I recently caught up with ‘Windbag The Sailor’, a Will Hay vehicle from 1936. This is the sort of film that BBC2 used to show regularly on a Saturday morning and I remember seeing it several times in my teens and early twenties. However, it doesn’t seem to have been on television for years – so a discovery of the full film on You Tube delighted me. The film is standard Will Hay fare, which I do not mean to sound derogatory in any way. Standard Will Hay fare is miles better than most other stuff, and the belly laughs are guaranteed. ‘Windbag’ stars Hay at his “pompous ass” best, pretending to have led a heroic life on the high seas in order to secure an endless supply of free booze in the pub. Of course it turns out that the nearest he has been to captaining a ship is driving a coal barge down the canal. However, a gang of sea-faring criminals coerce him into captaining their ship and he soon finds himself lost at sea. His sidekicks Graham Moffatt and Moore Marriott are with him all the way, adding to the delights to be found in Windbag’s company. Will Hay by @aitchteee One of the trio’s bits of business on board the ship reminded me of a similar scene in ‘Oh! Mr Porter’. In both films, they find themselves in the position of needing to solve a mathematical problem. In ‘Windbag’ this is working out how many miles they have travelled in order to find their approximate location. In ‘Porter’ the scenario is working out when the express train is due to pass. I think that this spotlights the variety stage roots of Hay and his sidekicks. For the routine to be more or less repeated like this, I feel sure that it must have been something that was a great success in front of a live audience. A Hay trademark, perhaps. And thinking about it, this would have been the case because it was so reminiscent of scenes in households across the land. We are watching a period in time before the invention of the pocket calculator. People did have to rely on their own brainpower and a pencil and paper to make sure that their grocery bill was right. Some people have a better aptitude for maths than others, and perhaps households or streets had their go-to person who was known to have a head for numbers. Many years ago, my uncle apparently made a tape recording of my great grandmother and great aunt working out how much they owed each other for catalogue purchases. He did this because the conversation was so convoluted that he found it very funny. It was played repeatedly for family entertainment purposes. I have no doubt that they were not alone in regularly tying themselves in mathematical knots, just like Will and friends in these films. Will Hay was a clever man with a good grasp of maths, which is probably why he came up with the routine. He wasn’t afraid to make himself look the fool though, and I love the comic way that he uses his fingers to count on alongside the corner of his mouth. And as well as making us guffaw, he reminds us how daft a lot of us would have felt before we had access to our own mathematical machines. Go on, have a look at my books then, you won't be wasting yer time.

‘Lucky Jim’ (1957) is based on the novel of the same name by Kingsley Amis. As is usual with films derived from famous novels, it presents a much abridged version of the story. Any attempt at analysing the film as a historical resource would therefore be a shadow of what could be gleaned by analysing the book instead. There may be some visuals that provide incidental information – car types, railway scenes or fashions for example. But Amis meant this story to be a document of its time and it deliberately lays into the education and class systems. This isn’t a literary criticism blog. I had enough of that to last me a lifetime when I did A Level in English Literature. Blimey, if I never see “The Grapes of Wrath” again it’ll be too soon. Anyway, I’m sure many intelligent people have made a much better go of analysing the literary ‘Lucky Jim’ than I have the capability or inclination to. But, as a student of history, there was one particular scene which caught my attention. Towards the end of the film, Jim Dixon (Ian Carmichael) drunkenly rebels against being forced to deliver a history lecture that has been prepared by his boss, Professor Welch. The lecture is on the subject of “Merrie England”, and it paints the English Middle Ages as a golden age of music and dance. Anyone can see that this is a heavily biased view of a period that for most people was nasty, brutish and short. It goes completely against Jim’s principles to deliver this “bunkum” and Professor Welch is shown as being completely out of touch with modern academic study. This caught my interest because, 60 + years on, we still struggle against an often over-romantic view of history. But now, we are over-romanticising the period in which ‘Jim’ was written and filmed. Ian Carmichael as Lucky Jim by @aitchteee The current craze for vintage, which seems to centre on the 1950s – from fashion to music styles to home baking - has in no doubt been initiated by the often overwhelming pressure of modern life. But as we hark back we are selective. We seem to imagine the 1950s as a golden era, sandwiched between austerity and psychedelia, when everyone had a job and knew their place. Where everything was stylishly designed and built to last. We conveniently forget that those cosy coal fires caused deadly smogs, that those chromed up cars caused carnage on the roads, that too many people lived in slums and didn’t have access to an inside toilet never mind the latest furniture designs. Look at ‘Lucky Jim’ itself for evidence that the 1950s were not so golden. Despite the advent of grammar schools, introduced to give the intelligent from the lower classes a hand up, the class system still exerted a toughened glass ceiling. You were judged on your voice, on your school and on your clothes. Womens’ roles are only supportive and their presence in academia is treated as a joke. As the film might have been subtitled: We never learn, do we?

