Geoffrey Botterill a tribute from Roger Waugh
Geoff Botterill died on the 31st of October 2011, shortly before his 87th birthday. His BBC career began in 1960 and until his retirement in 1986 he worked as a Film Editor and Chief Film Editor, at Television Centre and Television Film Studios in Ealing.
Geoff’s teenage ambition was to join the Royal Navy. His eagerness to go to sea persuaded him to join the Merchant Navy, whose recruitment age was lower. He celebrated his 16th birthday at sea. Family commitments forced him to leave the Merchant Navy for a brief period and it was during this interval that he found a job as an Assistant Projectionist at Lime Grove Studios. Whether he knew it or not, it was the genesis of his eventual career. When he left he was given an invitation to return when the war was over. He did not forget the offer. In 1942 he re-joined the Merchant Navy, serving on the highly dangerous Atlantic convoys and seeing more of the world than most could ever dream of doing. With customary understatement, he once described that period of his life as character forming.
In 1946 he returned to Lime Grove Studios, where his interest in film had first awakened. He was soon working as an assistant in the film cutting rooms and for the next fourteen years he worked extensively in the feature film industry, which at that time was dominated by Hollywood money. He worked at all the major studios in Britain including Shepperton, Pinewood, Denham and Elstree. “An Inspector Calls”, “The Vikings”, “Cockleshell Heroes”, “The End of the Affair”, and “Moulin Rouge” were just some examples of the extensive experience Geoff gained during this part of his career. He progressed from Assistant Editor to Sound Editor. He was never backward in coming forward to meet the stars whose films he worked on and he had many vivid and interesting memories of his encounters with the big Hollywood names of the era.
In 1960, with the UK feature film industry in one of its periodic declines, Geoff successfully applied to join the BBC as a Film Editor. The BBC was in the ascendancy in the 1960s and 1970s and was an exciting and invigorating place to work. Film was becoming a widely used format for documentary programmes and to enhance studio based productions. Eventually, it became the format of choice for single plays which revolutionised the impact of television drama. In the 26 years that Geoff worked for the BBC he worked on a vast range of programme output: “Z Cars”, “Dr. Who”, “Blue Peter”, “Grange Hill”, “Yesterday’s Witness”, “Not Only But Also”, “The Likely Lads”, “Steptoe & Son”, as well as dramas such as “A Tap on the Shoulder” directed by Ken Loach and the comedy drama “Clochemerle”. A full list of his achievements would be very long.
Geoff was a consummate professional. He had learned his technical knowledge and his craft from some of the most renowned and respected film editors in the industry. The BBC was deeply committed to training and was the only place in the UK where a structured employment based training could be obtained. Geoff was passionate about training younger editing staff. He gave selflessly of his time, his patience and his experience to support the formal film training schemes operated by the BBC and to take individuals under his wing to teach them their craft and technical knowledge. He was a significant contributor to building and developing the most formidable pool of talent that the film and television industry has seen, before or since.
As a colleague and friend, Geoff was known as a kind, gentle and generous man well respected for his personal integrity. His sociability and sense of fun were recognised attributes. His experience of life, the world and the industry in which we all worked gave him a legion of tales and stories to relate. He was a prolific raconteur. Whilst some of the tales required more than one instalment to complete, they were always laced with affection for the protagonists and rarely was there a bad word for anyone he knew or had known. He was very open and honest in his dealings with people. He invariably greeted you with a smile and you could always go to him for advice or solace, or both.
In the last few years of his life, Geoff succumbed to vascular dementia. His devoted family cared for him at home until he died. His marriage to Moya spanned 48 happy years and his children Jane and Nick and his grandchildren Joe and Lauren were his pride and joy. We extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to them in their sad loss.
