Memoirs of a Private Man

  ‘ One or two of the leads in the cast,’ I said defensively, ‘have told me they’re tired out and don’t want to go any further.’

  He said: ‘Don’t you worry about the cast. We’ll deal with them. You just give us the material. Don’t say any more now. We’ll meet for lunch in London in a few weeks’ time.’

  Graeme McDonald was too nice a man ever to play the devil’s role, but I suppose if there were ever a time when I was taken up and shown all the cities of the plain, this was it. Another series, as dizzyingly enjoyable as this second one; the tremendous notoriety I had achieved – not displeasing to one’s ego, however much one might physically retreat from it, the temptation to carry on, to hold the viewers in the palms of one’s hands, to work with stimulating advice, to know of twelve million viewers waiting for it: surely one’s creative urges would work at double speed to satisfy such a demand? Had not Dickens written his books in instalments, to be published at regular intervals and to be soaked up by an eager and doting public?

  Looking back, and seeing the situation from the perspective of the years, it is very surprising to me now that I scarcely felt the temptation. I met Graeme McDonald in London and regretfully told him no. Perhaps it is a measure of the attachment I felt for all the Poldark characters that I hardly seriously contemplated providing the material for another three or four books. The seven published books had not come that way. Nor could any others.

  The fact that five years later I began again is quite another matter. An author can be influenced in his choice of what he writes by the knowledge that his public wants more about a particular character and nothing else. (Conan Doyle, to his own great chagrin, found his public very little interested in his excellent historical novels such as The White Company and calling only for more Sherlock Holmes.)

  What did influence me, in the end, apart from the enormous continuing popularity of the Poldarks, was my own enduring preoccupation with this scene and these people. To go back to them and open yet another chapter in their lives was something I found myself gradually impelled to do, even though I had thought the story finished with the seventh book. Of course I was aware it would pleasure many other people, but mainly I was pleasing myself, as I had done ten years before when turning my back on successful modern novels.

  By the time the first of the new quartet, The Stranger from the Sea, was published, Graeme McDonald had left the BBC and moved to Anglia Television. Almost all the people connected with the television production had left or been moved, and the newcomers were not interested.

  Among the many totally enjoyable events of that happy summer when the second series was being made, two events particularly stand out. Christopher Biggins, who came into the second series and who made such a hit as the lecherous parson, Osborne Whitworth, is a very talented, amusing, gregarious man, full of laughter and bonhomie. Discovering that he had no part to play in Episode 6, he thought to take a holiday. A rich friend of his had offered to lend him his villa in Minorca for ten days, so Christopher invited Jane Wymark, who was his downtrodden wife (Morwenna) in the production, Julie Dawn Cole, her pretty sister (Rowella), Julie’s boyfriend, and another rather mysterious half-French girl called Janique.

  Then he said: ‘Why don’t you and Jean come along with us? Do!’

  It could have been a disaster. We were at least thirty years older than the next oldest member of the party. None of the others did we know at all well; two we had not even met. We assembled at Heathrow to meet together for the first time and to catch the 11.30 p.m. plane for Minorca, with a traffic controllers’ strike due to begin at midnight. We sat in the plane nervously waiting, making what jokes we could, and hoping for the best. We took off at five minutes to twelve.

  Two and a half hours later we straggled sleepily out of the airport at Mahon. Christopher said he had ordered a self-drive car or cars to meet us. There was no one anywhere about. But in the car park two very battered Fiat 500s were standing, and on each windscreen was a big placard marked ‘Biggins’. The keys had been left in the ignition. We had to help ourselves.

  Christopher drove one and I drove the other. He presumably had some idea where we were going, so I followed him. I do not know how long it took, but presently we arrived at a luxurious villa, with eight bedrooms each with its own bathroom, built round a large private swimming pool. Christopher triumphantly switched on all the lights – we made tea, were allotted our bedrooms and dropped into bed.

