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By Root 1142 0

actor of enormous experience – he was one of my childhood heroes in The Cruel Sea – and greatly respected and in constant demand. But here he was doing his first part after three months off in Spain, and he’d chosen to do a Ripping Yarn because he loved the script and because, as he explained in his effortlessly classic English upper-class accent, it was nice to do some comedy. He’d been offered some life of Marx thing, he told me with an unhappy frown, and was soon off to do ‘some bloody Brecht’ for the BBC, which didn’t seem to make him much happier either.2

Friday, October 8th

Before night filming, Jimmy Gilbert drops in to see Terry H and me. He’s read ‘The Testing of Eric O’ and is very enthusiastic. According to TH, Jimmy is treating the Ripping Yarns as one of his major projects – which is exhilarating and frightening at the same time. Each episode is costing twice as much as each episode of Python. All the more reason why they must work so well. There can be no excuses.

A long, but mercifully warm and dry night at Pinewood. We get through a great deal, but Don Henderson and I are still quelling a frog riot at three in the morning. Home by five.

Monday, October 11th, King’s House Hotel, Glencoe

Marvellous journey from London, ending up on the West Highland Line – pulling past Loch Lomond and into ever higher remoteness. It’s very wet. Streams are pouring off the slopes like water off the back of a newly-emerged whale.

Our little band – some fifteen strong – disembarks from the Euston sleeper at Bridge of Orchy Station – so small that it takes one or two tries before the driver can get our carriage parallel with the platform.

To the King’s House Hotel – haunt of previous Python filmings. Misty cloud swirls across the tops of the mountains. Have learnt from past experience that it’s no good belting all over the Highlands for just the right mountain. Some of the best are right by the hotel and, because of the enormous benefits of being near our base, we decide to locate Snetterton’s camp about 300 yards from the hotel with the dark, stony, fierce pyramid of Buachaille Etive Mor as our El Misti.

Monday, October 18th

Lunch with Clive Hollick (and Simon A) at his invitation. Clive, whose group, Mills and Allen, own Shepperton Studios, wants me to join the board of Shepperton as a non-executive adviser – representing the users of Shepperton from the artistic side.

He has plans to brighten Shepperton’s image and make it into the most exciting studio to work in in London. Pin-tables and neon lights announcing who’s in today, may be going a bit far – but a bit of showmanship will not be a bad thing for the film industry, which needs any boost of confidence it can get. As I prefer Shepperton to the more oppressive, institutionalised atmosphere of Pinewood, I feel quite amenable.

Monday, October 23th

Woke – in advance of the alarm – at about seven. A dull, heavy, uninspired feeling. One thing I know for sure – I don’t want to work today, or for a long time. But I have two weeks of filming ahead, in which another Ripping Yarn, ‘Murder at Moorstones Manor’, is to be put down. The script has been acclaimed and yet I feel as if it’s the first day of a winter term at school.

A great deal of dialogue to do today, which took me a couple of hours of concentration to get under my belt last night. It takes me a little over 45 minutes of not difficult driving out along the A40 to get to Harefield Grove, a once-stately home near Rickmansworth.

Isabel Dean, who plays the key figure of the mother, is gloomy following the West End opening of Dear Daddy.1 She looks perfect for the part, but seems a little strained and tired and has trouble with her words.

Friday, October 29th

Out to Harefield again. I enjoy these early morning drives now – I happily let Capital Radio, with its inane links and good music, flow over me. It’s a relaxing 45 minutes. There’s now much to look forward to – the week has steadily improved. I seem to have survived a peak of tiredness, which was at its worst on Tuesday morning,