The British Actress Carole Lesley was born Maureen Lesley Carole Rippingale, on the 27th May 1935. Her parents were Rupert Thomas Rippingale and his wife Winifred (nee Appleton). The Rippingales had lived in Essex for at least 3 generations and Maureen grew up happily alongside her older brother Keith and her younger sister Josephine, in the Essex town of Chelmsford. The young Maureen was full of energy and high spirits. Neighbours recall that she used to dance under the street lamps outside her Manor Road home and in the grading room of the Fruit Farm in Galleywood, where she worked in the Summer. As a child Maureen used to enjoy watching a fellow classmate draw sketches of all the great Hollywood movies stars. This artistic school friend was to become the mother of journalist, Deborah Orr, who wrote an article in the Guardian Newspaper mentioning Carol, when the Award Winning Film The Artist came out in 2012. Deborah Orr compared Carole Lesley with the fictional character of George Valentin, Orr said that just like George Valentin, once Leslie stopped making films, she became very depressed. Whilst she could not find her way back into a rapidly changing film Industry, many of her fellow actor friends went on to much greater success. Deborah's mother said “Maureen loved the movies, she was silly about them. The amazing thing is, my mother would tell me, her voice full of wonder, that Maureen had actually managed it. She had reinvented herself as Carole Lesley, a blonde bombshell, and had been in quite a few films – we even saw her on the TV in "Doctor in Love" one Sunday afternoon!” Maureen had made her film debut at the age of 12 playing Una, in the British drama about Scottish Herring fishermen, called The Silver Darlings (1947), which was directed by Clarence Elder. From that moment on she was determined to become an actress. In 1949 aged 14 she played her second role as the young Clara in “Trottie True” a British musical comedy film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst telling the story of a Gaiety Girl of the 1890s. After a brief romance with a balloonist, Trottie marries Lord Digby Landon, becoming Duchess of Wellwater. It was known as 'The Gay Lady' in the U.S, and is a rare British Technicolor film of the period. It also featured a young Christopher Lee in one of his very first acting roles, as a stage Door Johhny. As a young teenager, Maureen got herself a job working as an usherette in the Pavilion Cinema, in Duke Street, Chelmsford. After her two appearances in films as a child, she was totally transfixed and compelled by the idea of being an actress and achieving the stardom she desired. She was inspired even further to pursue a career in acting, by the performances she saw every night on the silver screen. She was not content with just being the pretty girl who shone her torch and sold ice cream to the audiences - she wanted to go to Hollywood and make it big. In 1951 the naive but very pretty, starry-eyed sixteen-year-old left home in search of fame and success. The story goes that she ran away to London, wearing her father's shirt and had only two and four pence in her pocket. Maureen eventually found work in London's Cabaret Clubs, where she was able to sharpen her dancing skills and earn regular money as a chorus girl. From there she went to Paris and worked as a pin-up model under the name of Leslie Carol. Photographs from her early days have more recently been a source of inspiration for the British artist Paul Harvey. With her drop-dead good looks and curvaceous figure Maureen found plenty of photographers wanting to take her picture, but eventually, she returned to England to pursue a serious acting career. Following an unbilled role as a Tea Shop Waitress in the Crime Thriller “The Embezzler “(1954) for Kenilworth Productions, she managed to obtain a seven-year contract at Associated British Pictures and from then on her official stage name became "Carole Lesley”. From 1957, she would appear in a selection of drama and comedy films. Studio protocol of the day had the eager young starlet attending plenty of premieres, parties and social events in order to build up her name and her public presence. In 1957 she attended the World Charity Premiere of Good Companions and the premiere of Chase a Crooked Shadow at the Warner Cinema in Leicester Square, London. She was more than ready to do whatever it took to get herself noticed by movie magazines, such as The Post, Picturegoer and other assorted publications. Lesley was one of a few starlets who briefly rivaled notorious blonde bombshell Diana Dors as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Her beautifully slim face was slightly reminiscent of comedic actress Kay Kendall and she willingly exploited her obvious physical endowments in an elusive attempt to drum up public attention. In 1957 Carole had a supporting role in the film Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957) starring Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle and Sylvia Syms. The film won a Golden Globe Award for Best English Language Foreign Film. Carole played Hilda Harper, a young neighbourly confidante to dowdy wife Amy, played by Mitchell, whose husband (Quayle) is having an affair with his secretary (Syms). Woman in a Dressing Gown was in many ways a ground-breaking film for British cinema in the 1950s. It deals with themes which prefigured the 'New Wave' movement of the following decade, which made big stars out of the likes of Albert Finney, Richard Harris