David Hemmings film of David Bowie concert tour to be seen at last

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Here's some good news from the Guardian. David Hemmings' film of David Bowie’s 1978 Isolar II tour will be seen next year, thanks to the present-day director Brett Morgen’s painstaking remastering of the footage.

As the paper explains: 

Bowie intended for the footage to be released as a concert film that could, according to his associates, play in nontraditional venues such as concert venues in lieu of him touring himself. After the Isolar II tour, Bowie would not tour again until the 1983 Serious Moonlight run.

But the always fast-evolving musician soon became busy with other projects: recording and releasing Lodger, working with John Cale on music that was never released and Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).

While an acclaimed live album of the tour, Stage (recorded at US dates that spring), was released in autumn 1978, the footage never saw the light of day. 

"I simply didn't like the way it had been shot," Bowie said in 2000. "Now, of course, it looks pretty good and I would suspect that it would make it out some time in the future."

The photo above shows Hemmings on the set of Just a Gigolo with Kim Novak, Maria Schell and Bowie. This film proved a notorious flop and more or less put an end to his promising career as a director for the big screen.

As Hemmings later said of the Eighties: "People thought I was dead, but I was just directing The A-Team."

What we want now is to see his all-but-lost first film Running Scared (1972), which was shot largely on the Grand Union Canal at Braunston in Northamptonshire.

Oxford to Market Harborough by water in 1950

Another transport video that I've posted before and is overdue a repeat.

This colour film shows a journey from Oxford to the National Festival and Rally of Boats held at Market Harborough held at 1950. 

Enjoy footage of the old railway swing bridge over the canal at Oxford and then the canal through city, with the campanile of St Barnabas easily recognisable. 

Then it is on to some some broad locks that must be on the Grand Union somewhere near Braunston. This part of the film is then repeated, but no one will mind, I am sure.

After that it is on to Watford locks, Foxton locks and the canal basin here in Market Harborough.

Braunston Historic Narrowboat Rally, June 2023

Here's some canal goodness: last summer's Braunston Historic Narrowboat Rally.

I was at Braunston the day before the rally took place and chatted to the people on board Raymond, who must be the people who made this video.

One of the last commercial cargoes to be carried on the Grand Union Canal was coal from Atherstone to the Kearley & Tonge jam factory at Southall in Middlesex. I was told at Braunston that this run ended in 1969, though the Friends of Raymond website dates the end to 1970.

Whichever is correct, I have a clear memory of Raymond coming through Boxmoor and, in particular, of the important thump thump thump of the diesel engine of Nutfield, the boat that towed her. On a misty day you would hear it long before you saw the boats coming.

Below is a still showing Nutfield and Raymond from the 1967 children's television series Flower of Gloster.

A report from the shooting of Running Scared at Braunston in 1971

Running Scared, David Hemmings' first film as a director, did not receive a general release. The consensus at the time seems to have been that it was too consciously arty for a popular audience, with Hemmings heavily influenced by Antonioni, who had directed him in Blow-Up.

This report from the making of the film appeared in the Coventry Evening Telegraph on 23 July 1971:

Hustle and bustle replace the quiet of a Rugby village. All of a sudden it is a hive of activity as strangers with sinister-looking equipment mingle with the locals.

Braunston has become the focal point of a film crew's activities. The international star David Hemmings is directing his first picture, a thriller called "Running Seared." and the canal (above) at Braunston is one of its principal locations. 

Hemmings is pictured left having a word with the actor Robert Powell who plays a leading role. Powell is better known for his role as Tobias Wren in the television series "Doomwatch." 

Chosen to double for Powell during the making of the film is Robert Smee of Braunston. They are pictured together below. 

In the bottom picture, the camera crew prepare for another take - and so the demanding business of making a movie goes on.

I have borrowed one of the photos mentioned: it shows David Hemmings and Robert Powell. You will see that Hemmings still favours white jeans some years after Blow-Up.

Among the family photographs I have inherited are some of a canal holiday from the summer of 1971, when we passed through Braunston. I must have a careful look at them.

