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Melvyn Hayes
Melvyn Hayes (''né'' Hyams; 11 January 1935) is an English actor and voice over performer. He is best known for playing the effeminate Gunner (later Bombardier) "Gloria" Beaumont in the 1970s BBC sitcom ''It Ain't Half Hot Mum'', for appearing in the Cliff Richard musical films '' The Young Ones'', '' Summer Holiday'' and '' Wonderful Life'' as well as ''Here Come the Double Deckers'' (1970–1971). Professional career Early life and stage roles Born in Wandsworth, South London, Hayes attended Sir Walter St John's Grammar School For Boys, Battersea. As a youth he worked in Fleet Street, carrying advertising print blocks between newspapers. In 1950 he saw an advertisement seeking an assistant for the conjurer The Great Massoni. He got the job and was soon "disappearing twice daily for £4 per week" performing the Indian rope trick in Maskelyne's Mysteries at The Comedy Theatre in London. He was also in a theatrical troupe called Terry's Juveniles, and later appeared in repe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wandsworth
Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan The London Plan is the statutory spatial development strategy for the Greater London area in the United Kingdom that is written by the Mayor of London and published by the Greater London Authority. The regional planning document was first pu ... as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Toponymy Wandsworth takes its name from the River Wandle, which enters the River Thames, Thames at Wandsworth. Wandsworth appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as ''Wandesorde'' and ''Wendelesorde''. This means 'enclosure of (a man named) Waendel', whose name is also lent to the River Wandle. To distinguish it from the London Borough of Wandsworth, and historically from the Wandsworth District (Metropolis), Wandsworth District of the Metropolis and the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth, which all covered larger areas, it is al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Walter St John's Grammar School For Boys
Sir Walter St John's was founded in 1700 for twenty boys of the village of Battersea. As the population and the English educational system changed, so did the school. The school was colloquially known as "Sinjuns" and was finally closed in 1986-7. Early history In September 1700, Sir Walter St John, 3rd Baronet (1622–1708), of Battersea and of Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire, signed a deed that established a charity to form a school to "teach twenty poor boys of said parish" (Battersea). This was the start of Sir Walter St John's School, which was to survive for 286 years. By 1750, 83 boys and 5 girls were given instruction at the school. Battersea at the start of the 18th century was a village of some 200 dwellings containing about 1500 inhabitants. The rapid expansion of the London area during that and the following centuries, meant that there was a need of education for many more boys. A document of 1800 shows that the operation was based on the rules laid down by the Society for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crooks In Cloisters
''Crooks in Cloisters'' is a 1964 British comedy film directed by Jeremy Summers and starring Ronald Fraser as 'Little Walter', the leader of a gang of forgers, including Barbara Windsor as 'Bikini', Bernard Cribbins as 'Squirts', Melvyn Hayes as 'Willy', Grégoire Aslan as 'Lorenzo', and Davy Kaye as 'Specs'. Plot After pulling off a train robbery by tricking the train into stopping with false signal lights, 'Little Walter' and his gang are forced to hide out on a remote Cornish island in a monastery (which they buy with their "ill-gotten gains"), disguised as monks. With them comes 'Bikini' (Barbara Windsor), Walter's girlfriend, who is given the job of cook to the group, despite never having cooked in her life. After a few initial setbacks, they slowly adjust to their new contemplative life of tending animals and crops, surviving the added tribulations of visits by a group of tourists and two of the real monks who had been forced to sell the monastery after falling on hard t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bottoms Up (1960 Film)
''Bottoms Up'' is a 1960 British comedy film. It stars Jimmy Edwards in a spin-off of his TV comedy series ''Whack-O!'', playing the seedy, alcoholic, School corporal punishment, cane-wielding headmaster of Chiselbury School, a fictional private school, British public school. Screenplay was by Michael Pertwee, with additional dialogue by Frank Muir and Denis Norden. The cast includes juvenile actor Mitch Mitchell, John "Mitch" Mitchell (as Wendover), who in the late 1960s was the drummer in The Jimi Hendrix Experience, using his adult stage name, Mitch Mitchell, and it also marks the first film appearance of Richard Briers. Plot summary Professor Jim Edwards is the headmaster of Chiselbury School, a private school, private boarding school for boys. A new head of the school's Board of Governors threatens to replace him as headmaster unless he can drastically improve the school's performance. When Edwards is also confronted by his bookmaker demanding money he owes and which he ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Amsterdam
''Operation Amsterdam'' is a 1959 black and white British action film, directed by Michael McCarthy, and featuring Peter Finch, Eva Bartok and Tony Britton. It is based on a true story as described in the book ''Adventure in Diamonds'', by David E. Walker. The action of the story covers 12–13 May 1940 (Whit Sunday and Whit Monday) during the German invasion of the Netherlands. The composer Philip Green composed two original pieces of music for the film, the '' Pierement Waltz'' and the ''Amsterdam Polka''. Plot In May 1940, as the German invasion of the Netherlands is under way, the British government decides to send a team to the Netherlands on board to secure stocks of industrial diamonds before the invaders can get to them. Accordingly, two Dutch diamond experts, Jan Smit (Peter Finch) and Walter Keyser (Alexander Knox), with a British Army Intelligence officer, Major Dillon (Tony Britton), are dropped by ship off the Dutch coast. They survive a German air raid and escap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein is a fictional character and the main protagonist and title character in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''.. He is an Italians, Italian-Swiss scientist (born in Naples, Italy) who, after studying chemical processes and the decay of Organism, living things, gains an insight into the creation of life and gives life to his own creature (often referred to as Frankenstein's monster, or often colloquially referred to as simply "Frankenstein"). Victor later regrets Playing God (ethics), meddling with nature through his creation, as he inadvertently endangers his own life and the lives of his family and friends when the creature seeks revenge against him. He is first introduced in the novel when he is seeking to catch the monster near the North Pole and is saved from near death by Robert Walton and his crew. Some aspects of the character are believed to have been inspired by 17th-century alchemist Johann Konrad Dippe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Widow Twankey