and Tom Courtenay. Unlike the majority of these 'Angry Young Men' Drama’s, Woman in a Dressing Gown was set in London rather than in the North or the Midlands, and featured women as characters who, ultimately, prove strong and acquire self-knowledge. The film was described by film historian Jeffrey Richards as "a Brief Encounter of the council flats", taking the scenario of an extra-marital relationship and relocating it to a less middle-class setting. However, writer Ted Willis described it more simply, as a film about "good honest fumbling people caught up in tiny tragedies" Woman in a Dressing Gown is an important reminder that post-war British realism did not begin with the new wave, and that the 1950s were not devoid of socially engaged cinema, as is sometimes suggested. Indeed, one could argue that this film is considerably more progressive than the new wave that superseded it, in its focus on the travails of a middle-aged housewife rather than those of a virile young man. As the Actress Sylvia Syms put it: "There are certain films of that period that have gained enormous fame, the obvious one is Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. It was a wonderful film, full of brilliant performances, but it's about a man, and men have always been more important than women”. Carole's next supporting role was in the 1957 movie "Dangerous Youth" or "These Dangerous Years" as it was re-titled in the USA. It was an early Liverpudlian musical comedy drama built around 29-year-old "teen" pop idol, Frankie Vaughan. Also in the film were Thora Hird, George Baker, Kenneth Cope, who would later find fame in “Randall and Hopkirk Deceased” and John Le Mesuirier, who became much more famous for his role as Sgt Wilson in Dad’s Army. Carole played Dinah Brown, Frankie Vaughan’s girlfriend who is forced to work in a coffee shop when her own dreams of show business stardom fall apart. The star of singer Vaughan, who evolves from a gang leader to a rock-and-roll singer in this picture, was eclipsed soon after by skyrocketing American sensation Elvis Presley. Carole was captured on Pathe Newsreel footage attending the film's premier in Liverpool. In 1958, Robert Muller's Pulp Fiction book Cinderella Nightingale was published and it was announced that Carole Lesley would take the starring role in the film version. The story focused on the character of Iris Littlewood, an ambitious movie loving blonde, who works first as a waitress, and then does some modelling. Endowed with a gorgeous body, but with very little talent for acting, she gets a break with photographer, Miles Meyerstein, who gives up his career to become her agent. He succeeds in getting publicity for her, and she becomes a top professional model called Cinderella Nightingale. Miles falls in love with her, but unable to love him back, she leaves him, takes up with a new agent and manages to get cast in a leading film role in America. Iris cannot have a relationship with Miles because she has been sexually abused by her father. In a desperate effort to regain her attention, Miles gambles away everything he has. Iris goes off to Hollywood and Miles meets another young girl who would like to be a starlet, and the story starts over again, albeit cruel, empty, and painful. Another young popular blonde bombshell, the British Actress, simply called “Sabrina”, thought that the story resembled her life much too closely - apart from the fact that she had not in any way been abused by her father. She sued the publisher and the author for libel and won the case. All the remaining copies of the book had to be recalled from circulation. When Sabrina heard they were making a film of the book, she went back to court to again. A Newspaper journalist reported the story thus: 29 June 1958 - BATTLE OF THE BLONDES - From Roderick Mann in London SABRINA may take legal action to stop production of a film she claims is based on her own life. The film is "Cinderella Nightingale" — which tells the story of a blonde's rise to fame on the strength of her vital statistics. Already Sabrina has had the book on which the film is based withdrawn from the bookstalls. She said this week: " 'Cinderella Nightingale' was all about me. They said it wasn't, of course, but it was. It contained a cruel libel against my father and me. I had no alternative but to stop it." Sabrina said the film would cut right across a film she was planning to make — "The Sabrina Story." At Associated-British Studios at Elstree, where "Cinderella Nightingale" is due to be made, Carole Lesley, who is to star in the film, said: "Fancy Sabrina thinking she could get my film stopped. “What conceit. And, anyway — how can she suggest I'm going to caricature her in the film? There's no comparison." Lesley was certainly a better actress than Sabrina. The book could also have easily been mirroring both Carole or Diana Dor's life too, but Sabrina got her way in court, and Carole lost out on her first leading role in the process. Had the controversial film actually been made it could have been just the type of movie that would have boosted Catol's career further. The film was to have been directed by J. Lee Thompson who had previously worked with Carole in Woman in a Dressing Gown. He thought it would be the perfect vehicle for her, and she had hoped it might finally give her the stardom she craved. Steve Chibnall, Thompson’s biographer, says Muller's book about the exploitation of feminine beauty in the film world would have made a “fascinating exercise in