Trivial Fact of the Day features Prunella Scales and Vera Menchik

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I'm listening to an edition of Gyles Brandreth's Rosebud podcast in which he talks to the actor Samuel West. It was recorded a couple of weeks before the death of West's mother Prunella Scales and so far he has talked mostly about her and his late father, Timothy West.

But there is one story he has not told about his mother...

Vera Menchik was born in Moscow, to an English mother and Czech father, in 1906. She began playing chess competitively just before the family came to live in London in 1921.

She was to become the strongest woman chess player in the world, holding the women's world title between 1927 and 1944. She regularly competed, and with some success, against the top men players of her day. There was not another woman player who did that regularly until Judit Polgár in the 1990s.

Vera Menchik died in 1945 when her house in Clapham was hit by a German V1 flying bomb.

And what does all this have to do with Prunella Scales?

Vera Menchik's great grandfather was a man called George Illingworth. And his brother John Thomas Illingworth was the great grandfather of Prunella Scales. Which makes the two women third cousins.

Thanks to Richard James for putting me on to a thread on the English Chess Forum.

Prunella Scales in Hobson's Choice (1952)

Prunella Scales died yesterday at the age of 93. We all remember her as Sybil Fawlty, and in his DVD commentaries on the series, John Cleese (who was 86 today) recalls that she brought much to the role that he and Connie Booth had not imagined. Fawlty Towers was the better for it.

But there was more to Prunella Scales than Fawlty Towers. She was Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution and played Queen Victoria in a one-woman show for many years. There were other successful television sitcoms and a surprising number of films.

The second of these was Hobson's Choice in 1954. You can see a clip from it above – Scales plays the youngest of Charles Laughton's three daughters. Don't worry: the film is all about Laughton getting his comeuppance.

Two weeks ago I posted a clip of Patricia Routledge, who died earlier this month, playing the eldest of the sisters in 1962.

GUEST POST The state of our canals - and canalside pubs - today

Fresh from a canal holiday made difficult by unannounced closures, Peter Chambers looks at the many challenges facing the Canal & River Trust.

The British have been using waterways for a long time: we are told that the canal called the Fossdyke was created by the Romans. 

Things started to get busier as entrepreneurs such as the Duke of Bridgewater and Josiah Wedgewood raised capital for specific ventures that would pay for something that by-passed the toll roads of the day – iron mining and pottery in their cases. 

This was the start of the first Industrial Revolution in the 1700s. Once these connections existed, the marginal cost for other uses dropped and more firms used them. The logic of places such as Birmingham became evident, as you were taught in O level Geography. The more you link, the more profitable it is to link more.

At the time. each new major canal required an Act of Parliament. Limited liability companies solicited funds, and shopped around for an MP to propose another Canal Bill. The canal age had started. The emergent network was a strange one. Different fees, widths, depths, keys, windlasses, heights and naming conventions. It topped out at about 8000 miles. Today we have the best 2000 in preservation.

The canals survived into the 20th century. They played a part in winning the two world wars, helped by a big public works programme run by Herbert Morrison in the 1930s.

Then reality caught up. The combination of the post-war car economy and the railways removed most of the profitable trade. The network was taken into public ownership under the British Transport Board. The canal network was put under the British Waterways Board (BWB). Even today there are artefacts stamped BWB. 

The Department of Transport debated the future of the waterways with its boards. However, despite attempts at running high-latency cargo, leisure was the only viable long term use identified. The BWB settled in for a long stretch running a national ‘linear leisure park’. 

During this time a large number of restoration societies restored hundreds of additional miles to use. They then handed over the restored mileage to the BWB, often during ceremonies involving the Queen. Or Prunella Scales.

This led to a happy time for many people. The canals had been built by thirsty 'navvies' for whom real-ale pubs had been constructed. These pubs were retained for the thirsty boatmen who worked the boats during and after the first Industrial Revolution. 

Generally, blond continental beer was kept away from key waterway junctions for decades. Additional supplies of real ale could be supplied by breweries such as Wadsworth's at Devizes on the Kennett and Avon Canal, which operates today and runs tours ending in a small shop only a short walk from the Caen Hill flight of locks.

