Peter Viney's Blog

It was fifty years ago …

I finally found my 1971 Desk Diary.

How we met. I started teaching at Anglo-Continental School of English (ACSE) on 4 January 1971. I only intended to be there a couple of months. My brother-in-law, Tony, had been working there and had been offered a job at the university in Brussels in December. The school were furious asking how they could get a qualified teacher to replace him in mid-December  for the busy January (Southern Hemisphere summer holiday). As it happened, I was working for the first version of Supertramp. My ambition was to end up in rock management. My friend Rick Palmer had just left followed swiftly by the drummer, Bob Millar, and management had decided to put them back into a “cottage in the country” for a couple of months to rehearse a new album, and two new members. I would have little to do. I said I’d take the ELT job, and return to the band in a few months as they had hopes of a US tour. I never did. 

I’d taught English as a Foreign Language for three summers already, and my research MA with Malcolm Bradbury was ‘English and American Studies.’ I got the job.

The school had a Wednesday evening feature, originally called “Acted Lectures” which soon became “Drama Evenings.” Colin Granger ran them three weeks a month, with Guy Wellman as the regular other main actor. Others came and went depending on the week. Colin would explain the story of a play or plays, and we would do extracts. Sometimes we’d try a whole play. These were costumed, rehearsed with movement, furniture and props, but we had the books (which we’d often paraphrase to simplify text). The Beginners department, or F group, had Colin as supervisor, and Guy Wellman and I taught with him.  Nick Keeping was also in the department, with a bank of external drama qualifications, although Colin only cast Nick reluctantly, as he felt Nick was a scene stealer rather than working in a team. They soon recruited me, on the basis of my Drama subsidiary at Hull University.

I protested that I had focussed on production, not acting, but I was in.  Though as a footnote, Don Roy, the Head of Drama at Hull had offered me a chance to switch to Drama altogether at the end of the subsidiary course. I had got the highest marks in Production and Dramatic literature (Subsidiary and Main took the same exam). I had said the same to Don Roy, that acting was not my speciality. He kindly said that as he had directed me in A Yorkshire Tragedy, he would not cast me in a serious role, but felt I had a talent for comedy, especially in being a natural breaker of the fourth wall. 

So I was soon the other regular. At that point ACSE employed just one female teacher in a teaching staff of about 40. Yes, weird. So we had trouble with casting the shows, importing friends or women from the school administration. 

We were due to do J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of The Western World. We needed a very strong female actor for the role of Pegeen.  Nick Keeping suggested we ask Karen. None of us had met her. They had both been to the same drama teacher as teenagers, and had been in plays together. And, he added, she grew up in Ireland! Ideal. What Nick didn’t know was that “Ireland” was not J.M. Synge’s magical west, but Belfast. Her father moved there to work at Shorts  Aircraft when she was six weeks old, and then returned to England eight years later to work at British Aircraft Corporation in Bournemouth. Then she was sent to drama and elocution lessons because no one could understand her strong Belfast accent. She lost the accent altogether.

MAY 12 1971

So we assembled as usual in the ACSE student restaurant at 5 pm. It could seat 350 to 400, and had built in stage lighting, apparently installed when Peter Cook and Dudley Moore worked there and started the tradition of Wednesday shows. It also had a marble-tiled stage, which caused us all many injuries in years of stage falls!

Karen made an entrance in a long dress (for the role) down the centre aisle between the rows of chairs at 5.30. My diary states ‘With Colin, Nick, Guy and a girl called Karen.’ As normal, we raced to the pub for a drink between rehearsal and show. After the show, we said we were off to the Richmond, a pub in Charminster Road, for our normal after-show drink. Karen said she had to catch a bus in the town centre, so we all instantly switched plans and went to the Flare Grill at the Criterion instead. Karen says on the evening she thought I was drinking too much and was mildly obnoxious. We were all impressed as Karen held the floor with anecdotes and had us all laughing non-stop.

It was a busy week. I noted that I was on duty on Friday for “School film: Cat Ballou.” On Saturday I bought “White Light White Heat” by the Velvet Underground, and attended the school dance.

17 May Monday

‘Phoned Karen and asked her out next Sunday.’ Nick gave me her work number.

Karen was working at the Psychiatric Clinic. She asked my full name … she said she didn’t go out with people unless she knew their name and address. She told me to phone back in ten minutes, when she agreed to meet me on the Sunday. I found out later that the ten minutes delay was so that she could check the psychiatric records filing cabinets before accepting. Hence the full name. She says she didn’t like me much, but thought I might have interesting friends.

There wasn’t a show for us that Wednesday … our boss, Alan McInnes, did a full play once a month with mainly Amateur Dramatics friends from outside the school, though Guy was usually in them too.

We had already agreed to ask Karen back in for the next show that we did.

23 May Sunday

I met Karen outside W.H. Smith, Bournemouth at six. I was wearing my fetching suede and lilac jacket, bought the day before in Kensington Market for £16. A lot of money when you’re earning £23 a week.

Karen says she walked across the road, not looking forward to it, saw me and it was ‘Love at second sight.’ We went for a drink at the Flare Grill, then to the Royal Exeter where my friend Hutch (John Hutcheson) was playing in his band. He gave us lifts home.

We’ll measure our fifty years from that day.

25 May Tuesday

We met and went to see Tales of Beatrix Potter by The Royal Ballet because Karen was studying dance. I had a short lecture before we went in on Karen loathing people who interrupted the film by trying to kiss.

26 May Wednesday
Our second show. ‘Saved’ by Edward Bond. Karen was Pam. I have zero recall. To the Flare Grill for a drink.