Stage: The lost David Bowie film directed by David Hemmings

Wandering around Braunston a couple of weeks ago, I thought of Running Scared, the lost David Hemmings film that was shot there.

Released in 1972, that was his first film as director, But there was another Hemmings project from the Seventies that is never seen.

The Bowie Bible explains:

The London concerts were also filmed, and were to be part of Stage, a planned 90-minute documentary on Bowie’s Isolar II tour. Bowie and director David Hemmings hoped to have the film in cinemas later in 1978, but it was still unfinished in early 1979. ...

According to Hemmings, "At the end of it he didn’t like the cut, or he didn’t like the fact that we had to cut in between numbers in order to get all the coverage. So he never released it."

In 2000 Bowie said of the film: "I simply didn’t like the way it had been shot. Now, of course, it looks pretty good and I would suspect that it would make it out some time in the future."

This documentary includes some of the concert footage Hemmings shot as well as clips of interviews with both Hemmings and Bowie.

Jane Street-Porter can be seen dancing in the club scene in Blow-Up. Hemmings must have thought she was stalking hem.

Charles Dickens calls at The Admiral Nelson, Braunston

The Admiral Nelson at Braunston was kept for a time in the 19th century by George Adams Dickens, who was a cousin of Charles Dickens.

He was once visited unexpectedly there by the great novelist, who was travelling from London to Birmingham by canal.

Which may explain why, in The Old Curiosity Shop, Little Nell and her grandfather travel by canal for a short stretch of their flight into Shropshire:

A confused sound of voices, mingling with her dreams, awoke her. A man of very uncouth and rough appearance was standing over them, and two of his companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat which had come close to the bank while they were sleeping. The boat had neither oar nor sail, but was towed by a couple of horses, who, with the rope to which they were harnessed slack and dripping in the water, were resting on the path.

‘Holloa!’ said the man roughly. ‘What’s the matter here?’

‘We were only asleep, Sir,’ said Nell. ‘We have been walking all night.’

‘A pair of queer travellers to be walking all night,’ observed the man who had first accosted them. ‘One of you is a trifle too old for that sort of work, and the other a trifle too young. Where are you going?’

Nell faltered, and pointed at hazard towards the West, upon which the man inquired if she meant a certain town which he named. Nell, to avoid more questioning, said ‘Yes, that was the place.’

‘Where have you come from?’ was the next question; and this being an easier one to answer, Nell mentioned the name of the village in which their friend the schoolmaster dwelt, as being less likely to be known to the men or to provoke further inquiry.

‘I thought somebody had been robbing and ill-using you, might be,’ said the man. ‘That’s all. Good day.’

Returning his salute and feeling greatly relieved by his departure, Nell looked after him as he mounted one of the horses, and the boat went on. It had not gone very far, when it stopped again, and she saw the men beckoning to her.

‘Did you call to me?’ said Nell, running up to them.

‘You may go with us if you like,’ replied one of those in the boat. ‘We’re going to the same place.’

The child hesitated for a moment. Thinking, as she had thought with great trepidation more than once before, that the men whom she had seen with her grandfather might, perhaps, in their eagerness for the booty, follow them, and regaining their influence over him, set hers at nought; and that if they went with these men, all traces of them must surely be lost at that spot; determined to accept the offer. The boat came close to the bank again, and before she had had any more time for consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, and gliding smoothly down the canal.

The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes shaded by trees, and sometimes open to a wide extent of country, intersected by running streams, and rich with wooded hills, cultivated land, and sheltered farms. Now and then, a village with its modest spire, thatched roofs, and gable-ends, would peep out from among the trees; and, more than once, a distant town, with great church towers looming through its smoke, and high factories or workshops rising above the mass of houses, would come in view, and, by the length of time it lingered in the distance, show them how slowly they travelled. Their way lay, for the most part, through the low grounds, and open plains; and except these distant places, and occasionally some men working in the fields, or lounging on the bridges under which they passed, to see them creep along, nothing encroached on their monotonous and secluded track.