  I suppose it was lucky that we all liked the same things. Casual breakfasts, a drive to spend a long day on a beach somewhere, with lunch at a beachside cafe, endless bathing and sunbathing, then home to change and out to dinner at one of the numerous restaurants dotted about the island. In the ten days I do not remember a disagreement, a cross word or a complaint. All I remember is the laughter.

  Of course Christopher was the supreme organizer and the catalyst. He it was who sought out the restaurants and, since few of them were on the telephone, buzzed over in his rickety Fiat to make the reservations. The swimming pool, elegant as it was, was simply not used. With complete accord, every day we sought the sea, and laughed and joked our way through the day. Only towards the very end of our stay two members of the party said they were exhausted and wanted to opt out. They were the two youngest.

  The evening before we left to return to England we were late back to the villa, and Jean whispered to me:

  ‘Quick, quick, Christopher is still with the car. I want to get into his bed without anyone seeing!’

  So off she limped to the other side of the villa, me trailing behind her, and presently when she was happily abed, having redonned her sun hat, I slipped away, and waited for the arrival of Biggins. A chorus of good-nights followed and then a scream that would have put a banshee to shame brought everyone out of their rooms again to discover what more laughter was to be had so long after midnight.

  Jane Wymark, writing to me many years later, sums up: ‘If C. Biggins Esq. never does anything else I feel he should be given a medal for organizing that holiday in Minorca. I remember Jean in her wild bathing hat covered in roses and wearing her water ring. What if a stroke leaves you with a bit of trouble on one side? – swim round in circles and enjoy yourself! Then the evenings with the whole lot of us clean and content if slightly sun-struck, and Jean smartly dressed for dinner with the odd rich jewel carelessly sprinkled around. And everyone, everyone jolly together.’

  Chapter Six

  Soon after the second series was started various members of the cast got together and insisted that I should make an appearance on the screen – à la Hitchcock – so the director was prevailed upon to put me in as a member of the church congregation waiting outside the church to greet the arrival of the Revd Mr Odgers. I was dressed up in suitable yeoman-style clothes and when Mr Odgers appeared I was to touch my hat and say, ‘ Mornin’, Vicar,’ in a good Cornish voice. This took place and I fancied I delivered the lines without forgetting a single syllable. However, when the episode was shown I was not in it. I raised this with the director, Philip Dudley, who said: ‘I thought you might notice that. Sorry. The episode was running long and you ended up on the cutting-room floor.’

  We were now about to start Episode 12 (of 13), and he went on: ‘Let’s see, there’s not much left now. I could put you in this episode as a drowning miner …’

  ‘Thanks, no, all the same.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, ‘I could put you in another church scene, the last. Where Morwenna marries Drake. You can stand outside the porch and kiss her as she comes out.’

  ‘That sounds more promising,’ I said.

  The following night we attended an Old Cornish Dinner at Lostwithiel, and just before going I sprained my back. I spent the evening in acute pain, and was tremendously relieved to collapse into bed in Lamellyn Vean, the house we had rented for the duration in Probus; but conscious that on the morrow the wedding would take place, where I was expected to play a part.

  The next morning my back
was no better, but determined not to miss my eighty seconds of celluoid immortality, I asked Jean if she had any sort of corset she could lend me.

  She said: ‘I don’t wear them, as you know. Not the sort of thing that would be any help to you, anyway. I’ll go into Truro and see if I can find anything there.’

  She was gone a long time, and when she returned she had a large white suspender belt, which duly went on and offered me some minimal support.

  It was time to go. By merciful good fortune my dear friend F. L. Harris had arranged to come with us, and it was relative bliss to sit in an upright car instead of the low-slung Alfa.

  After a canteen lunch it was time for the next scene, and the call came. I went over to one of the caravans to be dressed and made up.

  As it happened, the dresser was a pleasant little chap I had seen about quite a bit. He had dyed carrot-coloured hair, a safety pin through one ear, and read girlie magazines.

