Fox in a Box

  I once had a message left on my answer phone informing me that my stairlift had arrived and could I ring to arrange a suitable date for it to be fitted. I did phone them back and explained that a; at the (then) ripe old age of 27, I didn't feel I was quite ready for a stairlift, and b; I lived in a ground floor maisonette. Nonetheless, I assured them that if the situation changed I wouldn't hesitate to call. When my dad heard about this he told me of another 'wrong number' tale.

  Dad once worked for a light engineering firm called 'Tamworth Gear and Spline'. A small outfit working from a unit on the local industrial estate - if you can remember Bill Maynard's 'The Gaffer' from the 80s then you've got a pretty good idea of the set up.

  About two or three times a day, the firm would be phoned up by people with a plum enquiring if this was the Atherstone Hunt. Whether the noise of grinding gears and whining machinery was similar to the sound of hounds baying for poor Mr Fox's blood I'm not sure, but the calls carried on frequently. One morning the phone rang and one of the workforce (a character called Alan) answered.

   'Ello, Tamworth Gear and Spline.'

   'Excuse me,' began a snooty lady in Princess Anne tones. 'Have I got through to the Atherstone Hunt?'

    Exasperated, Alan picked up an imaginary huntsmans horn, and gave a resounding blast down the phone.

  'DA! DA! DA! DA! DA! WE'LL CATCH THAT FOX AND STICK HIM IN A BOX!!

   There was a deathly silence - before the well groomed voice was heard once more.

   'I presume then that I have the wrong number?'

In Search of Private Butt

Tomorrow is remembrance Sunday and I wanted to write a short piece about my Great Grandfather William Butt, who was a soldier in the Great War.

   By September 1914, the war on the Western Front had been raging for over a month, the small professional British Army (The Old Contemptibles) had faced the larger German forces in a series of bloody battles. These veterans had taken heavy casualties and were a spent force - it was clear that a new army was needed to carry on the fight. Encouraged by Lord Kitchener's famous (or infamous) poster, thousands of men  answered the national call for recruits. This initial enthusiasm was echoed in cities all across Britain, and no more so than in Birmingham, where amongst the flood of new volunteers was a midland lad named William Butt.

   Typical of Great War volunteers, William is remarkable for his ordinariness. He was 37 years old, and a married father with three young daughters. His occupation was listed as a 'bone toy maker' - an original trade - but not one that I imagine brought in a comfortable income. I often wonder why William volunteered at his age. It may have been to help the country in a desperate time, or it could have been for more pragmatic reasons, such as a better wage and the the prestige of becoming a soldier. I think it was probably a little of both.

  William enlisted in the 10th battalion (A Company) of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, the volunteers were then posted to a training camp on Salisbury Plain, where they began the tough training to shape them into soldiers. Over the next three months, William and his fellow recruits (some nearly half his age) underwent endless drill with rigourous route marches to get their fitness up to scratch. Weapon practice consisted of training with spring loaded bayonets wearing padded jackets and firing on the range using the Lee Enfield rifle. Finally the time came when the 10th battalion was ready to be sent to the killing fields of northern France.

  The 10th battalion, as part of the 19th (Western Division) arrived in France in July 1915, where they had a first taste of front line life. William and the other lads of the 10th were no doubt used to hardship and deprivation, but the lice and mud of the trenches must have come as a profound shock. In September 1915 the battalion had its first baptism of fire when it took part in the Loos offensive - however, its greatest test would arrive in July 1916 at the Battle of the Somme.

  It would be easy - so the rumours went. After all, the Germans had been pounded senseless with heavy guns for a week, you could shoulder your rifle, light up a fag, and stroll across no-mans land to round up the dazed survivors. Some of the old army sweats probably doubted this naive advice and steeled themselves for a grim and costly assault. The defending Germans had simply crawled into their dugouts and sheltered from the storm of shot and shell. When the initial bombardment ceased, they emerged from cover, set up machine guns and waited for the inevitable allied attack.

   As part of the 19th Division, the 10th Warwicks were part of the assault to capture the fortified village of La Boiselle. In the early morning gloom of July 3rd, William waited to go 'over the top'.  Fellow midland regiments, the Staffords and the Worcesters had already gone forward and soon it would be the turn of the Warwicks. From across no-mans land, the sounds of a savage battle raged from the direction of the village. Finally the moment came, the shrill blasts of the officers' whistles sounded and the Warwicks clambered out of the trenches and into the teeth of the rattling machine guns.

   In the ruins of the village, the German defenders had clung on stubbornly - however, battered from all sides by the waves of attacking Tommies, these brave soldiers began to fall back, and by nightfall, the British finally captured the village of La Boiselle. The human cost had been heavy - too heavy -thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers had been killed in the assault. The 10th Warwicks lost 43 of its men during the battle, and amongst them was Private William Butt.
   For William's wife, Annie and their daughters Lizzie, Jessie and little Elsie, the devastation at losing a husband and father can only be imagined.

  Like many soldiers of the Great War, William has no known grave. However, his name is recorded on the 'Thiepval memorial to the Missing', which commemorates nearly 70,000 other Commonwealth soldiers.

     One day I would like to visit the memorial, and pay my respects to that midland lad that never came home.

Back in Our Day - Pipkins

BBC may have had Fingerbobs- but ITV had Pipkins. Compared to the spartan Fingerbobs with its bits of card and paper, Pipkins was an epic production, featuring proper puppets and real locations. Pipkins was a sort of puppet helping agency, with Hartley Hare as the self styled, bombastic managing director. Other puppets in the team included food loving brummie pig, miserly tortoise (the book keeper) and Topov the monkey.

   Nobody ever marketed a rangle of Pipkins cuddly toys, and its not difficult to see why - they were some of the tattiest puppets ever to grace the screens of kids' TV. Hartley was a particularly moth eaten specimen, and at best resembled something found in a ditch. Together with various human helpers (Sue Nicholls, et al), this rag bag of toys inhabited a junk shop, not dissimilar to that of Steptoe and Son.

  However, what they lacked in looks, they made up for in character; and the antics of Hartley and Co. kept many a 70s kid amused at lunchtime. Notable episodes include Hartley running amok with a scary glove puppet called Michael, a Wild West showdown in the back yard and of course the infamous 'Odd One Out' where Hartley develops a strange fixation with a fish slice.

  In 30 odd years, Kids' TV has come a long way,  and largely thanks to CGI, the programmes my children watch are far more slicker and sophisticated compared to the homespun productions of my childhood. But more entertaining? Hmmm, I'm not so sure...