At his funeral, his ten year old granddaughter, Lauren, asked if she could write some memories of her grandfather to be read at the service. Amongst the things she remembered was his prowess as a cartoonist, him pretending to be a tickle monster and chasing her round the room and the mischievous look in his eye often linked to a smile and a giggle. Those of us who worked with Geoff and knew him well were mercifully spared the tickle monster impersonation, we probably never knew of his skill as a cartoonist, but we all recognised the twinkle in the eye from a man who was a stalwart and highly respected professional colleague and a very nice person to have known and worked with.
Roger Waugh
David was evacuated with his school at the start of WW2 to Worcestershire, and on leaving school was employed as an electrician's improver. He became a youth in training at the BBC before joining the RAF in 1944 as a radar mechanic, serving in India and Ceylon. After the end of hostilities, he was briefly in charge of the maintenance crew servicing the Royal Flight, his chief memory of which was that they had to march everywhere.
On his return to the BBC in 1948 he returned to Droitwich, spent a short spell the London Control Room and then moved the transcription recording unit at St Hilda's in Maida Vale as a recording engineer, where he met his wife Jill.
In 1955 he joined the television film unit at Shepherd's Bush and later at Ealing Studios. As a film recordist he travelled widely, both in the UK and abroad. Among the places he visited were the US, Australia, India, the Belgian Congo (during the war there), and a tour of the battlefields of WW2 with former war correspondents including Richard Dimbleby, Wynford Vaughan Thomas and Frank Gillard. He found the travel enjoyable, whether it was filming an interview with Nehru or in Wales with a man who wanted to introduce a Welsh kilt or driving around in the US for 8 weeks with Alan Whicker for the Today programme. In the mid 60's he became film operations manager.
David loved classical and jazz music. After retirement he joined the BBC Club jazz society, taking over the bookings of the musicians for the society's monthly concerts in 2002. He quickly made many contacts among jazz musicians, aided by advice and comments from fellow jazz enthusiasts, to enable him to find the groups that would best appeal to members.
At the time of his death he had arranged concerts for the next six months - his legacy to his friends in the society. He died just hours after a successful and enjoyable concert and one of his last memories must have been the faces of the audience wreathed in smiles as they went home.
He is survived by Jill, daughter Susan, sons Michael and Simon and four much loved grandchildren. He is widely remembered for his good humour, gentle manners, and the many kindnesses he quietly did for others.
Neale Hilton
A Tribute by Richard Brunskill
Born in 1944, educated at Ardingly College and later having taken an aeronautical engineering apprenticeship at Vickers in Weybridge, Dick Allen joined the BBC in 1964 almost by accident. He met a friend who recommended that he try to get in, which he did. Initially he worked in the vaults of the Film Library from where he progressed to the Film Examination section.
By now he knew film was what he wanted to work with and in 1967 he applied for and successfully obtained, a post as a Trainee Assistant Film Editor in Film Department. He was made up to Film Editor in 1973 and was soon sought after by producers and directors.
During his 28 years in the BBC he worked on major documentary series like "Horizon", "Chronicle" and "The Tribal Eye" with presenters such as Sir David Attenborough and Magnus Magnusson, but Drama was always his main interest.
He edited many prestigious dramas including the feature film "Enchanted April", directed by Mike Newell which opened the 1991 London Film Festival; "Shackleton"; "Fair Stood The Wind For France"; "Virtuoso", based on the life of pianist John Ogden starring Alfred Molina; "Contact" directed by the late, great Alan Clarke and "Hotel du Lac", for which he received a BAFTA award in 1986. Such was his talent and mastery of the craft, he received a second BAFTA award in 1991 for the series, "Portrait Of A Marriage" based on the life of Vita Sackville West.
He left the BBC in 1991 with the first wave of Film Department redundancies and was freelance for a time, still working with film. He edited two further series, "Oliver's Travels" starring Alan Bates and Sinead Cusack and "Love on A Branch Line", with Lesley Phillips and Michael Maloney.
He gave up editing altogether in 1994 to help look after his newly born son. He was also able to return to another great interest when he took up flying and achieved a full pilot's license.
Dick had a strong personality and was a perfectionist. His work, his home and his family meant much to him. Modest, never flamboyant and always confident he had a singular and witty sense of humour.
