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Lee Bonnifield asked:"Would that be the actress named April Walker who played music hall
singer Carrie Harris in season 2, Coffin Ship, & Frisco Bound?"Yes, indeed. There were many connections like this in the show. As we all know, Peter Gilmore married his onscreen wife Anne Stallybrass. And Mary Webster (Sarah) was the wife of Bill Slater, one of the show's directors; Michael Owen Morris (PA) was the producer's nephew; Jill Gascoigne was director Gerald Blake's live-in. I could go on, but it wouldn't be a good idea.One of my fondest memories of Gerry Blake is cowering with him under a table in the BBC Club while the ex-wife of one of the cast went spectacularly berserk above, throwing bottles and glasses and screaming blue murder as Security closed in to throw a coat over her.Bill SMI have to be a little careful here (not everyone is dead yet!), but I can give some insight into the show's relationship with Cyril Abraham in its last two series. The fact is that he was, as a matter of policy, ruthlessly kept out of it. Mr Abraham did indeed have a plan for the story going well into the twentieth century; to say the least of it, this plan was not to the taste of Mervyn Haisman, the show's script editor. Mr Abraham saw the show as a slowly unfurling saga of a family and the sea – almost a Dickensian novel – but Mervyn, eye always to the ratings, thought more in terms of a 1970s soap opera in fancy dress. Under Mervyn, every episode had to have an "exciting" sea story and something going even more wrong with the family; there were times when he seemed to be talking about some sort of ocean-going Wacky Races based at the Crossroads Motel.The fact is that Mervyn Haisman and Cyril Abraham detested each other to the edge of mania. Geraint Morris, the producer, got caught in the middle. Eventually, Mr Abraham's numerous phone calls were simply ignored. Geraint actually changed his home phone number to avoid him; Mr Abraham had no contractual relationship with the show by then, but would call the producer after every transmission to read the riot act. He had a lot to talk about. He was probably the first person to raise the annoying question of why, in a show set in Liverpool in the Victorian period, we never, ever heard a single Scouse accent, even from the servants. Mervyn would jump on any actor who even tried it, citing American sales as the reason. Mr Abraham would also pick merciless holes in the plots, which under Mervyn developed from the fantastical to the near-surreal; we were all, director very much included, very glad that he did not live to see the last episode, which made no sense at all.Here's where I have to be careful. Much of the Abraham master plan was based around characters who, for the worst of practical reasons, simply couldn't be developed. Let's just say that some of the actors were better than others. Drink was an increasingly visible issue in one case.In the end, the show's relationship with Cyril Abraham was so bad that we were genuinely surprised that Geraint asked Continuity to run an end-of-credits tribute to him when he died. Then they got his name wrong.And thank you, Mr Brady – love you, too.I actually own the official DVD release, but it was very poorly distributed. Go to Amazon and see the mess for yourselves. I was simply suggesting a quick way for members of the group to see the film; a true fan would then make the effort to get the official version, as I did.For what it's worth, I often see my own stuff – radio shows, TV, interviews, everything – on Youtube, Usenet and elsewhere. Where I feel my rights are being directly infringed for gain, I take appropriate action. I do, however, have the imagination and the charity to distinguish between fan activity and piracy. I have also learned some manners.For my more measured friends: I'm still in contact with a few people from my Onedin friends. Alas, precious few of us are still alive. Peter, Howard and so many others are gone. On the production side, Geraint Morris passed away some time back, as did my friends Pennant Roberts and – a very special friend – Gerry Blake. Geraint and I fell out very badly indeed on a later project (King's Royal). I wonder how many of you on the group know that a whole new series was developed for Jessica Benton after Onedin – The Heywood Files, about an early lady photographer. It got to a very late stage of development, with (for example) me written in as music director and all the episode writers chosen and told to get started. Then, absolutely out of nowhere, Series and Serials killed it, less than a month before production was to start. A horrible experience all round.BSMWhy no Episode 10?I worked (Music Adviser) on the last series of the show and can offer some insights into this. The fact is that there was only just a Series 8. BBC Drama (Series and Serials) were very reluctant to commission the last series; they thought that the show had run its course. One problem was that the producer, Geraint Morris, was already thinking about his next commissioned show (King's Royal), and was also working on a new series that was going to showcase Jessica Bentham – The Heywood Files. The Heywood Files went all the way through the commissioning process (I was listed to write the music) before being shot down at the very last moment. At best, Geraint was phoning it in on The Onedin Line's last series, and frequently said so.