self-reflexivity both for Lesley and for Lee Thompson”. When the book was eventually re-published in paperback by Pan in 1962, the advertising blurb called it a 'sizzling, up-to-the-minute close-up of the amoral machine that turns a beautiful body into big business'. The story of a pretty girl who becomes 'the darling of the photographers, the prey of the columnists, and the favourite "pin-up" of a fickle public' does have many resonances with the careers of both Carole Lesley and Diana Dors. The growing demands for Lee Thompson's services as a director meant that the film was never made and Carol Lesley missed her big moment to shine in a role she could have made her own. Unlike Cinderella Nightingale, she did not get to set foot in Hollywood, even though she was tailor made for it. To take her mind off the situation, Carole was kept busy with more functions and publicity events. On 22nd May 1958 she attended a Variety Club garden party held at Battersea Park before heading off to the famous Cannes Film Festival. She was on the same plane as Jayne Mansfield. Carole was the sole representative of British glamour at the Festival, but when she disembarked in Cannes, she was hardly even glanced at by the waiting press, who only had eyes for Jayne Mansfield and Italian Actress Rosanna Schiaffino. Carole also struggled to get firmly noticed back in the UK, despite her avid attendances at everything. On 4th August she agreed to help judge a beauty competition in Southend, simply because Pathe News were covering the event & it was in Essex. Carole can be seen in the second half of this news report: During 1958 her frequent male escort to events was the handsome Irish actor Richard Todd. Todd had been a soldier during the 2nd World war. He had starred in two of the biggest War Movies of the decade – The Longest Day & The Dambusters - where he played the defining roles of his career. Before working for 20th Century Fox, he had been under a long contract to the Associated British Picture Corporation, just like Carole. There is no evidence to suggest that Lesley and Todd ever had an affair or a relationship in this time, and he was already married. When attending film industry events, it was quite common practice for single young starlets to be accompanied by older more established Actors from the same studio. RICHARD TODD However, unlike today, the private lives of the film stars in those days were meant to be innocent and conventional, which is exactly the way their lives were projected by the studios and the press,. When Kenneth Anger's book, Hollywood Babylon was first published in the US in 1965, it was full of true tales about Hollywood excess and decadence. It was banned within 10 days, and was not republished until 1975. If Carole did have an affair with Todd then it was never common knowledge and he never spoke about it. In 1959 she had a very busy year. The Associated British Picture Corporation film festival in Brussels, Belgium, was just one of the events she attended, along with actresses Ann Dickens and Betty McDowell. On 1 June 1959 she was at the premiere of Look Back in Anger at the Empire Cinema at Leicester Square, with John Kennedy, the manager of teen star Tommy Steele. In August of 1959 she went to the Moscow Film Festival with Richard Todd, Tommy Steele, and Peter Arne. Pathe was there to capture Carole doing what she did best - being an attractive fun-loving ambassador for the Britsh Film Industry. On 17th September she was at a Variety Club race meeting in Sandown Park, Surrey, with fellow actresses Jackie Rae and Jeanette Scott. Despite all these many public appearances, the all-important starring role was elusive. "LOM & SIMS IN NO TREES IN THE STREET" The 1950s ended with two more films roles for Carole. The crime drama No Trees in the Street (1959) had Carole cast in the supporting role of Lola. Sylvia Syms was playing the female lead again and the movies also starred Herbert Lom, Stanley Holloway and Melvin Hayes. The film was directed by J. Lee Thompson whom she should have made Cinderella Nightingale with, and was written by Ted Willis, from his 1948 stage play of the same name. The reviews for the film were distinctly average. One critic wrote that the film “suffers from artificiality of plot and dialog. Characterizations are reduced to mere stereotypes. There are some notable exceptions within the drama, however. Syms is surprisingly moving, giving a sensitive performance despite the film's constraints. Holloway's characterization of a bookie's tout is comical and charming. The camerawork attempts a realistic documentary look, which manages to succeed in capturing the details of slum life that make the setting seem surprisingly naturalistic. The finer points of the film, however, are overshadowed by its faults. Variety Magazine wrote "Ted Willis is a writer with a sympathetic eye for problems of the middle and lower classes...Syms gives a moving performance as the gentle girl who refuses to marry the cheap racketeer just to escape. Lom, as the opportunist who dominates the street, is sufficiently suave and unpleasant." Nobody mentioned Carole’s performance. She was not singled out, but neither was she given any accolades. Carole went on to play Private Marge White in the romantic war comedy Operation Bullshine (1959) which co-starred Barbara Murray, Donald Sinden and Ronald Shiner. Dora Bryan and Daniel Massey were also cast in the film. It was the tenth most popular movie at the British box office in 1959. Although both these films