Dick had been diagnosed a diabetic some years ago and eventually was fighting poor health, but always took it in his stride. He died in early February and leaves his widow Robyn, their young son Jonathan, and a daughter and son from his previous marriage. He will be very much missed by all who knew him, who are still shocked by their loss.
Richard Brunskill
A tribute from Prospero November 2007 by Julian Miller
Multi-talented individual.
Friends and ex-colleagues will be saddened to learn of the death, in August, of David Thompson, film editor. He was 65.
David had joined the BBC at Ealing (TFS) as an assistant film editor in 1974. Working for several departments, Promotions, Tomorrow’s World and Music and Arts among others, he became a film editor in the 1980s and worked mostly on documentaries.
Born in Scotland he was quite a sporting teenager, being at one time a Scottish junior tennis champion. He was a graduate of Glasgow School of Arts where he studied textiles and gained a place at the prestigious Royal College of Arts where he won a silver medal. While there, he wrote directed and acted in a shorter feature ‘Dreamweaver’ played very much in the nouvelle vague of the time.
Multi-talented, David was a fine photographer and it was a photographic assignment that led him to cover a concert where he met and befriended the Rolling Stones, on one of whose tracks Off the Hook he earned a co-writing credit with Jagger and Richards. Later in life he had one-person exhibition based on photographs he’d made in the 60s of Glasgow children, with whom he had a natural affinity. It was in the later 1960s that he was drawn to the theatre, joining the international La MaMa troupe with whom he performed in several European countries and in the United States.
Morally upright, highly perceptive, a socialist and strong supporter of the union, he enjoyed the ethos of the BBC where his outstanding talent to make friends with people of all ages and for all levels of society for a flowered. The manic depression which plagued much of his adult life and which forced his early retirement in 1987 in no way diminishes the loyalty and affection that he inspired in others. Fortunately, in his retirement years in Glasgow and Sterling, the bouts of his illness became less frequent and less intense and he was able to follow the fortunes of his beloved Stirling Albion team and to pursue, amongst his many passions, his avid collecting of jazz records and films, first on VHS and subsequently on DVD.
Many people were the recipients of his care and extreme generosity.
Julian Miller.
A tribute by Paul Foxall
Former Chief Film Editor, Paddy Wilson, has died at home in his beloved Sussex by the sea, aged 82. He’d not been well for some time and the last few weeks were particularly distressing for him, his wife Joan and their family.
I first met Paddy in the 60’s when he was the Chief on 24 Hours and I was one of the film editors and we became instant friends. He was a terrific guy to work for having such a generous spirit, great warmth and a delicious sense of humour. 24 Hours was a happy ship, due to the calm leadership of Paddy and Gordon Forsyth at the helm. Our paths crossed again at Kensington House on documentaries in the early seventies. He still loved to ‘keep his hand in’ on such programmes as, Chronicle and One Hundred Great Paintings. I always envied Paddy because whenever I popped into his cutting room for a chat it was full of women – I can only put this down to his famous ‘nautical’ saying that “the ladies liked the cut of his jib”!
Born in Colombo in Ceylon Paddy was a manager of a tea plantation. He was educated at Blundell’s in Devon and joined the Navy at 18. Before starting at the BBC he worked at Merton Park Studios. Paddy had a passion for motor cycles and it was when trying to start a particularly defiant model that it’s fair to say he did long term damage to his knee. For many years he lived with Joan and his daughters Rebecca and Clare at a lovely rambling house in Addlestone, Surrey. Paddy’s favourite curries were always on the menu, beautifully prepared by Joan.
Paddy loved sailing, which was one of the reasons he retired to Pagham. Sadly at about this time his health began to suffer, so he was never able to enjoy his retirement to the full. However, in order to keep in touch with Paddy, a group of about 20 editing colleagues met for lunch each summer at The Lamb in Pagham. Regular pals at the table included, Pam Bosworth, Alan Martin, Geoff Botterill and Dave King. Paddy attended these early gatherings, but when ill-heath intervened he was unable to be there. However, this tradition continued and it looks as if it will remain so for many years to come as a tribute to his memory.