  ‘ I’ve a lovely brown jacket for you ’ere,’ he said in his twittering voice, ‘an’ a pair of breeches to match.’

  Reluctantly I took my trousers off, when I was seen to be wearing an old-fashioned white corset with four suspenders dangling …

  Later that afternoon, in the porch of the little granite church of St Braddock, I duly kissed the ‘ bride’. It was a misty, drizzly day, and for some reason the director could not get the scene just as he liked it. We went through it four, five times.

  As I dutifully kissed Jane Wymark once again I whispered: ‘I believe I’m getting more fun out of the wedding than the groom.’

  She smiled through her teeth and replied: ‘Yes, and more than he’s ever going to get too.’

  The other and particularly happy recollection concerns an event at the very end of the outdoor shooting. Because the scriptwriter of the first series had, bizarrely and with complete disregard for my story, decreed in Episode 16 that Trenwith should be burned down, a new house had had to be found for the Warleggans to live in in the second series. Godolphin, in the west of the county, near Helston, had been changed to Boconnoc, in the east, near Lostwithiel. The owner of Boconnoc, a Major Desmond Fortescue, whose acreage was enormous and included a cricket ground where Lostwithiel occasionally played, allowed himself to be persuaded to hold a cricket match – for some charity, I don’t remember which – the contestants being the Poldarks against the Warleggans, the teams composed of most of the cast and any of the technicians who fancied making up the numbers. It was thought that two or three hundred spectators might come, and suitable provision was made. Over six thousand arrived.

  It was a lovely day, sunny and fresh. I had had to go to London for something, so I travelled back to Cornwall by overnight sleeper, bringing my car, the pagoda-yellow Alfa, on the same train. Bleary with the inevitable rackety, bumpy night, I arrived in Penzance at 7.30, took the hood down, drove to Probus, where we had the house, changed, had breakfast, rested a bit, then drove with Jean to Boconnoc,where we had lunch at the Dower House with Desmond Fortescue and our old friends Nancie Tresawna and John and Molly Corbett. Then we drove to the cricket match.

  Mayhem reigned. But it was altogether a happy, good-tempered mayhem. I forget which side batted first, but the game was constantly subject to what are now called pitch invasions – whenever, in fact, an important member of the cast was sent near the boundary to field and was at once surrounded by people anxious to talk to them and to get their autographs. I remember Judy Geeson (Caroline Enys) arriving late and wandering onto the field of play. She was so surrounded, almost overwhelmed, that I stood guard over her so that she should not totally disappear in the friendly scrum.

  The Poldarks won the match. The highlight of the game, perhaps, was when Robin Ellis (Ross Poldark in person) was batting and had scored freely all round the wicket. Ralph Bates (George Warleggan) asked Jill Townsend (Elizabeth Warleggan) to bowl an over. Jill, who is American, had only the faintest notion what to do, but followed the instructions so well that she bowled Ross Poldark first ball.

  I do not know whether it has been quite clear in the course of these pages that my criticism of the producer and writers of the first series stopped entirely short of the actors and technicians. For them I had only admiration. And if my criticism of the original producer has been very forthright, it does not include criticism of his casting. In some cases it was inspired. From the beginning they were a wonderful group: Robin Ellis, Angharad Rees, Ralph Bates, Clive Francis, Jill Townsend and Norma Streader made a brilliant sextet round which the other actors congregated to create their own Poldark world. Paul Curran as Jud Paynter, Mary Wimbush as Prudie, Richard Morant as Dwight Enys and Judy Geeson as Caroline Penvenen were added to in the second series by Christopher Biggins as Osborne Whitworth, Jane Wymark as Morwenna, Kevin McNally as Drake Carne and David Delve as Sam Carne. For the second series, which was separated from the first by two years, only one big cast change had to be made. Dwight Enys was played in the second series – and played equally well – by Michael Cadman. Of the technicians also I cannot speak too highly.