The Old Curiosity Shop is one of the books I read at my mother's bedside in her last weeks.

It's probably best know today for containing the death of Little Nell and in particular for Oscar Wilde's remark that it would take a heart of stone not to laugh, though whether Wilde ever said it is open to debate.

But the novel is full of good things, such as the young buck Dick Swiveller, who owes money to so many people that he has to cross London by circuitous routes to avoid meeting them:

"I enter in this little book the names of the streets that I can't go down while the shops are open. This dinner today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen Street last week, and made that no throughfare too. There's only one avenue to the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every direction, that in a month’s time, unless my aunt sends me a remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get over the way."

The Admiral Nelson at Braunston was originally a farm building, but began to serve beer to the navvies building the canal. Later it became a boatmen's pub and today it caters for leisure boaters and people like me who just fancied a walk along the canal.

Braunston: the centre of England's inland waterways

Its position close to the junction of the Grand Union and Oxford Canals has always given Braunston a strong claim to be the centre of England's inland waterways.

I visited it several times on family canal holidays between 1966 and 1971, but until last week I'd been back only once since.

Here some of the photos I took last Friday. I arrived on the first day of a festival of vintage canal boats, so there was plenty see.

Raymond was one of the last working boats on the Grand Union and I remember the thump-thump of its and engine as it passed through Boxmoor when I was a boy.

One day I shall dig out some family photos of the canal at Braunston more than 50 years ago.

William Trevor's wood carving in All Saints' Church, Braunston

In 1956, an award-winning young Irish sculptor and art teacher, William Trevor Cox, living in Braunston was commissioned to produce several pieces in wood for the village church.

These was a lectern and, for a side chapel, two relief panels and a crucifix, candlesticks and vases.

Some years later, after working in advertising, he turned his hand to writing and, under the name William Trevor, became a celebrated novelist and writer of short stories.

In Braunston last week, I called in at All Saints' to see his work.

There was building work going on in the side chapel and the sun streaming in through the windows made photographing the lectern difficult, but this is what I came away with.

I didn't see the vases or relief panels, but then I didn't know the latter were there and so was not looking for them.

I was introduced to William Trevor's work by an edition of Frank Delaney's Radio 4 programme Bookshelf. He was a wonderful writer.

A walk round the village of Braunston

Braunston is famous as one of the centres of the canal system, but there's much to enjoy in the village itself.

We'll have to look inside All Saints church one day to see some wood carving by an unexpected hand.

The old windmill did teas in its garden last time we passed through on a family canal holiday, but as that was at least 52 years ago, I was prepared for things to have changed.

It was also at least 52 years ago that I suggested to my mother that Nibbit was a famous local rabbit after whom the had been named. 

Rutland shows how keyworkers were housed in 1951

I've been to the canal centre of Braunston in Northamptonshire today by bus. I tried it last summer at the height of the driver shortage and had to abandon the attempt when one service was cancelled. Earlier this week I looked at the timetables again and found that Braunston now enjoys an hourly service from Northampton, so off I went.

It's a lovely village and, as there is really of historic narrow boats this weekend, there was even more to photograph than usual on the canal. I have good memories of Braunston more than 50 years ago and some family snaps to go with them, so they will probably turn up here too.

And I found a tin tabernacle and connections with two of my favourite writers, so there will be plenty to blog about.

But for today, let's return to Oakham and two pairs of substantial semi-detached houses I came across last Friday. As the badge shows, they were provided to officers in the Rutland force.

You get the feeling that constables were expected to be fat and jolly with lots of children in those days. I met one of the last of that breed when I took part in a (very good humoured) demonstration against opencast coal mining in what is now Andrew Bridgen country at the end of the last century.

He accompanied us on our march (it was more of a ramble, to be honest) and his advice before we set off was: "If you start any trouble, just run. I'll never catch you."

And when a local councillor was invited to say "a few words", he treated us to a loud aside: "If she does say a few words, it'll be the first time."