kept her visible and in the public eye, neither helped her long held desire to become a fully-fledged Hollywood film star. The beginning of the 1960s had Carole appearing on TV in Play of the Week as the legendary beauty Helen of Troy. There were also many more publicity events to go to. On 25th January 1960 she was at a gala opening of a new bowling alley at Stamford Hill, London. On 31 March 1960 she went to the Royal Film Performance at the Odeon Theatre at Leicester Square London where she was introduced to members of the Royal Family. On 14th April 1960 she was seen at the gala premiere of Hell is a City at the Apollo Theatre in Manchester.On the 26th May she attended the reopening of the funfair at Festival Gardens, Battersea Park, London, with actor Paul Massie. On the 18th December 1960, she was present at the opening of The Princess Bowling Centre in Dagenham, Essex. During that year, she also appeared in one of Britain’s most popular comedy film series, playing the character, Kitten Strudwick in Doctor in Love (1960). Actor Michael Craig was standing in for Dirk Bogarde while Carole and Virginia Maskell , played the love interests. Other famous comedy actors also in the film included: Peter Sallis ( Last of the Summer Wine) Norman Rossington, John Junkin, Joan Hickson (Miss Marple), Sheila Hancock, Bill Frazer, Patrick Cargill, John Le Mesurier, Nicholas Parsons, Joan Sims, Liz Frazer, Leslie Phillips, James Robertson Justice and Irene Handl. It almost reads like a who’s who of British 1950’s and 60’s comedy – and Carol had more than a supporting role in it. The film went on to become the most popular movie at the British box office in 1960 - but again, it did nothing to propel Carole further towards her dream of appearing in a Hollywood movie. Playing a sexy, straight foil in a light comedy seemed to be a viable platform for Carole and she went on to appears in three more of these sorts of movies during the early 1960s but none were as successful as Doctor in Love. Three on a Spree (1961) was a 1961 British comedy film directed by Sidney J. Furie, based on the 1902 novel Brewster's Millions, which had been previously filmed by Edward Small in 1945. Carole played the lead role of Susan. What a Whopper (1961) was a British comedy film, written by Terry Nation (who went to write Dr Who), from a story by Jeremy Lloyd and Trevor Peacock. It treats the subject of the Loch Ness Monster in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. It stars the pop star Adam Faith as one of a group of Englishmen who travel to Loch Ness to fake sightings of the monster. The cast also included a number of leading British film actors, including Wilfrid Brambell (Steptoe and Son) as a local postman, Sid James and Charles Hawtrey from the Carry On Films, Spike Milligan as a tramp, Clive Dunn who went on to star as Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army and Terry Scott who was most famous for his Comedy show with June Whitfield and for advertising Curlywurly chocolate bars dressed up as an overgrown schoolboy in the 1970’s. The Scottish TV reporter Fyfe Robertson also appears briefly as himself, covering the alleged sightings of the monster. Carole’s last film was The Pot Carriers (1962) another comedy-drama film set in a British prison, directed by Peter Graham Scott and produced by Gordon Scott for ABPC. In 1961 Carole was among the judges at the "Glamorous Grandmother" beauty contest final in Bognor Regis, Sussex. All that is left of the Pathe film from this event are the outtakes and unedited clips...... On the 3rd September 1962 she attended a charity day at the races in York, with fellow actresses Rita Tushingham, Liz Fraser, and June Thorburn. On the 28th February 1963 she went to the premiere of Sparrows Can't Sing at the Genesis Cinema, London. Lord Snowdon, Richard Todd, Stanley Baker, and Sylvia Syms were also there. Then the unthinkable happened. Despite all her many publicity appearances, Associated Films decided to release her from her contract. Carole Lesley’s kind of pin up beauty was no longer the current style of feminine attraction on the screen. The Glamour always had been something of an illusion. The devastated actress disappeared following the unhappy news, retreating completely from the limelight. In August of 1964 she married Michael Dalling and they had 2 children together.but she never made another movie. Carol Leslie just wasn't able to sustain the public interest in her, or get the right roles in the right films like many of her contemporaries. Middle age had slowly crept in and depression took over as her life changed so much. Carole's acting career as an adult consisted of less than a dozen films, and had lasted a mere 5 years from start to finish. Carole did have some acting talent and might well, with time and experience, have improved, as did her rival Diana Dors who became a fine actress in her later years. Diana put on weight but took on many interesting character parts after dropping the glamorous image of her youth. If success eluded Carole during her career, it was not for a lack of trying on her part. Carole had the same level of "wow" factor of other glamour girls of the period, and she worked hard to promote herself wherever she could, but for whatever reason, she just couldn’t make it to Hollywood, no matter how hard she tried. Shapely, scintillating, and a typical peroxide British blonde, Carole wound up as just another statistic alongside many other vibrant, promising women in the film industry. Sadly