  We had one day of very bad weather at the beginning of Episode 1 of the second series, when Ross, returning from Holland (where he had been sent by the previous scriptwriter), had to gallop across Porthluney Beach in his full regimentals. Torrential hail showers drifted up, flooded and drenched everybody and were succeeded by a cold, fitful sun, gleaming before the next shower. It was very trying. Everything was spasmodic and damp and chill. Walking back after one huge shower, I passed a cameraman called Chris, just emerging, dripping, from the hibernation of a piece of tarpaulin. I said to him: ‘ Frightful weather, isn’t it.’

  He looked at me judicially and then said: ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s not too bad. I’m alive. I’m well. And I’m working.’

  It’s a wonderful remark and should be studied by us all.

  The reason the BBC gave for their lack of enthusiasm when the further books were eventually written was that they did not wish to repeat old successes. The new executives wanted to make their own impression on the screen, not to seem to be copying their predecessors.

  Even so, there have been any number of attempts to continue the series on TV. In 1981 Robin Clark, who had inherited London Films together with a large fortune from his father Robert Clark, bought an option on the next three novels (with a fourth promised to follow). He paid handsomely for a twelve-month option, and immediately gave a large cocktail party to mark the event and invited all the old cast and a number of top BBC executives. At this party not one representative of the BBC turned up.

  Nevertheless he went ahead and invested considerable funds in the preliminaries of a production. At the end of the year he felt he had made some progress, so bought another year’s option. During this second period he brought in two experienced producers to work on the production, particularly to estimate its costing. He also published a glossy booklet advertising his intentions and listing the number of countries in which the previous series had been shown and with handsome pictures of scenes from Poldark One and Two. When the second year was up he took still one more option – this of six months. But nothing he could do could persuade the BBC to move an inch.

  During this period there had been stirrings in the commercial network too, and when the Clark option finally expired, John Edwards, a freelance entrepreneur, paid a similar large sum for a further twelve months’ option. Nothing came of this either, but Edwards continued to have faith in the books, so I gave him a further option – this time free – to run for another year.

  In the meantime Robin Ellis (Ross Poldark) had read the by-now four unfilmed Poldark novels and was very enthusiastic about their potential as a continuation – or climax – of the saga. He discussed it with one of his friends, Jackie Stoller, herself a distinguished TV producer, and in early 1992 they approached me telling me of their plans for getting a film mounted and asking me for a twelve-month option, another free one. John Edwards’ second option had now expired, so I gladly agreed to this. Betw
een them, I thought they would produce an admirable series.

  The last Poldark novel, The Twisted Sword, had been published in 1990, and it seemed that despite the big gap of time which had passed since the end of the two TV series, interest in Poldark had seldom been greater.

  After early 1992 when this last option was granted, nothing material happened for a long time. I was in touch with Robin, who kept me appraised of the situation; but by the time the year was up there had not been any real progress. They therefore asked for another year’s option, which I again gladly granted them.

  Towards the end of the second year I was approached yet again by John Edwards, who by now had interested HTV in the Poldarks – or perhaps more correctly reactivated their interest – and he said they would consider taking an option themselves. When the property became free at the end of Robin and Jackie’s second year I agreed with John Edwards that he should have a free option for six weeks only. This was greatly to the disappointment of Robin and Jackie, but I thought such a short option could hardly do any harm.

  At the end of the six weeks, HTV said they were prepared to buy a year’s option, paying less than a third of what Robin Clark had paid, but it was definitely an earnest of their interest.

  The rest (as they say) is history. HTV took up the option and announced a production due to start in May 1995. This, following the new fashion, was to be a two-hour film based on the eighth Poldark novel, The Stranger from the Sea, and if this was as successful as everyone expected, it was to be followed (at an interval) by the three remaining novels in twelve hourly instalments, rather on the BBC model. The actors in the two previous series were all approached, and all the main actors were delighted to accept the offer to play their old parts. (The exception was Ralph Bates, who had played George Warleggan in the previous series – one of the most charming of men – and whose untimely death we all mourned.)