Series 8 was not a happy show. Geraint Morris and veteran director Gerry Blake had a simmering feud at best, fueled largely by Geraint's shameless nepotism and Welsh-centricity; by Series 8, the language of the control gallery was most emphatically Welsh, with the producer, half the directors, half the DA's (one was Geraint's nephew) and the Production Manager leaping into Celtic-language titters at every opportunity, to the snarling fury of all around them (and I write as a Gaelic speaker). Meanwhile, the script editor (Mervyn Haisman) was driving the show further and further into soap opera, to the horror of the standing cast. Merv the Scribe (as we called him, more or less affectionately) actually drafted an Episode 10 for Series 8, but it had so many insane plot twists and character implausibilities that it was put down long before it could be produced.
At the end of the very last dub of the very last show, just after Peter had intoned "I've got a son," Gerry Blake turned to me and the Sound Manager and said "Thank God that's over. If we tried to make another series of this thing, someone would get hurt." We then all went and got very, very drunk.
Bill Scanlan Murphy
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First Mervyn Haisman, and now …Very sad to read of the passing of Tom Pat (T.P.) McKenna, who played an Irish mountebank in the last series of Onedin. I was always a huge fan, and grabbed the opportunity to get to know him when he worked on the show. A delightful, funny man who had a helpful word for everyone. Well, nearly everyone. I expect he and Pennant Roberts are now back at each other's throats in the BBC Club In The Sky.
There'll soon be no-one left from the show at this rate. Look at how many Onedin people have left us in the last six months.
Bill Scanlan Murphy
>Is Bill Scanlan Murphy still out there? – loved his message about the 'Gilmorisations' – I should think PG was a menace to act with – a little bit of a loose cannon?
Still here!
Peter was a *menace*. He drove poor Howard Lang, in particular, clean up the wall. There are numerous occasions in the transmitted shows where, if you look carefully, you can see that quizzical look on Howard's face that simply meant "has he finished yet?" when Peter has delivered some ludicrous paraphrase of his scripted lines. It was common for sound manager Peter Barville, in particular, to roar "Or words to that effect!!!" down the talkback to his boom operators after a particularly extravagant Gilmorisation. One time Peter said absolutely what was on the page, and Howard was so surprised he dried. Peter Barville rewarded this with a joyous "It says 'ere!" Happy days.
My strangest memory of Howard, by the way, was passing his house on Parsifal Road in Hampstead when on my way back to my then-inlaws' house after a dub. His living room was piled literally to the ceiling with a huge pyramid of seaboots. He was the only member of the cast who actually sailed.
So sad to see dear old Mervyn Haisman pass away the other week. Known to all on the show as Merv the Scribe, he was responsible for driving the show into all sorts of places it never should have gone (what Gerald Blake once called "Crossroads In Crinolines"!), but he was a genuinely good and decent man. He was almost schoolboyishly proud of having scripted one of Boris Karloff's last films, The Curse of the Crimson Altar. Karloff, he told us, preferred to be addressed as "Billy" (his real name). The things you learn in the BBC club …
Bill Scanlan Murphy
Despite my work on the show having nothing at all to do with filming, I managed to find a reason why I had to be in Falmouth for the exteriors in the summer of 1979, so I'm pretty well up on what went on. The narrowness of the exterior shots that you often see in the show was always caused simply by there being a "wrong" building or other structure just out of frame; a beautiful dockside scene could be wrecked by a World War 2 harbour office or other lump of concrete, and it wasn't always possible to dress these to look Victorian.A far bigger problem was the ships themselves. In particular, the Christian Radich didn't look remotely like a Victorian sailing vessel to anyone who actually knew anything about them. The producer's office was persecuted by sailing-era buffs who seemed to watch the show specifically to spot nylon rigging, badly-camouflaged aerials or any number of other details. Oddly, the same people never spotted the women in the rigging. These complaints were always diverted to the hapless Maritime Adviser, who had already made all the same complaints himself. I think he finally realised that his presence on the credits was mainly to give the show a veneer of historical accuracy – not to actually tell the producer anything he didn't want to hear, which was always unpopular. His startled protests at some of the very weird plot lines of the last two series (anyone remember the Plague story?!) went unheard, alas.