The restoration effort even benefited from additional charitable funds from the National Lottery. An umbrella body – The Waterways Trust – was formed in 1999 to use charity funds to open new facilities and attract new interest and spending to the waterways. 

Restorers entered a peak activity phase, linking up old routes, and pushing into Wales with the Montgomery Canal past Offa’s Dyke. The "Monty", as it is known, is only a few miles away from the award-winning real-ale pub The Bailey Head in Oswestry (dogs welcome). 

It is probably best to moor outside the Queen’s Head (closed on Mondays) and make your way into town. Alternatively you can cross the border near Chirk and press on to Llangollen, with its excellent hostelries. Ideally do both.

Time, however, moved on. In 2012, during the time Justine Greening was transport secretary, all of British Waterways responsibilities and assets in England and Wales were transferred to a new charity, the Canal & River Trust (CRT). This had the advantage of removing the liabilities of the waterways from the books of the government. 

The CRT was endowed with the assets of the BWB. It was also intended that it would receive tapered funding from the state. It would continue to provide a public benefit, but would increasingly stand on its own thousand feet. One day licence fees and other charges would have to rise, and the ageing physical infrastructure of the endowment would require gradually increasing maintenance charges. 

The restored plant of the waterways had been stabilised, but no programme of replacement or upgrade was baked into the system. There would be no refresh, only an endless set of repair patches, done in priority order. The staff and facilities of the BWB started to age out. After a while the maintenance capability became increasingly contractorised.

Following the Covid pandemic, many old canalside pubs closed. They lacked the financial 'bottom' of large chains, and often served distinct local clienteles. A victory for continental lager seemed certain,, with blond 'craft beer' often substituted to tempt the unwary.

In 2025 there exist many unplanned remedial works that will consume millions in unbudgeted funds. This will mean that planned work to partly remediate the effects the pandemic will not happen, and the deficit of the CRT will rise above £10m. A general review of fees is promised, with all up for grabs – widebeam fee increases, loss of green initiatives, possible closures.

In addition to the effects of long-postponed asset failures, the long-term effects of climate change are making themselves felt. Several waterways this year have restrictions or stoppages due to low water conditions. The Pennines are all but closed. The Macclesfield is in doubt. The Rochdale looks rather dry. The Trent is low, but usable. When planning journeys in these areas, the bleating of the fossil-fuel shills sound particularly self-serving.

Finally, I could mention the pollution levels and the water companies. It is enough to say that you should wash your hands every time you go indoors afloat. I mean it.

Peter Chambers is a Liberal Democrat member from Hampshire.

Prunella Scales and David Hemmings in The Lord of the Rings

Many of us have given over several years of our lives to watching Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. And older readers may remember the 1978 cartoon (was it any good? - I never saw it) or BBC Radio 4's distinguished dramatisation of 1981.

What I didn't know until the other evening is that the trilogy was first dramatised by BBC Radio as early as 1955 - apparently Tolkien himself was not keen on the production.

The Tolkien Gateway has a page about this adaptation and gives much of the cast list. It includes some reliable BBC names of the period - Valentine Dyall, Norman Shelley - but also a couple of surprises.

Ioreth ("a woman of Gondor") was played by the future Sybil Fawlty - Prunella Scales. By then Scales was 23 and had already appeared in several films.

Bergil (the young son of Bergond of Gondor) was played by David Hemmings. Hemmings had already become well known as the original Miles in Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw, but had appeared in only one film by 1955, when he would have been aged 14. He was later to become one of the iconic figures of 1960s cinema.

Wikipedia suggests that no tapes of the 1955 production survive.

Geraldine McEwan is no longer Miss Marple

But then, as far as I am concerned, she never was. Joan Hickson will always be Miss Marple.

The Guardian reports the story thus:

The hunt is on for a new Miss Marple after actress Geraldine McEwan announced her retirement from the role today.

McEwan has played Agatha Christie's heroine sleuth Jane Marple since ITV1 brought her back in 2003 and starred in the role in 12 TV films. 

