The link between Normal People and Malcolm Saville

Normal People, I read, has become BBC Three's biggest hit to date, with more than 23 million downloads globally.

I also read that the show has been dubbed "the raunchiest ever BBC show" because of the 41 minutes of sex scenes scattered through its six hours.

These facts may not be unconnected.

Normal People, a novel by Sally Rooney, was adapted for the screen by Alice Birch.

Alice Birch also wrote the play The Lone Pine Club, which was an affectionate homage to the books by Malcolm Saville.

I travelled to Sheringham to see it and then reviewed it on this blog. If it had been raunchy I feel sure I would have mentioned the fact.

Alan Smethurst: the singing postman from Norfolk

Literary Norfolk tells the sad story of Alan Smethurst, the singing postman:

Allan Smethurst (aka The Singing Postman) was born in Bury in Lancashire on November 18th, 1927 - but at the age of two his family moved to Sheringham in North Norfolk. They lived at 48, Cliff Road and the town would later feature in one of his lyrics: 'I am a Shannock, I wor a Shannock'. 

Smethurst's mother was originally from Stiffkey and so he was exposed to the Norfolk accent from birth. He also spent many childhood holidays in the village and could vividly recall the burying there of Rev Harold Davidson (the prostitute's padre) in 1937. 

It wasn't until he was 21 that he taught himself to play the guitar - inspired by the likes of Jimmie Rodgers, George Formby and Frank Crummit; his stage name was actually inspired by Rodgers' the 'Singing Brakeman'. 

Smethurst sent a demo tape to Ralph Tuck who compered a regional radio programme called 'Wednesday Morning' and soon after Tuck set up his own recording company and produced Smethurst's first record - which appeared in 1964. 

Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy? rose to number 7 in the national charts and for a brief period the Singing Postman was outselling both The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

But it didn't last. Smethurst was crippled with stage fright, turned to drink and spent his last years in a Salvation Army hostel in Grimsby. He died in 2000.

This video features some of his songs and some nice shots of East Anglia 50 years ago. But as it has him doing a postal round in Suffolk, it is obviously heavily staged.

The Lone Pine Club play reviewed

For an hour on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Norfolk I recaptured my childhood  - or at least a treasured part of it.

There was a time when I refused to read anything but Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine books, and this summer the Pentabus Rural Theatre Company has turned those books into a play and toured it round five National Trust properties. I saw it at Sheringham Park, a couple of miles from the centre of that town.

There is one venue left: you can still catch the play at Wallington near Morpeth in Northumberland. If you have young children or have not let your heart grow hard, I recommend you do so.

Malcolm Saville is best described as the thinking child's Enid Blyton and, as Tony Gillam suggested in an early review, hanging over this project was the shadow of The Comic Strip's Give Go Mad in Dorset.

But that spook was swept away by the good nature of the script and the energy of the acting. When the Malcolm Saville Society was formed 20 years ago I coined the term 'amused respect' to describe our attitude to him, and that was very much the spirit of The Lone Pine Club play.

The Saville family wisely gave Alice Birch free rein in adapting the books, and she came up a script that conveyed their essence perfectly.

It featured the book's central character David Morton, his younger twin brother and sister Dickie and Mary, and Peter (Petronella Sterling). Still young, they looked back over their adventures, occasionally breaking out to complain that the story didn't go like that or the best bits were being left out.

Other characters were portrayed by the four young adult members of the cast, who sometimes found themselves obliged to play more than one person in the same scene. With hilarious consequences.

It seems unfair to single out one member of the cast, and it may be down to the writing or the direction, but I have to say that Anya Collyer, who seems to be least experienced of the four, in some magical way was the Peter of the books.

The only note of sadness was when I worked out that the last time I was in Sheringham it was to have tea with Malcolm Saville's younger son, the Revd Jeremy Saville, and his wife.

He has since died, and only Rosemary Dowler, the elder daughter, of Malcolm Saville's children is still with us. You can see her in the photograph above with the cast of the play (and Mackie the dog, of course) at its first venue in Shropshire.

As Rosemary writes in the excellent programme for the play:

It is sad that my brothers, Robin and Jeremy, and my sister Jennifer, are not around to join in the fun, but I know they would be as delighted as I am to see my father's books being brought to life in such a delightful way.

The Lone Pine Club at Sheringham Park

I thought I had missed my chance of seeing Pentabus's play The Lone Pine Club because I was in Canterbury when it opened in Church Stretton.

Then I worked out that I could get to Sheringham Park and back in a day from home by taking four trains and a bus each way. Once I had worked that out, I simply had to do it.

I shall write a proper review of the play in a day or two, but it was well worth the effort and I even got a lift back into Sheringham.

Where to see The Lone Pine Club by Alice Bush

I have blogged more than once about the Pentabus Rural Theatre Company's new play inspired by the Lone Pine stories of Malcolm Saville - see my recent post with their promotional video, for instance.

The dates and venues for the performances of The Lone Pine Club by Alice Bush have now been announced:

18-26 July - Carding Mill Valley, Church Stretton, Shropshire

30 July - 2 August - Sheffield Park and Garden, Sheffield Park, Uckfield, East Sussex

6-9 August - Buckland Abbey, Garden and Estate, Yelverton, Devon

13-16 August - Sheringham Park, Upper Sheringham, Norfolk

20-23 August - Wallington, Cambo (near Morpeth) Northumberland

For further details, including information on how to book tickets, see the Pentabus website.