Happy days ….
Bill Scanlan Murphy
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Jacqueline asks:
>This actress April Walker, is she the one that played 'Carrie Harris'
>in the Onedin Line as well ?!?!?
I'd forgotten that! Yes, the very same. She was Mrs. Anthony Isaac at the time.[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Jacqueline asks:
>Did they ask him to be the music advisor for the series 7 (and 8) as
>well before this happened ? (because you said he moved on to Warship
>and other shows).
>Did you work together for a while or did you have to take it all over
>after his death ?
No – Tony Isaac left the series after Season 5 (or possibly 4 – this is from memory). The Music Advisor for Season 6 was Grant Hossack, who left to work on a couple of West End shows; that's where I came in. I knew Tony well, though, because he was sort of related to my then wife – he was my wife's cousin's ex-husband. The aunt was actress April Walker, who may be known to some listers for her appearances on Fawlty Towers and a host of other comedy shows. British television is basically a smallish village – you're never more than two degrees of separation from anyone.
When I worked on the show, I was living in my home town, Glasgow, and commuting. While in London, I stayed with my in-laws, and passed Howard Lang's house on Parsifal Road every morning. There was a pyramid of sea-boots in the living room clearly visible from the street![Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Hi, all –
A question for me if ever there was one! I'll dig out my discs of Series 3 and check this out this evening. Of course, the music adviser then was dear Tony Isaac. I wonder how many of the group know anything about Tony, whose passing was such a dreadful tragedy back in – when? – 1979. By then he had moved on from Onedin Line to Warship and several other successful shows, and was doing pretty well. Then his whole world collapsed in about a week. His wife of six months left him, and – typical World of TV, I'm afraid – a producer who had asked him to provide all the music for a new show (a very big deal) was fired and replaced by someone else who brought his own composer with him. Tony had just signed the papers on a big new house in the country on the strength of this, and suddenly found himself about 50,000 pounds in the hole. I had the awful responsibility of telling producer Geraint Morris that Tony had hanged himself soon after production started
on Series 7.
Years later, I had the similarly awful task of calling round old Onedin friends to tell them that Gerald Blake had been found dead in his flat in 1991. I was calling Gerry one morning to arrange lunch with him when a strange voice answered the phone; it was a coroner's assistant. Gerry had been going to treat me to lunch to celebrate my engagement to my present wife. For reasons too awful to describe here, there was no real funeral for Gerry's many friends to attend, and I was still meeting people five years later who had no idea that he had died. I still miss him horribly to this day.
Anyway, watch this space for the music!
Bill Scanlan Murphy[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I'm sure this breaks at least half a dozen copyright laws, but some of the copyright is actually mine (I suppose), so …Is anyone getting Series 7 and 8 via torrent? I was Music Adviser on those shows, and would do anything up to and including cutting throats to get copies. Is there any we we could …er… redistribute them via this group? Assuming standard-compression AVIs, it should be possible to get about 8 or 9 shows on a data DVD. Obviously, all expenses paid.'
Hint, hint!
Bill Scanlan Murphy
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I never heard of Shostakovich responding to his music being used on the show, but Aram Khatchaturian definitely did. Back in Tony Isaac's time (I think around Series 3), the Soviet Embassy gave a reception for the cast and crew of The Onedin Line, with Khatchaturian as guest of honour. Spartacus was a total obscurity until it was picked up (by Tony Isaac) for The Onedin Line; it was known, if at all, as being on the other side of the LP that had the composer's recording of the Saber Dance. The sales of the LP skyrocketed because of The Onedin Line, giving the aged and very infirm composer a very welcome retirement present.I tended to use mainly British music, by composers like Moeran and Bantock. I tried as hard as I could to make the music sound specially-composed; my offline edits were legendary for their length! We always got shoals of mail asking where to find particular music cues. I also did things like playing the piano for the actors when they needed to be shown playing. One show I did had me wearing the sleeves from an actress's dress so that my hands could be shot at the piano; I expect many viewers wondered why she had such hairy arms ….
Bill Scanlan Murphy
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