ITV and Marple rights owner Chorion will begin the process of finding a new Miss Marple next week. 

Candidates for McEwan's replacement are thought to include Victoria Wood, Julie Walters, Prunella Scales, Anna Massey and Eileen Atkins.

My vote would be for Prunella Scales - who made a more convincing Queen Victoria than Judi Dench did - and above all not for Victoria Wood or Julie Walters, much as I admire the former at least.

Returning to the McEwan vs Hickson question, let me quote something I wrote a couple of years ago:

I have been trying to work out why I believe Joan Hickson was a much better Miss Marple than Geraldine McEwan. 

In part it is the two performances. McEwan is visibly acting the whole time - all those little smiles and grimaces - whereas Hickson hardly seemed to be acting at all. Outwardly she was all stillness, yet she managed to convey the underlying intelligence and the core of moral steel which brought murderers to justice. 

And in part it is the people around them. With some of them now over 20 years old, the Hickson Miss Marples are beginning to look like a late manifestation of the mid-century Britain in which they were set. Such figures as Joan Greenwood and George Baker appear in the cast list; one of the films was even directed by Roy Boulting. 

McEwan, by contrast, has to put up with the company of people like Dawn French and Harry Enfield. It's a prejudice of mine, but was there ever a more self-regarding and overrated generation than that which came to prominence in the 1980s? And even if you like these figures, their profile is such that they are always bigger than the characters they play.

That last point explains why I would not like to see Victoria Wood or Julie Walters playing Miss Marple. But they could perhaps play that underexploited Christie character Ariadne Oliver.

Sybil the Downing Street cat

All power to the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, for bringing back a feline presence to the heart of government. The best news report is in the Independent:

The Darlings have brought Sybil, named after the character played by Prunella Scales in Fawlty Towers, from their Edinburgh home to live in their flat above 10 Downing Street. It is understood that the Darlings will be footing the bill for the Government's newest recruit. Sybil will be given privileged access to the heart of government to help fulfil her task of keeping the building free of vermin. Gordon Brown's spokesman explained: "It's quite difficult to confine cats. The Prime Minister doesn't have a problem with it. Sarah Brown doesn't have a problem with it." Until the Blairs arrived in Downing Street, there had been a long tradition of cats prowling the residence.

And the best pictures are in the Guardian.

Summer of British Film: Costume drama

This week's leg of the marathon takes us into costume drama. So a few random notes follow.

I liked Billy Connolly in Mrs Brown, but I have never understood why Judi Dench is rated so highly. I have seen a television programme about Prunella Scales's one-woman show on Queen Victoria and found her take on the old girl far more convincing. And remember: my family knows a thing or two about Queen Victoria and Balmoral.

I have not seen a Ken Russell film from the last 25 years that is not a howling mess. Even so The Rainbow is the film from this week I shall tape. Not so much because I did it for A level as for old times' sake: it is the prequel to Women in Love - a film from Russell's glory days.

And it does have both Dudley Sutton and David Hemmings. The latter said of this period in his career: "People thought I was dead, but I was just directing The A Team."

A Cock and Bull Story is a riotous take on the unfilmable novel Tristram Shandy. As Rob Brydon outshines Steve Coogan you can sense the baton of comedic superstardom being passed on.

The first 20 minutes of Carry On Henry are among the very funniest in the whole series. Sid James was born to play Henry VIII. And don't miss Barbara Windsor's exclamation of "Ooh, your Eminence" as she brushes past Terry Scott as Cardinal Wolsey.

But the film of the week has to be A Night to Remember. Moving, economical, understated, British... it is everything that Titanic was not. Kenneth More become, er, more insufferable every time I see one of his films, but I can tolerate him in this.

Two moments stay in the memory.

As the passengers are being sent off in the lifeboats, a group of telegraph boys go up to a senior office and say something like "What about us, sir? What shall we do?" He finds a pretext to tell one of them off, and you never see them again.

And later on, when the ship is about to go down, and old man finds a young child wandering lost along one of the corridors. "You come with me," he says, and takes the child's hand.

A Night to Remember is on BBC2 at 12.40 p.m. on Tuesday 21 August.