E. Phillips Oppenheim at The Cedars, Evington

We left the young E. Phillips Oppenheim living at Portland Towers, working unhappily in his father's business and spending his evenings writing stories.

A biography on the Good Reads site tells us how his career developed. He went on to manage the business before selling it when he was 40 in 1906. Meanwhile, he had been developing a considerable literary career:

He wrote his first book 'Expiation' in 1887 and in 1898 he published 'The Mysterious Mr Sabin', which he described as "The first of my long series of stories dealing with that shadowy and mysterious world of diplomacy." Thereafter he became a prolific writer and by 1900 he had had 14 novels published. 

While on a business trip to the United States in 1890 he met and married Elise Clara Hopkins of Boston and, on return to England, they lived in Evington, Leicestershire until the First World War, and had one daughter. His wife remained faithful to him throughout his life despite his frequent and highly publicised affairs, which often took place abroad and aboard his luxury yacht. 

During World War I he was one of the remarkable group of writers (Thomas Hardy, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesterton) recruited by Charles Masterman to contribute to the Allied propaganda effort.

In all, Oppenheim:

He wrote 116 novels, mainly of the suspense and international intrigue type, but including romances, comedies, and parables of everyday life, and 39 volumes of short stories, all of which earned him vast sums of money. 

He also wrote five novels under the pseudonym Anthony Partridge and a volume of autobiography, 'The Pool of Memory' in 1939. He is generally regarded as the earliest writer of spy fiction as we know it today, and invented the 'Rogue Male' school of adventure thrillers that was later exploited by John Buchan and Geoffrey Household.

E. Phillips Oppenheim is pretty much forgotten today, but he was an immensely popular figure in his day. His most popular novel, The Great Impersonation (1920) sold over a million copies and his IMDB profile lists 43 films made from his work.

The picture above shows The Cedars in Evington (now a pub and just up the road from the village's Baptist Chapel) when Oppenheim lived between 1897 and 1905. After that, like man a prosperous Leicester businessman since, he moved to Sheringham on the North Norfolk coast.

Congratulations to David Bill MBE

From the Leicester Mercury:

County and borough councillor David Bill, 67, is to receive an MBE for services to local government. 

The founding member of Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council has been a councillor since the authority was established in 1973. He has also held a seat on Leicestershire County Council and Leicestershire Police Authority for more than 25 years. 

"It is all I know really," Coun Bill said. 

"And while I can't remember why I got into it, I stick with it because I enjoy inspiring and encouraging people to be involved in the community where they live."

Thanks in large part to David's work, Hinckley and Bosworth is a Lib Dem council and the party is also in a healthy second place in the parliamentary constituency.

If you travel to Sheringham and visit the cafe at the North Norfolk Railway's station in the town, you will find a plaque recording that it was David who opened it. When I saw this I assumed he was asked as some sort of recognition that the line was used by many holidaymakers from the East Midlands, but it turns out that he originally comes from Sheringham.

Six of the Best 18

1. Reviewing the Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference in Perth from the comfort of her couch, Caron's Musings finds it to be chiefly concerned with schools, fairness and Viking dress.


2. Norfolk Blogger reports the welcome news that Tesco's attempt to take over the known universe had been stalled in Sheringham.


3. The Turkish genocide against the people of Armenia during and after Word War I is in the news. On Friday Eric Avebury attended the showing of a documentary on the subject.


4. Madame Arcati reviews the front cover of Tony Blair's The Journey: "Notice how the corners of his mouth level off against the suggestion of a promised smile from the parted lips: it's the look of someone no longer certain of his reception. He looks you straight in the eye but he's wary. Not to be confused with contrition."


5. As a service to my readers in Hertfordshire I pass on the Boho Boxmoor guide to the top 10 real ale pubs in the Hemel Hempstead area. When I lived there I was too young to enjoy them.


6. In April New York's Museum of Modern Art is showing a series of films to celebrate the centenary of the birth of David Niven. Its website does not say which films will be shown but it does supply this fine still from A Matter of Life and Death.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Liberal Democrat Attack Unit

A second day with the doyen of Liberal Democrat parliamentarians.

Tuesday

To Cowley Street for the first meeting of the ‘Liberal Democrat Attack Unit’ put together by Clegg to direct our fire upon the Tories.

I happen to be the last to arrive and find an encouragingly ugly crew already present when I enter the room. In the chair is Chris ‘Hard Man’ Huhne, and around the table I recognise Knuckles Oakeshott, Norman ‘Bite Yer Legs’ Baker and Norman Lamb, who made a good living as a masked wrestler (‘The Sheringham Strangler’) before he entered Parliament.

Having given my apologies, I waste no further time in handing out orchard doughties to all present and advising them to give their opponent one up the snoot when he is not expecting it. Huhne urges us to think up some new ways of attacking George Osborne, concentrating in particular upon his lack of experience. After some discussion, my plan of catching him in the dorm while Matron is having her nap, cramming him into a laundry basket and pushing it down the stairs is agreed by acclamation.

Earlier this week

• Monday: Trapped inside Phil Drabble