likely Lads, a Jack the lad with the ultra serious Rodney Bewes 1964-to 1966 and then the follow up series in 1973 and 1974 which brought him to public attention.

For me it was the series When the Boat comes In, produced first in 1976, soon after my arrival in the North East, and which ran for 5 years which suggested that that James would graduate beyond the likeable rogue with a natural sense of humour who could be given scripts full of intelligent wit.

When the boat comes also starred Susan Jameson who was or became Bola’s wife and she too features in New Tricks as the wife of one of the trio, played by Alun Armstrong who has worked with James throughout his career. In When the Boat comes in a third major actor which I will mention now in case the opportunity o do so again does not arise, is the late Edward Wilson.

Edward plays Bill the Brothers of Susan in When the Boat comes In, part of the Seaton Family around which the series is built. Edward was born in South Shields and became the renowned Director of the National Youth Theatre for sixteen years until 2003. Left to take up a similar post in California, persuaded by Michael York who was a graduate of the N.Y.T. Sadly Edward developed and died from cancer at the comparative young age of sixty one. As with Susan he also appeared in an episode or two of the Likely lads.

The role which David Bolam played in When the Boat Comes in remains an important one for depicting with considerable accuracy the rise to power and a middle class of young ambitious young men from the North East and Tyneside before between the two World Wars who also possessed a strong working class social conscious. In the instance of Jack Ford, he survived World War 1 and became a major trade union figure political figure with he Labour movement who then goes into business for himself, goes to the U.S.A and to London. However he retains his knowledge and identification with the underdogs of his roots and dies not at Dunkirk or a Far East prisoner of War camp, but fighting the fascists on behalf of the Left in Spain. The series which is available on both DVD and Tape should be view before Our Friends in the North which covers the dark years of the fifties to seventies, also on DVD and Tape and followed by the Film Get Carter. There is a fourth chapter of the story yet to be written

James then starred with Barbara Flynn in the series I love the most, The Beiderbeck Affair, the Beiderbecke Tapes and the Beiderbecke Connection 1986-1988, off beat comedy adventure mystery series involving two teachers working in Leeds, He also appeared in two major characterizations, as Harold Wilson, in the Plot against the former Prime Minister and the murderer, Harold Shipman

In New tricks he plays Ex Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Halford, a widower whose wife was killed in a hit and run by a local psychopathic gangster played by Patrick Troughton, Rickey Hansen. The gangster confesses this to Jack at the end of the third series. Jack then attempts to murder Hansen but is stopped by his colleagues and then Hansen tries to murder Jack. In the last series the team have sufficient evidence to prosecute Hansen for murder and in the process of the investigation uses his son who in an early series discovered that it was his father who had him sent to prison which the father had committee because he lusted after the son’s girl friend. In this episode it is the son who eventually provides the information which brings his father down when he learns that father had slept with his illegitimate daughter and he therefore with his sister, although both were in ignorance at he time. His father had discovered the truth that the girl was he daughter of a stripper he had known and since the discovery career criminal had been financing the life of the girl abroad. The financially supporting the girl was not from concern or guilt but simple self protection, just as the informant which the third member of the trio, played by Denis waterman had used throughout his career was able to survive because he had information about the relationship safely stored which kept him alive

Dennis Waterman plays Ex detective Gerry Standing, a ladies man with three ex wives and several children with whom he meets from time to time for a meal, drink and a laugh. He is an old school copper who still thinks funny jokes against women and mother in laws or which are racist that as the one told in the last episodes of the man from Pakistan who says to his neighbour I am better off that you because I dont live next door to a Paki. The significance of this plays a major part in bringing the career criminal to justice through an existing member of the force coming up to retirement who is also of old school but straight, who fraternised with the criminals and at a throw back comedian who continue to practice their perverted craft on the Spanish Costa’s to this day.

Born in Clapham, South London, Dennis became a child star but it was into TV series which brought him national Stardom, The Detective series, The Sweeney in which he starred with John Thaw and, Minder in which he starred with George Cole. He also had a major role in the film Up the Junction and in several Plays for Today including two by Dennis Potter. It was during the 1980 that he appeared with Angela Redman with whom is recorded he had an affair which lasted close on two years.

I mention this because as with the character in the series Denis has been married three times for 9,10 and 11 years. He had two daughters by his second wife, one of whom also appeared in an episode of New Tricks, as someone who believes she is daughter but where a par entity tests reveals that she is not, but nevertheless Dennis tells her that she is. His third wife is the actress Rula Lenska. She was also part of a trio, in the famous series the Rock Follies in the mid 1970’s with Dont Cry for Me Argentina Julie Covington and Charlotte Cornwall, the half sister of John Le Carre. The marriage between “ Cockney “playing Dennis Polish Countess Rula was a stormy one of great interest to tabloid Readers. Of particular interest to me is that her father a Major, was in charge of the Polish mission to Gibraltar in World War 2, from where he was responsible for sending Radio Fee Poland. Rula is English born.

In this last episode it is the activities of Dennis which leads to not only to uncovering what happened to two antifascists activists but to the situation where the son is prepared to give evidence that he was in the car which his father drove mowing down the fictional wife of James Bolam.

The third member of the trio is Brian played by Alun Armstrong also an actor born in the North East, A Durham man from Annfield Plain, Stanley from where he attended the Grammar School at Consett. He is younger of the trio born after the war in 1946. He has had the greater dramatic career, performing with the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and in a starring role in Les Miserables as well as some forty TV shows. series and Films. He has been nominated for he Laurence Oliver acting award half a dozen times which he won in 1994. He played the character based on the Life of T Dam Smith in Our Friends in the North and Get Carter, and he also appeared with James Bolam in the Likely lads as well as the original production of Get Lost with James Bolam which inspired the Beiderbecke series.

In New Tricks, Alun has played Ex detective Inspector Brian Lane and Obsessive compulsive personality disorder recovering alcoholic, who has instant recall and a mind which digests considerable quantities of detail but is then able to see patterns and connections which others do not. He is forever getting in trouble with extremely poor social skills and his long suffering wife nearly gives up from time to time on managing him. It will be evident that I considerable sympathy with predicament of the character played by Brian

The team si led by Angela Redman from Brighton Sussex, the youngster at 52 and has only come to national attention during the past decade. She is Principal and co founder of the Artists Theatre School and one of her interests is the creation of work opportunities for the older female actor.

The career villain of the series is played by David Troughton, the son of Dr Who Patrick Troughton and I have been watching his son play cricket for Warwickshire over the past three day.

Among the other names who have appeared in the series are Jenny Agutter. Jane Asher, Stephanie Beacham, Honor Blackman, Isla Blair, Claire Bloom, Richard Briars, George Cole, Frances Le Tour, Hugh Fraser. John Fortune, James Fox, Roy Hudd, Cherie Lunghi Patrick Malahide, Bill Moody, Nadia Sawalha, John Sessions, Eric Sykes, Timothy West and June Whitfield, indicating eh influence of Angela Redman me thinks. The theme Tune- Its alright - is sung by Dennis who ahs had some success as a singer. The series is being shown internationally.