It is 11.30 on Thursday and the count down to being 70 begins in earnest. Although up at a reasonable time it was so called, minus 2 that I have fritted away a good two hours without achieving anything which will make feel later that this has been a good day. True I did sort out the a new sets of battery lights to so that I do not enter the day room in the dark in search for the lamp on the table, or crash in the chair left in the middle of room as I go to turn on or off the central heating. I have also washed up and attended to some emails and read the account of Prime Minister’s address to both houses of Congress yesterday. It appears he was invited not by the President by the Speaker although the Vice President was in his place. There were also vacant seats from those who did not turn up which were filled by staff and visitors. The Prime Minister did not get a an on the lawn press conference although the media was invited into the Oval office to ask the PM Questions. The President appeared to be treated the matter low key. It was noticeable that the Foreign Secretary and Hilary Clinton his opposite number were not present with David in the Commons sitting next to stand in Harriet Harman, the Leader of the House and Hilary in the Middle East.
I thought it was a good speech full of praise for the USA and cutting across the political divide in the USA appealing to the right as well as centre to avoid isolationism and protectionism, emphasis on the need for global action on matters such as the economy, globalization, climate change, poverty and terrorisms. He reminded of the US approach after World War II with the new deal and the closeness of the two countries as well as the relationship with a united Europe. He is only the fifth British Prime Minister invited to address Congress over the past century, Winston Churchill Conservative Clem Atlee Labour, Margaret Thatcher Conservative and Tony Blair Labour being the others and the 107th national leader or Prime Minister to do so.
In terms of impact I believe it will have some positive effect on relationships with the USA, if only to remind of the fact that the two countries have stood together alone several times before when it mattered. The gesture of an Hon Knighthood to Ted Kennedy for his help to bring peace in Northern Ireland by persuading his Irish countrymen to stop funding the IRA has he fights for survival is a good gesture. It also helps to enhance Brown’s status outside of the UK, especially un Europe before the forthcoming summit of the principal economic summit to be held in London next month and which will be attended by President Obama. It will be interesting to see if a reciprocal invitation has been given to him to address the UK Parliament. However I doubt if any of this will have much impact if any on the position of Gordon Brown politically in the UK or of his government and Party. This year, fortunately, there are no elections for the Metropolitan authorities with European Elections and Counties but any losses will add to the sense of gloom bordering on resignation with the Parliamentary Party. There was much fun in the House yesterday attacking Harriet Harman who is thought to be positioning herself to take over from Gordon Brown if as expected Labour lose the next General election. She had to bat on a sticky wicket but William Hague did not get all his own way.
On Monday it was a great joy to watch Kevin Whately,, the subject of who do you think you are. Kevin Whately is an actor unknown outside of the United Kingdom and even within the UK. Unless a fan of the police detective series set in oxford , I city in which I lived 1961-1963 and 1964-1967 and to which I have returned on regular basis such is its atmosphere and reminder of the second most important period which governed the rest of my life.
Kevin was born in the City of Newcastle in 1951 and raised as part of a middle class family in the County of Northumberland where his first inclination was to be a doctor but after commencing training as an accountant and having a talent for folk singing and playing the guitar he went to London to study acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He gained work in TV productions and his first role which came to the attend of the wider public was an ensemble series of comedy dramas Auf Wiedershen pet, about a group of building workers from Tyneside who went to work in Germany and in later series in Spain, Middlesbrough and the USA and then and Cuba. The Final special involved work in the Far East. There were 26 episodes in the first series, 13 in the second and six in the subsequent two. The series generated several stars who achieved subsequent success. Timothy Small has become recognised as an outstanding TV and Films actor. Jimmy Nail’s greatest film success was in Evita and in addition to TV series he which he starred he gained success as a singer. Tim Healy also had subsequent success as a singer as well as actor and is married to another well known actress Denise Welch and the couple have been flat bearers for Tyneside and the North East.
In this series Kevin played a quiet, homesick married man with three children devoted to his wife and family although there was some kicking of the traces in later seasons.