A tribute by Ken Locke
Family and friends joined Bill’s beloved wife Betty for a humanist service at
Breakspear Crematorium, North West London, to mourn the passing and celebrate
the life of Bill Wright, film editor, who died on the 6th of January after a
short illness, aged 73.
The large gathering showed the affection widely held for Bill. It included many of his colleagues, paying tribute to his personal affability and an outstanding editing career at the BBC and later in the freelance world.
Bill and Betty both hailed from Dunoon in West Scotland, where Bill’s father managed the La Scala Cinema. His early days as a projectionist there started a lifelong love of film, and led him to move to London in 1959,where he joined the Projection Department at TFS Ealing and married Betty in 1961.
Paying close attention to the way the films he ran were constructed enabled him to begin a career in the cutting rooms that spanned more than 35 years. The fast moving world of Current Affairs helped hone his editing skills, and his work on Tonight and Panorama saw his measured and decisive approach attract Producers from Documentary and Drama Departments.
In the Seventies and early Eighties Bill’s editing enhanced BBC productions such as ‘the Family’, ‘Kizzy’, ‘Anna Karenina’, ‘Wilfred and Eileen’, ‘Going Straight’, and ‘The Chinese Detective’. The moving story of ‘The Silent Twins’ was followed a year later with the 1986 Dennis Potter classic ‘The Singing Detective’.
His outstanding work on 3 episodes of this landmark production rightly earned him a Guild of British Film Editors Award - an honour from his fellow editors Bill greatly treasured. Later his work on the elegant costume drama ‘Clarissa’ was BAFTA nominated.
In the mid-Nineties he went freelance, and his reputation ensured a constant flow of work, including ‘The Blonde Bombshell’, a two part dramatisation of the turbulent career of Diana Dors, and an undervalued feature film.
This was ‘Keep The Aspidistra Flying’, a sharp and witty adaptation of a George Orwell story. For its U.S.A. release it became ‘A Merry War’, with their distributor’s agent complaining “What the hell is an Aspidistra?”. As Bill commented later “What the hell is a merry war?”.
Bill then decided it was time to take it easy and enjoy the world. He and Betty travelled widely, crossing the Atlantic on ‘Queen Mary 2’ and exploring the U.S.A. coast to coast. In London Bill kept up a keen interest in cinema, TV, and Theatre, with a special affection for stage and film musicals.
Proud Scots who typified their nation’s reputation for warm hospitality, Bill and Betty were wonderful hosts, conveying their enthusiasms with insight and humour. Memorable meals and great conversation made these occasions happy events their many friends will always fondly remember, even as we grieve with Betty for her great loss.
a tribute by Les Filby and Ken Locke
Dave King was regarded as one of the BBC 's film editing legends.
His career spanned 50 years. He collaborated with television trailblazers like Alistair Milne, Jack Gold and Ken Russell and later with many more top directors.
He always claimed his profound fascination with film stemmed from his first trip to the cinema when, as a 8 year old birthday treat, his mother took him to see David Lean's classic production of 'Oliver Twist'
Born in 1939, Dave grew up in Birmingham. As a boy his father bought him a projector to further his passion and as a teenager Dave acquired a Bolex 16mm camera.
Leaving school he studied art at Birmingham College specialising in photography. He joined the Birmingham Evening Mail as a trainee photographer but dreamed of becoming a professional cameraman.
Because of his keen interest in 1961 he was accepted at the BBC in London as a trainee assistant film editor.
Dave found though he had an innate gift and love for editing so each programme he worked on was distinctively imbued with his energy and flair.
His prolific credits make it impossible to encapsulate his many achievements. Currently there are 104 credits on IMDB – and that is an underestimate. The many landmark programmes he edited include
'All My Loving' 1968-Directed by Tony Palmer.
'Dance of the Seven Veils' 1970-Directed by Ken Russell.