28 May Friday

I went to dinner, then to the Royal Exeter with John Wetton, and he sat in with his old bandmate Hutch on a few songs (Hutch’s guitarist also had a bass guitar there, which he used for a couple of numbers). That’s fascinating … John was in Mogul Thrash, and about to join Family at that point (before going on to King Crimson, Roxy Music, Uriah Heap, UK and Asia). Those Friday evening beer drinkers had no idea who they were watching.

29 May Saturday

I had been invited to a house party in Brighton with friends Friday to Monday (it was a bank holiday weekend). I’d been looking forward to it, but decided to opt out of the weekend altogether and instead go shopping with Karen in Southampton on the Saturday. We had a Chinese meal and went to C&A, and then went to see ‘Beneath The Planet of The Apes.’

Then we went out Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. 

We did another show, 2 June … “A Taste of Honey.”

Then it’s “met Karen” Thursday, Friday, Saturday in the diary … and ever since.

We have photos of Karen in “Slaughter at 10th Avenue” which I saw- oddly it’s not noted in the diary. I know it was soon after we met, and the photos are labelled May 1971. I’d guess they’re early June.

9 June … The Ruling Class by Peter Barnes

16 June  …  Extracts from ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf’ plus J.P. Donleavy’s ‘Peach Shoes’

3 July – Karen’s sister’s wedding. The first time I met her family. Probably our earliest photo.

That pale blue bridesmaid’s dress was to serve the shows well for many years. It was her Juliet costume in our Romeo & Juliet Meet West Side Story sketch, and in anything medieval … and Dracula and Frankenstein.

That’s the second photo we have. Karen had changed from the bridesmaid’s dress. Those hot pants were to reappear when she played Dick Whittington in our annual pantomime a few years later. There’s little excuse for my suit, except that it was bought nearly five years earlier in September 1966 and hardly ever worn.

This was a sketch, not a play I think. Those are chips on the floor.

For the rest of the year, the basic team was Colin, Guy, me and Karen. All four of us became ELT authors.

The photo is from that second show, which I can’t remember, ‘Saved’ though it may be when we re-did it in September- my hair looks longer. You can see how that suede jacket would turn a girl’s heart.

That summer, Colin’s brother-in-law Peter De Souza joined us to make a team of five … he was a lecturer at Scottish RADA.

Peter De Souza introduced the idea of the “student sketches” which became central – comedy sketches about a group of students in England.

When Colin left in September, he bequeathed me the producer role. Karen and I had already started replacing the play extracts with specially-written sketches, and changed the name to Drama Evenings.

Nick Keeping replaced Colin in the basic team … we didn’t mind him upstaging! Nick was our Best Man when we got married.

The photo above is September 1971, one of the first shows after Colin left. It’s “Peach Shoes” by J.P. Donleavy which is a short one act play that I introduced to the repertoire.

After 1972 I was “encouraged” to shave off beard and moustache as both are easily applied, thus giving me more range on stage.

The real plays

A footnote. Karen was soon recruited for the “proper plays” produced by Alan McInnes, the favourites being The Importance of Being Earnest, A View From The Bridge and Private Lives. Alan always liked me to do lights and sound, agreeing with Don Roy’s opinion that serious drama was not my forte. Having done “proper” lights at Bournemouth Winter Gardens for two summers, I was not intimidated by the ten dimmer lighting board.

Karen remembers A View From The Bridge. I was Marco (I persuaded Alan that I had been in it in Hull). Alan always played Eddie Carbone, the lead. Guy always played Alfieri, the lawyer / narrator.  Anyway, Karen was Catherine, the niece who Uncle Eddie fancies. Eddie’s wife is cutting out a dress with shears. Alan was inspired by the moment, and when Eddie Carbone flies into a rage with Catherine, he grabbed the shears and held them to her throat, drawing just a little blood. This had not been rehearsed. Karen says this was her most terrifying stage moment ever. Note: She had never met Alan before and assumed he’d gone mad.

Alan always cast Karen from then on. They had arguments over The Importance of Being Earnest. As she is five foot tall, he cast Karen as sweet and simpering Cecily every time. Karen suggested she should play Gwendolyn as the stronger acting role (the obvious subtext was that she was the better actor). Alan refused saying, ‘I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years. You’re the best Cecily I’ve ever seen.’ 

When Alan decided to retire from the shows, Karen switched immediately to Gwendolyn.

Writing

At the Christmas Party after our pantomime in 1973, the school’s owner, Fritz Schillig, told Karen that students were asked to respond to their experience at the school, and she was easily first in the “most popular teacher” category. “But I don’t teach here …” she said.
“When would you like to start?” he replied.

We were writing dialogue and comedy together from 1971, five years before I met Bernie Hartley and embarked on Streamline. Several Streamline units have their origin in Drama Evenings sketches which Karen and I co-wrote, e.g. I Love You Fiona.

We resumed writing together in 1985 with A Weekend Away video. Then it was A Week By The Sea, Mystery Tour. Several pieces in both Grapevine video and English Channel video trace their origin from Drama Evening sketches. When we wrote Robin Hood for English Channel, we imagined Nick and Guy playing the roles twenty-five years earlier. We used a few more ideas in the 80 unit My Oxford English video series.

I feel the need to stress our equal writing contribution because of an unpleasant incident at an Oxford University Press reception when a drunken and aggressive (and well-known) author lurched up to Karen and said, ‘So what the f*ck do you do to get your name on a book?’ Perhaps this was prompted because I did the travel and promotion. Karen also was the first of us to be published, with Mary Glasgow. We never forgot (nor forgave) that incident.

Fifty Years On …

Three children. Seven grandchildren.

Here are our six English ones.

Here’s their American cousin. We haven’t seen him for two years except on Facetime.