Now that's what I call community policing, though it was exceeded by the PC (a friend of our victorious candidate) who took it upon himself to ring Tony Greaves with the result of a local by-election because he had decided we were all too drunk from celebrating.

One of the three great British canal films is missing

How I want to see David Hemmings' first film as a director! 

It's called Running Scared, stars Robert Powell, was shot on the Grand Union Canal at Braunston in Northamptonshire and released in 1972.

An article on the Braunston Marina site says it:

sits neatly at the end of the three great movies made of the canals - Painted Boats in 1944 and The Bargee in 1962, all recording the working canals in their final days.

And as for the ending:

It is followed by Tom going berserk and finally killing himself by crashing his sports car over the A45 bridge and into the canal at Braunston. The dramatic death is of Wagnerian operatic proportions with the car amazingly bursting into flames in the canal. 

Like something out of the end of Wagner’s Gotterdamerung, Tom is immolated in the process, as on cue, the sun sinks golden into the western sky. 

Ellen somehow witnesses this suicide, standing not far away on Braunston’s answer to the Rhine’s Lorelei Rock, the surviving stump of the 1934 canal wall on the non-towpath side.

I'd pay to see that! 

But I almost certainly won't be able to, because no one seems to know who owns the film - it's three co-producers are all dead.

Braunston Cinema Club once managed to locate a print and showed it in the village hall, but they were advised not to produce a DVD or even stills. And it took them 600 emails to find it.

So I'll have to make do with a short film report on David Hemmings shooting a scene in nearby Daventry.

One day I'll visit Braunston, if only to see how it's changed since our family canal holidays in the 1960s.

And when I do, I shall call in at the church to see the lectern and screen that were carved by the Irish novelist William Trevor before he took up writing,

William Trevor at Braunston

The canal and church at Braunston © Chris Downer

I was sorry to hear of the death of William Trevor yesterday - I have read many of his superb novels and short stories over the years.

As the late Peter Porter's Guardian obituary of him says, at one time the latter were the sources of many of the best single plays on television.

That obituary also revealed something intriguing about Trevor. I knew he had been a sculptor before he was a writer, but it turns out that the the carved lectern and screen at All Saints, Braunston, are entirely his work.

I know this Northamptonshire village from childhood canal holidays and will go back to see William Trevor's work one day.

The Friends of Raymond

No, it's not a euphemism.

In the brief middle-class period of my childhood I had a bedroom that overlooked the canal in Boxmoor. And one of my strongest memories of those days - it can only date from 1969 and 1970 - is the Fellows, Morton & Clayton narrowboats that still carried cargo along the Grand Union. I now know that they were bringing coal from Leicestershire mines in the Ashby Canal down to London.

The first sign that they were coming was the thump thump thump of their diesel engines, which was could be heard well before they emerged from the mist. And the boat that I remember most of all is Raymond. I last saw her moored up at Braunston in the late 1970s.

You can read the boat's history on a website devoted to her:

Raymond was launched in 1958 and was mainly used to carry coal from the Midlands to London. She was initially towed by the motor Roger and later by Nutfield.

Throughout their working life they were operated by Arthur and Rose Bray and her son Ernie Kendal.

One of the more famous jobs was carrying coal from Atherstone to the Kearley & Tonge jam factory at Southall, known as the "Jam 'Ole Run".

Trade ceased in 1970 but the Brays continued to live aboard until, in 1980, they sold Raymond to Jim & Doris Collins who lived aboard until 1993. She was then taken to Runcorn where it was expected that she would be restored. However, she fell further into disrepair and sank.

But that was not the end of the story:

In 1996 she was acquired by the "Friends of Raymond" and in April 1997 was refloated and towed to the Black Country Living Museum at Dudley where decisions could be better made about how to proceed with the restoration.

As the Friends of Raymond website says:

By December 1999 (less than two years later) restoration work was under way and by the start of July 2000 Raymond was back in Braunston and moored just a few yards from where she had been built in 1958.

You can find out more about the boat and join the Friends of Raymond on its website.