'Don Quixote' 1973, 'The Family' 1974, 'African Sanctus' 1975,
'Reich's Revolution' 1979, Bleak House 1985,
'Disaster at Valdez' 1992, 'House of Cards' 1993/1997
'Ready when You Are Mr. McGill' 2002
He won two BAFTA editing awards: one for 'A Rather English Marriage'(drama) 1998 directed by Paul Seed and the other for 'Rain in My Heart' (documentary)2007 directed by Paul Watson.
He was though his own man.
Sporting his shaggy beard and long hair Dave was certainly no follower of fashion. He wore his trademark sandals, whatever the weather, avoided watches and proudly drove a 1960's Morris Traveller.
With his sunny disposition and warm voice he was engaging company and widely admired.
Dave enjoyed wide cultural tastes and treasured his teetering supply of CD classical music and notably harboured a lifelong obsession with steam trains.
His colleagues and friends will miss him greatly.
But as a loving close family man to his dear wife Stella and to the rest of the family his loss is just devastating.
Dave King Film Editor:- Born 8th November 1939
Died from cancer 12th April 2016
Dave King
Funeral tribute by Roger Crittenden
DAVE REMEMBERED
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows
What are those blue remembered hills
What spires what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content
I see it shining plain
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again
Houseman’s words are often quoted but they are particularly relevant to Dave.
Only a few short weeks ago he talked to me about his early years:
I was born in Birmingham which was then in Warwickshire - woody Warwickshire as my Father used to call it. We used to go around to Catherine-de-Barnes, Henley in Arden and Stratford on Avon, every Sunday for a walk in the ancient woodland. I went back a couple of years ago and it was shocking - it’s all been built up modern roads, motorway everywhere. So our ancient parish of Yardley is now in the conurbation of the West Midlands.
My Father was an engineer and it was self-evident to anyone who visited our garden because all the plants were in straight lines – the flowers the bulbs the trees the shrubs, and he kept it beautifully. My Mother was a dressmaker and then a full-time Housewife. But living with us from when I was the age of six or seven was my Grandfather on my Father’s side, and he was a jeweller and engraver.
He produced lovely objects and took me to his workshop once, and he showed me some of the things he was working on with this awfully dull metal and I said what’s that and he said its gold but of course it hadn’t been buffed-up .
I remember being very proud when I learned that it was his work that was presented to the teams at Wembley every Cup-final day when they got their medals. So if there is any artistry in me I suppose it comes from him.
For an eighth birthday treat my mother took me to the cinema, for the first time to see David Lean’s film Oliver Twist. There was no TV –certainly not where we lived so this was the first time if you like I saw pictures joined up. I shall never forget the opening scene of Oliver’s mother walking over the moor attracted to the light at the top of the workhouse, and I was absolutely enthralled by it all. It was an absolute perfect choice, because it was the story of an eight year old, which is what I was. When I came out of the cinema I knew I wanted to be part of that in some way – preferably a cameraman I thought: but how?
In truth I could quote Dave verbatim for the next hour and a half but we will have to make do with edited highlights:
Dave acquired a film strip viewer and a school chum gave him some broken bits of a cartoon which he attempted to edit together with the aid of his mums darning needle – not a success.
His father built him a hand wound gramophone out of Meccano with a cardboard horn, and another darning needle – but the record and or the needle were soon worn out. It did teach him how to maintain a constant speed – so useful when later mastering the pic-sync.
He father then bought him a projector (£5.19s and 6d) and he saved up for cartoons – as they were black and white he bought a Johnsons photo tint outfit to colour each frame of Mickey’s trousers red.
Next came a Bolex H16 camera and he soon joined the Birmingham Cine-Arts Society where he was put on continuity about which he then knew nothing.
Then at 16 he became a member of Birmingham Film Society to see films that didn’t get shown at the local cinema. He remembered seeing Felinni’s I Vitteloni about a group of teenagers in an Italian suburban town – one of whom gets away – something he identified with very strongly.