Colin Dexter wrote thirteen crime police detective books set in Oxford published 1975 through to 1999 and a thoughtful bachelor policeman with a love of opera, a Jaguar car and who could hold his own at any Oxford top table. The first Morse appeared in 1987 and there were 33 self contained features until 2000 the much loved actor who played Morse, John Thaw and who had become ill died a fictitious death in an Oxford Hospital. He actually died two years later in 2002. Each episode comprised 100 which with commercial breaks meant a two hour show. The throughout the series Kevin Whately appeared as his assistant, married with children and often imposed upon by Morse who apart from his love of Opera was married to his work. In 2005 the famous car was sold for £100000. John Thaw had become well known playing a Scotland Yard Flying Squad Policeman in the Sweeney and also as a barrister Kavanagh.
After a break of four years the character of Lewis, now living on his own in Oxford and promoted to the position held by Morse returned as Lewis in a pilot to judge the audience reaction. It was the most popular drama of the year so three more programmes were created and shown in 2007 and a further four in 2008. In these programmes in a nice twist which John Thaw would have appreciated Lewis was assisted by a young Oxford graduate as a counterpoint to the northern working class lad who had made it through the ranks, although in fact, as stated, Kevin was raised in a comfortable middle class home and now lives in the Home Counties with his family who were introduced in the Do you know who are programme.
What emerged from the programme was four things. The most interesting for me is that Kevin revealed himself to be the essential character he played in both major TV series over the past thirty five years, A kind, humanitarian and thoughtful family man of great integrity.
Kevin had known that his maternal grandmother, Doris Phillips, had been classically trained as a singer and he knew that she had performed in local theatricals. He has a daughter who is singer and therefore he was interested to learn more about this aspect of his relative. He discovered that in addition to performing with her two brothers in fund raising concert party type of shows, she had sung professionally with the Newcastle Back Choir as a soloist and performed for the BBC in 1938 in the days when there was only one radio station and no British based commercial stations. She had also performed at the Newcastle City Hall where he has appeared in charity performances as a folk singer with his guitar. He was visibly moved by this unknown connection
He became interested in the father of his grandmother, Fredrick Phillips who was born in Bedfordshire had opened a single fish and chip shop in Newcastle and the built up a business involved in the catching and distribution of fish along the East coast. Fish had not only become the first fast food but the herring the dominant fish, salted for export or smoked to become the kipper which was the main breakfast dish. When the great grandfather died he had been worth over £2million pounds in to-day’s money. Kevin wanted to know how it appeared that the business had been lost when it came under the control of the two sons. What he discovered reassured because a combination of public taste with the mass produced cereal replacing the kipper as breakfast dish, together with and other changes in the national diet and the economic depression resulted in the industry beginning to contract on a journey which has continued in a more dramatic form over the past three decades.
Kevin then explored the only member of his family in addition to his father who had not be a clergyman with the leading figure who became the Archbishop of Dublin and where there is also a stained glass window and an portrait at an Oxford College when he studied and which was interesting given his own developed love of the city from twenty years of the Morse and Lewis Programmes.
In the family tree the other ancestor who did not become a Vicar was someone noted as Turkey Merchant. This puzzled Kevin because it was at a time when he thought Turkey‘s had not been introduced to the British market. In fact he was sent as a young Merchant to the Levant which included Turkey, Syria and Palestine. When he returned became a major merchant in the city of London and banker who had married well and became a member of the Court (Board) of the Bank of England which involved holding a substantial amount of shares. His wife‘s sister had married the Governor of the Bank!
This was quiet a discovery for Kevin who had regarded himself as being left of centre not enamoured with those who made their money from interest and speculation. However greater shocks were to come.
He discovered that that the woman his relatives had married was a descendents of one of the four brothers who had played major parts in the Cromwell rebellion which had led to the formation of the Commonwealth. The grandfather of Mary Whately had gone to Virginia in part because of the religious freedom as a puritan and to develop an early plantation of tobacco and had a monopoly of the trade to Britain, this therefore in great part responsible for the great evil of smoking that we know today, and worse still had also been a pioneer in the establish of sugar production from the West Indies and therefore in the British involvement in the slave trade to both the USA and the West Indies.
Mary Whately nee Thompson, the wife of the Banker had live in a grand house and grounds known today as Nonsuch Park. The present grand house was built later. The Park is less than a half hour drive from my childhood home close to the route to Kingston and Teddington where I also lived for two years.
The programme therefore provided much new information and his family and caused him to reconsider who he was in terms of his ancestral heritage.
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