Writing for Fun
June 2015
The Turn Of A Card - Reg Pound
The Turn of a Card . . . that's me I suppose.
I used to be a Turn in the old fashioned meaning of: a short theatrical solo, performed in a cabaret or Variety Show.
Seventy or so years ago there were hundreds of us giving turns in variety theatres and end of pier shows up and down the country.
And I was what used to be called a Card – that was a term for a character – an eccentric; a bit of a lad; a fellow ready for a laugh.
There was only one future for me . . . on the stage.
As you may gather, I am getting on a bit . . . 90 years old if you're interested; and the same age if you're not.
Memory is going; as a famous feller once said: 'All the right years in the wrong order,' or something like that.
Artists like me faded away.
The decline was gradual but fast.
What happened to us?
First, blokes were getting demobbed and coming into the business. Max Bygraves was one of the big names.
Secondly, there was television . . . I never got on with that, it didn't seem natural telling jokes to a camera . . . but it was Political Correctness that really done for me and my kind. No jokes about: Mothers in law; The Irish; The Scottish; The Jews; The Welsh; The Ginger haired; The bald; Homosexuals (although they had other names for those) and so on. If it made you laugh it was banned.
There was an Englishman. Englishman and an Englishman . . . it doesn't sound the same as an Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman.
How did I come to be in show business? Well, I suppose I just drifted into it as I did with most things.
It started when my Dad took me for a walk on Saturday lunchtimes. We had to get out of the way at home whilst Mum cooked dinner.
The walk didn't get us any further than the Park Tavern. So he could truthfully say he took me for a walk to the park.
Dad met his mates there. Kids weren't allowed in pubs in those days so I just got to play outside, with a packet of crisps and a lemonade.
The pub was next to the Stage Door of the Dalston Empire, a variety theatre.
Often the Doorkeeper would get us kids . . . I wasn't the only one whose Dad took them to the park . . . to run errands for the performers.
On a good day we'd get a few coppers – little ones called farthings – for going.
You could say I started as a professional in show business at an early age.
When I got old enough for Dad to stop taking me for a walk. I still hung around the stage door.
Instead of errands, I'd help with tidying up and generally fetching and carrying, any odd job the Caretaker didn't want to do. I didn't mind. I got tips in pennies rather than farthings.
I also got to watch the acts from the wings. I liked the comedians best and I learnt a lot of their jokes.
I left school at fourteen. In those days, no staying on until, like now, it was time for retirement. I got a job at the Empire as a call boy, scene shifter and general dogsbody. So now instead of getting just tips, I was on wages as well. My ambition: to become a Stage Doorkeeper.
Dad went off.
Mum took in lodgers – we called them paying guests – to help make ends meet. Because of my working at the theatre we often had artists and performers staying with us.
My big break came when the straight man of a double act was taken ill. They got me to stand in. And because I needed an Equity Union card I got sponsored by the management for membership. My career as a professional performer began. I was on the road to fame. A road never ending I'm sorry to say.
I got an agent who found me jobs standing in for straight men of double acts. I did this for a few seasons.
Eventually I put together a solo act of my own and the agent got me performances at various venues mainly in the home counties and South Coast theatres. I didn't get on with them up North.
I kept in regular work for a good few years.
Oh yes, I got married. It was during a Saturday matinee. I'll never forget the day. We were appearing at the East Ham Palace . . . or was it the Palace at Clacton; Vera . . . or was it Violet? Anyway it was one of the dancing girls . . . all legs look the same to me.
It didn't last long . . . just a few seasons. The decree nisi came through whilst I was playing Cromer Pier.
Sometime about then I got a passport. Never expected to go abroad, I just wanted to put Entertainer as my occupation.
Work was getting harder to find.
I decided to start a double act.
I formed a partnership called Don and Basil. It was the year the government built the new town of Basildon. I thought having a new act based on a new town would be a good omen.
One big problem, our agent reckoned that a double act entitled him to two lots of commission, but theatre management reckoned as it was only one act they should offer only one lot of pay.
Whatever . . . it was successful for a while . . . some bookings at holiday camps . . . we did a waiter jokes routine.
Me: 'Waiter-waiter, there's a dead fly in my soup . . .'
Don: 'It must have committed insecticide.' Or
Don: 'That's really the Chef - the last customer was a witch doctor.'
And 'I say' jokes . . .
Me: 'I say, I say, I say. Why did the dinosaur cross the road?'
Don: 'Because chickens hadn't been invented yet.'
Eventually, just like the town I named ourselves after, our act became jaded and run down.
Don wanted to spice up our routine by using adult, he meant dirty, jokes. I said no, so we had a row and split up.
Back as a solo act I got work as a Bingo caller, telling jokes in between. That work went digital. And so I drifted into retirement.
Why am I telling you all this?
Its 'cos I'm having to move from my little council flat which I took over when Mum died. I've got to go to a sheltered home 'cos I can't look after myself very well.
I'll only have one room and I'm going through all my old scripts. They will have to be dumped. There will be no room to keep them.
When Sister, who supervises us, saw I called myself an entertainer, she said perhaps I could sometime entertain my fellow residents.
Why not? I still think I'm a bit of a card and I reckon I might still give a turn.
Regrets? . . . Yes. I miss my old partner Don. It would have been nice to talk over the old days, but after all, he was only a wooden dummy, and he had annoyed me, that's why, years ago, I chopped him up.