There he met Henry Cohen, at about the same time as he became a trainee photographer on the Birmingham Evening Mail. Whilst he was training he and Henry started making films. Inspired by hating Dreyer’s Vampyrthey decided to make a spoof. The superimposed titles and the inter-titles were crucial and his father built him a titler. The saga of making that film is worth a lecture in itself.
However Dave was still determined to be a cameraman and searched every issue of the British Journal of Photography in search of openings. One week there was an advert from the BBC, recruiting Trainee Film Editors – at least, Dave thought, if I get in I can transfer to camera at some point. Armed with his six minute Dreyer spoof he went down to London for interview and got the job: one of three accepted out of 800 or more applications.
I think it was working on the Tonight programme with a wonderful team of producers and directors that finally persuaded him that editing was to be his chosen career. Perhaps because it was like working on the TV equivalent of a newspaper and he loved and thrived on the adrenalin of his daily contribution to the programme.
So a wonderful career started which resulted in two BAFTAS: one for A Rather English Marriage (1998) directed by Paul Seed and the other for Rain in My Heart (2006) directed by Paul Watson.
I know of no other editor who has won both for factual and drama. He was the consummate editor – admired by his peers for his skill and commitment.
Currently there are104 credits on IMDB – and I know personally that this is an underestimate.
Meanwhile something happened to Dave in 1964 which was to make his life complete. He was taking a break on a walking holiday in the Lake District. A certain Stella was on a geography course at the same time. They stayed at the same Youth Hostel at High Close. Stella remembers that Dave’s chore was sweeping the hostel Balcony – which extends round three sides of the building. It is described as a magical place: it certainly worked its magic on Dave and Stella. They exchanged contacts – remember no email no mobiles no social networking.
Nothing happened until the following year when Stella got a postcard of the Statue of Liberty from New York. Now I know about that holiday because at the time I was working as Dave’s assistant and he had gone off leaving me to finish editing a film made in Surfers Paradise on Australia’s Gold Coast, which ended up being entitled Heaven Down Under. Alistair Milne wrote out the credits for me to order and to my great surprise it said: Edited by Dave King and Roger Crittenden. My first screen credit and one I have treasured ever since, even though it is not listed on IMDB!
Stella and Davegot together when Dave invited Stella down to London for New Year. So ensued a regular rendez-vous up and down from Liverpool to London or sometimes to Birmingham. On holiday in Yugoslavia the following year they got engaged, and were married on New Year’s Day 1967.
Stella can still remember going to Fowey for their honeymoon and getting off the train walking in the dark down to the village surrounded by Christmas Lights – unforgettable.
In !970 they were blessed with the arrival of Imogen and in 1973 with Christian’s birth. More recently after the marriages of Imogen to David and Christian to Hannah their family has been completed with their lovely grandchildren, Henry and Poppy.
Dave always worked too hard – mainly because he was so in demand, especially at the BBC – but he treasured special time with the children – for instance when he and Christian went to see The Rocket together, or when he and Imogen couldn’t sleep one night in Norfolk they went together to the coast to see the sunrise. Dave always wanted to take Poppy to the Ballet and was so happy when he was able to see The Nutcracker with her last Christmas.
Nothing of course exceeded the shared pleasures with Stella – like deciding to camp out overnight by St Paul’s to get a ringside place for Chas and Di’s wedding. Of course there were unfulfilled ambitions like cruising on the Mississippi or climbing Machu Pichu, but Adrienne and I were so happy that we persuaded them to join us on a cruise up the River Douro in Portugal last year. I have an album of Dave’s photos to prove it.
One show we shared amongst others was The Pyjama Game – it sums up Dave that his love of musicals was there combined with a struggle for workers’ rights.
In terms of editing Dave told me he would have liked to have cut a musical like The Red Shoes though he especially enjoyed those diverse music programmes he got to work on – from Steve Reich through David Fanshawe to Szymanowski.