she would not be the first statlet with undeniable photogenic assets only to be left achingly unfulfilled and to die young. From the more famous beauties such as Marilyn Monroe to other lesser known actresses like Virginia Maskell, Lupe Velez, Gia Scala, Jean Seberg, Barbara Bates, Inger Stevens, Marie McDonald, Carole Landis, Peggy Shannon, Pina Pellicer, and Peg Entwistle, the number of these young and fragile beauties who would crave stardom and then take their own lives as a direct result of getting it - or not getting it in Catole's case - became staggering more common and unfailingly sad. These were women who seemed to have everything going for them -- good looks, sex appeal, drive and ambition, combined with a decent modicum of acting talent -- yet they couldn't see beyond their own goddess-like celluloid image or handle a fickle public's adoration in discovering their own true worth. Many of these women believed too much of their own hype and publicity and then spiraled into a deep depression when it was all over, simply because they still had an insatiable need for attention and they could not move on from being an "actress". Back in the 1950’s a young girl called Leslie Proctor, like many other teenagers, had collected newspaper cuttings of pictures actresses like Carole Lesley in her scrapbook. “The stars of that time were so glamorous; they posed provocatively to show off tiny waists, beautiful breasts and long legs yet, though sexy, there was nothing crude or pornographic about these pictures.” Leslie Proctor was a young mother, struggling to meet ends meet in 1973 when she first met Carole Leslie. Proctor had a friend who did cleaning work for the social services but she couldn’t always make it to every client. In such moments she called on Proctor to take her place. “It was all unofficial but the odd fiver I made this way was like a treasure trove so I was happy to oblige. My friend knew I was both reliable and unlikely to shop her”. Leslie Proctor described meeting Carole Leslie in the 1970's: “She was called Leslie Dalling by then, and lived literally round the corner in a pleasant semi-detached house on a road, overlooking the railway station in New Barnet, London. The front door was on the latch and she called me upstairs as I went in. I certainly didn’t recognize the beautiful peroxide blonde of my teenage years in the thin, sad looking woman with bleached hair showing dark roots, twisted up on her head. I found her sitting up in bed, smoking a cigarette. Cuddled up beside her was a small boy of about three years old, dressed in a vest and nothing else, sucking his thumb. I brought her a cup of tea and she asked me to sit with her for a while. Lesley talked a lot about herself and her youth. She was absorbed by it. I can hear her voice now as she told me that she had once met the Queen at a film premiere. ‘I used to go over to Paris to have my hair done and wore clothes by Maggy Rouff,' she told me, 'I was a model, you know, and then I became a film star.’ Carole Leslie told Leslie Proctor that her husband, Michael, was still involved with films and would make her a star again, when she was better. She’d been depressed that was all. He was away on business even then on her behalf. Proctor thought she seemed confused, sad and had no fire in her at all. Despite the fact that, at that time the atmosphere in the house was one of neglect, the sitting room was tidy and neat. Proctor noticed several attractive photos of Carole on the sideboard and it was then that the sudden realization came to her. She had mentioned the name Leslie Carol. Could this possibly be Carole Lesley the actress whose pictures Proctor had once pasted into a scrapbook? She bid Carole goodbye and ran home to dig out her scrapbooks and find the few old pictures she had. Was this glorious beauty really the sad and lonely woman she’d just spoken to? It made Leslie Proctor immensely sad to see that despite the youthful beauty, relentless efforts and promise, Carole had never risen to real fame. This disappointment was slowly destroying Carole as it had so many other beautiful women of that time, who got caught up with the allure of stardom. Leslie Proctor goes on to explain: “Some of her minor roles in prestigious films such as “Woman in a Dressing Gown” and “No Trees in the Street” were considered as good performances, but she just didn’t have that extra special something that makes a face and figure stand out among the many other hopefuls. She just didn’t grab the public imagination enough. In the end, all the fight had been taken out of her. All her immense efforts had been in vain.” Leslie Proctor never got to talk to Carole Leslie again but she would sometimes see her walking down the street with her youngest boy to collect her other son from school. Carole’s two sons both later moved to America and had families of their own. On 28 February 1974, at her home in New Barnet, Carol Lesley died from an acute overdose of pills at the young age of 38. Leslie Proctor was saddened when she heard what had happened: “Just a few months after I had given birth to my own son, I was shocked to read in the paper that Carol Lesley was said to have committed suicide. I later heard that she was addicted to sleeping pills, had gone to several doctors in order to fuel her addiction, then hidden the stash of collected pills away from her husband's surveillance, under one of the bushes in the garden… when I met her she seemed a deeply depressed, once beautiful woman, still