Widow Twankey (originally Twankay, sometimes Twanky) is a female character in the pantomime ''Aladdin''. She is a pantomime dame, played by an older man. History The story of Aladdin is drawn from the ''Arabian Nights'', a collection of Middle-Eastern fables. It was first published in England between 1704 and 1714; and this story was dramatised in 1788 by John O'Keefe for Covent Garden as a harlequinade and included the character of 'Aladdin's Mother' (but unnamed) played by Mrs Davett. She was the widow of a tailor (as in the original story) and this was the profession in many later versions. In 1813, she had the same profession but was the Widow Ching Mustapha, and again in 1836, played by Eva Marie Veigel (Mrs Garrick), but the character was not yet comic nor played by a man. In 1844 a burlesque version of the story described Widow Mustapha as 'a washerwoman with mangled feelings'. However, in productions of the same year and most others up to 1891 she is involved with tai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aladdin
Aladdin ( ; ar, علاء الدين, ', , ATU 561, ‘Aladdin') is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'' (''The Arabian Nights''), despite not being part of the original text; it was added by the Frenchman Antoine Galland, based on a folk tale that he heard from the Syrian Maronite storyteller Hanna Diyab.Razzaque (2017) Sources Known along with Ali Baba as one of the "orphan tales", the story was not part of the original ''Nights'' collection and has no authentic Arabic textual source, but was incorporated into the book ''Les mille et une nuits'' by its French translator, Antoine Galland. John Payne quotes passages from Galland's unpublished diary: recording Galland's encounter with a Maronite storyteller from Aleppo, Hanna Diyab. According to Galland's diary, he met with Hanna, who had travelled from Aleppo to Paris with celebrated French traveller Paul Lucas, on March 25, 1709. Gal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sleeping Beauty
''Sleeping Beauty'' (french: La belle au bois dormant, or ''The Beauty in the Sleeping Forest''; german: Dornröschen, or ''Little Briar Rose''), also titled in English as ''The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods'', is a fairy tale about a princess cursed by an evil fairy to sleep for a hundred years before being awoken by a handsome prince. A good fairy, knowing the princess would be frightened if alone when she wakes, uses her wand to put every living person and animal in the palace and forest asleep, to waken when the princess does. The earliest known version of the tale is found in the narrative ''Perceforest'', written between 1330 and 1344. Another was published by Giambattista Basile in his collection titled ''The Pentamerone'', published posthumously in 1634 and adapted by Charles Perrault in ''Histoires ou contes du temps passé'' in 1697. The version collected and printed by the Brothers Grimm was one orally transmitted from the Perrault. The Aarne-Thompson classification ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Midlands
The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. They are split into the West Midlands and East Midlands. The region's biggest city, Birmingham often considered the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands, is the second-largest city and metropolitan area in the United Kingdom. Symbolism A saltire (diagonal cross) may have been used as a symbol of Mercia as early as the reign of Offa. By the 13th century, the saltire had become the attributed arms of the Kingdom of Mercia. The arms are blazoned ''Azure, a saltire Or'', meaning a gold (or yellow) saltire on a blue field. The saltire is used as both a flag and a coat of arms. As a flag, it is flown from Tamworth Castle, the ancient seat of the Mercian Kings, to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. With a population of approximately 1.2 million people, Surrey is the 12th-most populous county in England. The most populated town in Surrey is Woking, followed by Guildford. The county is divided into eleven districts with borough status. Between 1893 and 2020, Surrey County Council was headquartered at County Hall, Kingston-upon-Thames (now part of Greater London) but is now based at Woodhatch Place, Reigate. In the 20th century several alterations were made to Surrey's borders, with territory ceded to Greater London upon its creation and some gained from the abolition of Middlesex. Surrey is bordered by Greater London to the north east, Kent to the east, Berkshire to the north west, West Sussex to the south, East Sussex to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terry's Juveniles
Terry's Juveniles were a troupe of young dancers who performed regularly on British theatre stages, and in films, from about 1919 until the late 1960s, with regular changes of personnel. The group was founded and trained by Theresa Freedman (22 January 1884 – 4 February 1973), known as "Miss Terry". Freedman was born in Swansea, the daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants, but moved to London with her parents as a child. She became a dance teacher and established Terry's Juveniles in about 1919, at a time when choruses of children were a central part of pantomimes and other theatrical shows. At one time Terry Freedman ran several stage schools, and an office in Shaftesbury Avenue.Richard Anthony Baker, "Terry's Juveniles", ''Music Hall Studies'', No.12, 2013, pp.512-515 The girls involved were aged about 12, about tall, and were selected through Miss Terry's visits to schools as well as through advertisements and recommendations. Once they grew too tall or appeared older, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