I am sure Stella won’t mind me saying that my own special memory is of Dave and I in Brussels for a week sharing in an event to celebrate the work of Ken Russell for whom we both cut. I have never seen him happier. You can read Dave’s reflections on working with Ken in Paul Sutton’s amazing book.
You never stop learning and if lucky you encounter good teachers throughout life. Dave was the best I ever had. During the time I was his assistant, without ever dictating to me he taught me the values of commitment, dedication and going the extra mile.
A recent poem put it better:
I now realise that Dave taught me the meaning of true friendship because every time I left him I was already looking forward to seeing him again. Now like everyone here we are so lucky to have the blessing of the memories of him which will never leave us.
Obituary printed in the Guardian August 2017
Award-Winning Chiswick Film Editor Remembered.
Clare Douglas worked on some of the most memorable TV dramas of our times.
The award-winning film editor, Clare Douglas, who has died while on holiday in France, was responsible for crafting some of the most memorable television dramas of our times.
From John Irvin’s ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ in 1979, to Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘The Lost Prince’ (2003) and beyond, she never failed to be in demand. She made four further films with Poliakoff.
She left the BBC to edit the writer Denis Potter’s last films, which he directed. These were ‘Blackeyes’ (1989) and ‘Secret Friends’ (1991), but she had edited some of his earlier work, directed by Renney Rye – ‘Karaoke’(1996), ‘Cold Lazarus’ (1996) and ‘Lipstick On Your Collar’ (1993).
Her touch helped make Simon Langton’s ‘Smiley’s People’(1982)’, Ross Devenish’s ‘Bleak House’ (1985), Peter Smith’s ‘A Perfect Spy’(1987) and she worked with Paul Greengrass on ‘The Murder of Stephen Lawrence’ (1999), ‘Bloody Sunday’ ((2002), and his feature film ‘United 93’ (2006), for which she was nominated for an Oscar – although she disagreed with the final version of that film. The list of her achievements and BAFTA awards are many, but it is for her warmth and humanity that she will be remembered. With Clare there was no ego and she was deeply concerned for those less fortunate.
She had a special talent – that rare gift to understand film and edit dialogue - which she combined with deep sensitivity and a passion for her work that was only surpassed by her love for her friends and family. Clare helped many young editors in their careers with advice and carefully crafted references.
Clare was born in Ipswich where her father worked on the development and testing of Radar equipment. Her mother, a journalist, wrote pamphlets for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and had employment in a local factory. After two years in Cardiff, where Clare started school, they moved to Nottingham in 1951 where her father took up an academic post. The eldest of three sisters, she attended West Bridgford Grammar School, going on to read English, Drama and Philosophy at Bristol University, before taking a Film and Photography course at Hornsey College of Art. After training as an editor at the BBC she worked on many documentaries before moving to drama. She was an active member of the film and television union, ACTT, for many years. Clare developed an early understanding of the complexities of cricket through her father’s obsession with the game and her own ability to bowl overarm at him in their garden.
During her time at the BBC, she met and married another cricket lover, the filmmaker, Michael Barnes. They worked together on his documentaries. Among many were ‘Jessica Mitford – The Honorable Rebel’, ‘Jane Fonda at 40’, ‘The Long Walk of Fred Young’, and ‘The Case of the Hillside Strangler’, a two-part Emmy Award winner.
They had no children, but Clare was always there for Mike’s two daughters from his first marriage, Suzy and Mandy. They were together for 43 years and were regular visitors to Test Matches up and down the country.
It was on the last night of their holiday in France that she fell backwards down a stairwell in their hotel room and died. Mike and her sisters, Tina and Oriel, survive her.
Elizabeth Clare Douglas. Born February 21, 1944, died July 9, 2017.
David Boardman
August 1, 2017
KEN LOCKE 1939-2018
A tribute by Julius Hogben
“ I’d like you to meet Ken Locke, our de-fucker” , is how he was introduced to a stately lady from the BBC Board of Governors, who didn’t turn a hair. Someone stuck a notice on his cutting room door at Lime Grove, “Guarding the Morals of a Nation.”
