Getting Intimate With The Carry Ons

It was a scene blessed. The rolling South Downs covered in crisp late autumnal early morning dew, while - from my vantage point in the front room of the then Carry On scriptwriter, Talbot ‘Tolly’ Rothwell’s house - I was being willingly given a poetic crash course in all things Mother Nature.

Tolly’s two Golden Retrievers were getting restless. All the talk of the great outdoors was sending them over the edge.

 

The four of us were soon stepping out and crossing the few feet from Tolly’s gravel driveway and on to the damp green blades of the Downs.

Talk on that half-term Wednesday morning soon turned to the somewhat surreal happenings of the previous Sunday. An afternoon dominated by grand arrivals and off-centre lessons in the complexities of adult gatherings.

The occasion had been one of the sporadic social get togethers of Carry On cast and crew. A time when the post midday hours were orchestrated by Kenneth Williams, and played out to a soundtrack of laughter and one-upmanship.

 

 

Tolly had been intrigued to what I had made of the event. He’d noted that Hattie Jacques had spent a good hour with me .. the two of us engaged in deep conversation.

I explained that she had raised the somewhat thorny topic of weight gain .. a ‘condition’ that had hung heavy on both our lives.

Hattie was sweet and understanding. I was barely in my teens and she geared the conversation towards my adolescent body image concerns.

 

Initially I was embarrassed that the topic had been raised. But Hattie’s almost sisterly approach instilled in me a new found confidence.   

Then there was Sid, the old rascal. Sid James, bless him. A man very much of his time. Flirty-yet-a-gentleman. Trustworthy, though would bet your granny if he thought the old nag would come home first.

At the party I’d also been accosted by Kenneth Williams. Don’t think he liked the fact I’d been happily sitting quietly with his fellow Carry On team.

 

 

Kenneth very much saw himself as the numero uno. So I was subjected to his full repertoire of peacock-like strutting. Much laughter was had!

 

Barbara Windsor had arrived well after the party had peaked. Kenneth made sure he was next to her, or there abouts, for the remainder of the afternoon.

 

I noted that while he was talking to Barbara his eyes were actually locked into an intense gaze with Sid's. It would be a few years before I knew what that was all about!

 

Tolly loved to hear these tales. He found the inner workings of the Carry On cast a great inspiration for his writing.

 

As lunchtime approached we dropped down from the hills and took lunch at his local, The Shepherd and Dog. Tolly's attention was soon lost to the throng. I think they loved him just about as much as I did!

Available now at Amazon - iBookstore - Kobo

A Write Carry On - The Untold Story Of A Man In The Shadows

by Mike Cobley

Wholepoint Publications
 

A Write Carry On: The Readers Offer Up Their Intimate Insights!

Feedback during the four months since the publication of A Write Carry On has been both enlightening and informative.

 

Sally Majors, from 'up Gloucestershire way', emailed to say as a teenager in the early 1970s whilst visiting her grandparents in East Sussex, they had all been excited to come across a 'somewhat jovial Sid James and Barbara Windsor' sat in the quiet alcove of an Alfriston pub.

Sally and her grandfather approached the couple when they were at the bar ordering more ‘liveners’. Both were friendly, and Sally remembers Barbara taking a keen interest in her somewhat ‘off-the-wall teenage attire’.

Considering, at the time, that the Carry On couple were having an unpublicised affair, Sally is, in hindsight, amazed at how open and forthcoming the duo were.

 

 

Another interesting insight, from a fellow A Write Carry On reader, arrived via a private message on my Facebook page.

Dan Carter, a self-styled ‘British comedy film buff’ clearly remembers tracking down Carry On scriptwriter, Talbot‘Tolly’ Rothwell, to the Shepherd and Dog, his local pub in Fulking.

A few whiskeys later and talk turned to the ins and outs of writing to deadline and the process that saw the scriptwriting project brought to completion.

Tolly told Dan that Carry On producer Peter Rogers, once a scriptwriter himself, was both meticulous and demanding when it came to perusing the various script drafts.

They would return to Tolly with red crossings and markings as well as being heavily annotated.

 

There would be a number of these exchanges, and Tolly felt it was his willingness to take on board criticism (justified or not) and his quick turn around in ideas and drafts that kept him onboard the Carry On team for twenty-two of the series thirty-one films.

 

 

Lastly, in this blog entry, the last hurrah goes to Annie Crocket, now based in Northern France, but during the early 1960s and late 1970s she was a resident of Eastbourne, in East Sussex.

Annie worked as an extra on many projects shot at Pinewood Studios. She had muted background scenes in a number of Carry On films, and got to know a few of the personalities behind their on screen characters.

Having read A Write Carry On Annie dropped me a long email. Firstly she congratulated me on bringing out the true essence of the likes of Kenneth Williams, Sid James, Jim Dale, Hattie Jacques and Charles Hawtrey.

It was the latter she chatted to the most. Annie said she found Hawtrey a loner who, when sober, was friendly and always welcoming of a quiet chat. She said he kept himself pretty much to himself, and that initially once he began drinking heavily he found it easier to be a part of such a close nit group of actors.

 

She also bonded with Kenneth Williams. Always 'on' and never predictable. A true Carry On trait if ever there was one! 

Available now at Amazon - iBookstore - Kobo

A Write Carry On - The Untold Story Of A Man In The Shadows

by Mike Cobley

Wholepoint Publications