haunted by a glamorous past that had vanished like a mirage before her eyes.” Deborah Orr’s Mother (Carole’s old school friend) was also upset when she read the news and threw away all the drawing of Hollywood film stars which she had kept for all those years. “My mother was of the opinion, knowing Maureen as she had, that she would probably have been happier if she'd had no success in show business at all, rather than the tantalizing status of being “Very Nearly Famous”. My mother reckoned that it must have been so much more awful for Maureen to have come so close to her heart's desire – Hollywood stardom – and then have it all slide inexorably away from her. But I can't help feeling that somewhere there must have been disillusionment, a little bit of disappointment that the human perfection she and Maureen had taken so literally at face value, and celebrated with such innocent charm, had been so manifestly a trick of the light, flickering on a screen, in the dark. ” Fractured affairs of the heart and lack of self-esteem were often blamed as the culprits for other film stars impulsive suicides. Carole Lesley was well out of the public eye and practically forgotten by the time her end came. Moreover, in the following decades, precious little has been printed about her and why her death happened. Her husband and relations felt sure her death was an accidental overdose, especially as she left no note. It is always so hard for those close to see the truth of such a terrible act. I have found comments from Carole's neighbours and friends on some of those Pathe News Videos on You Tube, all saying that she was a lovely friendly lady. We shall never really know what happened and whether Carol Lesley's death was indeed a tragic accident or pe-meditated suicide, but it was nevertheless a sad but seemingly inescapable fate for this incredibly beautiful, talented woman. Many years later, Carole Lesley was finally and suiably commemorated in her home town of Chelmsford, Essex The Pavilion Cinema where she had once worked had been demolished some years ago but these days 26 flats, over shops, are now there in its place. They are named after Maureen – as Carole Lesley Court. The decision was taken by Lynn Roberts, Chelmsford Council's street naming officer, a lady with some imagination, who first read in a local Newspaper about the wish of Maureen's sister, Josie Passfield, to see Carole commemorated in some way. The Lord of the Manor of Great Baddow, Tony Appleton, who had also promoted the cause of her commemoration, said "Maureen was a sparky girl, with guts, who made it against the odds. She deserves to be remembered in this way."

Norman Wisdom. Those two words could divide a nation. Some can’t get enough of his simple-man slapstick humour. Others find that his antics get right on their nerves. Personally, I can go either way. It depends what sort of a mood I’m in and how irritated I feel with the world in general. If I’m having a good day then I will laugh indulgently at his unusual approach to life. If, however, the nerves are a bit frayed then eye-rolling and cheek puffing may set in after a bit. ‘Trouble in Store’ (1953) is one of his earliest and better ones, made into a must-watch film by the presence of Margaret Rutherford. She plays a kleptomaniac shoplifter, tottering around a department store and filling her suitcase with whatever takes her fancy. It’s not a big role for her but as usual she tackles it with relish and she is a total joy. Wisdom plays a lowly stock room worker at the store, where he is repeatedly sacked and re-hired by the new boss. His antics don’t get too annoying in this film – it’s well before all that daft Mr Grimsdale palaver and there are some genuinely very funny moments (the revolving door and the ice cream flick stand out for me). He does sing his “Don’t Laugh at Me” song (yawn) but at least this is interspersed with scenes of Esma Cannon heaping sugar into her tea, which makes the ordeal worthwhile. Wisdom, by @aitchteee There is a feeling of nostalgia in many of Wisdom’s films. For example, there’s the one where he’s a horse drawn milkman, fighting against the big conglomerate dairy company with their fancy electric floats (themselves now the object of nostalgia to us!). ‘Trouble in Store’ seemed to me to hark back to the good old days of retail. The department store where he works, Burridges, is a very paternalistic company. You get the impression that a job with them is a job for life, if you want it to be. In return for loyalty to the firm staff are given various small perks, such as a place to park their bikes and recreational facilities and events. The leader is visible and approachable – not some faceless suit in an office somewhere else. Jobs like these have been dying out slowly over the past few decades. I reflected as I watched how attractive this workplace probably looks to those working in retail today. I recently spoke to an old acquaintance who works in a supermarket, one which prides itself on being cheaper than all the others. Her actual hours are full time (or even more than full time as I see it) yet she is only on the books as part time, probably so she doesn’t get all of the working conditions associated with full time work – and so that they can drop her hours at a moment’s notice if they want to. She feels insecure and would leave if there was anywhere else to go. This is how they make their goods so cheap - on the backs of their staff. A friend spoke to someone who works for a major department