Ken had joined the BBC in 1964 as a trainee film editor. For 19 years from the 1980s, Ken was the Chief film editor of BBC Film Exam, Programme Acquisitions, looking after feature films. During this period, BBCTV screened more movies than any broadcasting organisation.
The maze of BBC censorship rules included a barrage of committees at the end of which , sometimes, even the BBC Director-General was consulted. It took Ken over a month to cope with Apocalyse Now.
The delicacy of his touch could be appreciated at a moment in Klute where Jane Fonda clearly tells a client to Fuck off ! with no sound: it’s possibly, more effective. The Americans might themselves bizarrely change “motherfucker” to “melon farmer”. “Nobody calls me melon farmer !” Bang ! In prints for the Christian southern states of Back to the Future, “Holy Jesus ! “ was replaced by ”Holy shit !” which personally, Ken found far more offensive. Ken enjoyed reading the original notes obtained from Hollywood studios, such as “smells like an Arab armpit”, annotated “Would this offend Middle East sensibilities ?” or “Will the limeys understand this ?” Extreme violence coupled with misogyny was unacceptable to Ken. He would advise that a movie could not, should not be transmitted – howevermuch the BBC accountants protested.
Censorship was not at all Ken’s concern when he applied for the job in Film Exam. He’d loved movies, especially from the 1930s and 40s and 50s, since the early days when he was expelled from his Brisbane school at 14 for constant bunking off to help out in the local cinema projection booth. Cinemas in the Australian colony were obliged to buy poorly made British films of the 1930s in bulk, “quota quickies”, “Take that you swine !” films as Ken called them. But other movies set him on the right path. Under the guise of popular entertainment, he would say, incredible things were made, better than anyone knew. No-one thought Casablanca was a classic, it was “Let’s see what’s on next week.”
To transmit movies on TV, Ken had to dissect them in order to restore them, to try to reproduce the look, the original qualities of picture and sound alike. He became an expert not only on colour print processes, but on film music and sound recordings which were stereophonic long before there were stereo players in cinemas. He had a budget to get stereo tracks duplicated in Hollywood “for BBC censorship purposes.” He re-dubbed. He consulted retired technicians and directors and actors in the USA and UK alike, or private collectors who might hold illegal prints. With a very few other like-minded film professionals, he helped locate and restore lost prints. He liked to mention how the silent film actress Louise Brooks kept a superb print of the 1927 Pandora’s Box under her bed. She’d slept on top of a bomb, nearly 10,000 feet of inflammable nitrate film stock, for 40 years !
When Ken joined the BBC in 1964, he was appalled by how class–ridden it was. He didn’t last long on Playschool ! Repellent and sociologically very interesting, as he put it. “The Beeb was mostly upper middle-class. You always presumed nepotism, until proved otherwise. Many of these people were pleasant and talented, but no more so than other people who didn’t get a look in.” The BBC tended to slot most Australians into the lowest class of people, assuming them to be of convict stock, not realising that this is a cachet Down Under. Ken was tickled to discover that his Norfolk ancestor had in fact emigrated to Oz as a free man – but he’d opened a pub, which made him almost as low ! One of his most telling anecdotes was of a BBC director, who happened to have the same surname as the BBC Director-General. He remarked in Ken’s hearing to a guest who was drifting towards the film editor’s separate room in ‘Hospitality’ to watch the programme transmission : “You don’t want to go in there with the sweaties...” As Ken said, David Lean came from the cutting rooms.
When he retired, Ken was constantly at the then National Film Theatre, watching for the umpteenth time, the movies he loved. He continued his 40 year long collaboration with another BBC film editor, Keith Wilton, in British Film Collectors Conventions and in making DVDs such as “Armchair Odeons”, celebrating people who loved old movies, and sometimes came across prints of lost movies.
Ken Locke’s colourful memories are recorded along with many others’, at https://historyproject.org.uk/interview/ken-locke, accessible to all. His friends miss him, his family mourn him.
Julius Hogben 03.03.2019