store. They are not replacing staff who leave and this means that on Sunday mornings she now unhappily works alone on her floor. Margaret Rutherford’s character would be very interested in that piece of information! Zero hours contracts too are becoming more common, offering only insecurity to thousands of families. These days, employers seem to take the attitude that you are lucky to find work of any kind. There is some truth in that, but why use this as an excuse to treat your workers like another piece of stock? These are probably the same employers that complain about the under educated workforce, not having heard the old adage about paying peanuts and getting monkeys. Where is the incentive to do better? We may laugh at Norman’s original 1950s audience – weren’t we a simple people back then? How unsophisticated we were to make this a box office hit. To think that this is what made us laugh then! But if we were to go back in time and meet our grandparents 60 years ago; and tell them how we aspire to find a job in a place as good as Burridges, where your job was safe and your wellbeing taken care of, what would they think? When we told them about our Dickensian jobs, who would be the ones laughing then? Visit Sarah's Amazon Kindle page here

‘The Navy Lark’ was a radio comedy series of the type that was very popular in the mid 20th century. Like ‘The Goons’, ‘Round the Horne’, ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ and many others it was a weekly dose of familiar characters and catchphrases which audiences couldn’t get enough of. These programmes launched careers back then, and spawned other projects too. Hancock, for example was transferred to television. It is not so well known that ‘The Navy Lark’ got its own film, which arrived quite early on in its lifetime. Having seen it, it’s not surprising that it isn’t listed among the classics of British cinema. But its sheer daftness was enough to brighten up my afternoon – well, how can you not smile at Leslie Phillips? Well hello! By @aitchteee Aside from the fruity Mr Phillips, most of the radio show favourites didn’t make it to the screen – perhaps the actors read the script first! The other screen stars are Cecil Parker and Ronald Shiner – veterans who make up for the lack of Pertwee or Barker. The rather far-fetched storyline is as follows – the Larkees are based on a fictional island in the English Channel. They are supposed to be clearing the area of World War Two mines; but instead they are taking advantage of the laid-back lifestyle to spend their days fishing, womanising and dealing in black market goods. All this is put in jeopardy when an ambitious officer in Portsmouth works out that no mines were ever laid in that part of the Channel anyway. He decides to pay them a visit to begin the process of shutting their operations down. Faced with a future of actual work, the Larkees come up with all kinds of schemes to thwart the plans from Portsmouth. This culminates in a faked native uprising complete with pretend battles. It’s all harmless fun, and I began musing on just how far-fetched the basic plot was. The film was made in 1959, 14 years after the end of the war, so I wondered about the idea of having mine detection units still in place. Surely they’d all been cleared up by then? Was this a daft joke, or a genuine possibility? None of my history books touch on naval warfare, so I turned to the Google search box. If any mine clearing units like this were still in place in the 1950s, I could find no trace of them. However, I did find some interesting snippets of information. Firstly, as late as the mid 1950s, relics of the war at sea were still being cleared away because the UK lent Denmark a minesweeper to go and help clear up their coastline. Secondly, it would appear that mines dating from the 1940s do still occasionally pose a danger to shipping. As late as 2007, cross Channel ferry services were disrupted due to the discovery of an old device. These mines were built to withstand stormy seas, and they did move around – so on consideration it is unsurprising that some proved difficult to find and are still primed and ready to go off. I wouldn’t rely on this film to tell me anything about the navy or the Channel Islands. But it did send me on a little journey of discovery about how the problems of war didn’t just go away in 1945. My short story, ‘Amphitrite’ touches on the dismantling of mines on British beaches after World War Two. It’s available in my book ‘Athene and Other Stories’ on Amazon. Go to Sarah's Amazon page here

Study: This year marks the 100th anniversary of the premiere of the ‘Photo-Drama of Creation,’ designed to build faith in the Bible as the Word of God.

Classic Film Scans

Vintage minicard, nr. 172. Photo: Eagle Lion. Distinguished British actor and novelist Sir Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999) was Britain's number one box office draw of the 1950’s, gaining the title of ‘The Matinee Idol of the Odeon’. In the 1960’s, he abandoned his heart-throb image for more challenging parts in films by Joseph Losey, John Schlesinger, Luchino Visconti, Liliane Cavani and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Bogarde made a total of 63 films between 1939 and 1991. For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

2nd July 1969, Lord Snowdon the Constable of Caernarvon Castle arrives with children Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones and Viscount Linley for the Investiture of Prince Charles at the Castle