Have you met anyone famous in Nottingham and where


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We  have had a  very long day today taking a neighbour  to Wales, near Swansea, to visit a sick friend. We left W-ton at 8.30am and didn't get home until 9.30pm, so understandably wackoed. We called i

Sir Alec Guinness, Colin Blakely and the cast of Little Lord Fauntleroy when they were filming.  Leslie Philips, Patricia Routledge (Mrs Bouquet) Lesley Caron . All customers at La Buca when we were t

When I worra  lad, les Kellet and mick McManus came into my Gran's café courtesy of Reg King, who was a great friend of the family. And I got autographs and tickets to see the wrestling at the ice rink.

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Never met him. Reg only brought les  and Mick, both at the same time! Great pair of guy's, got on well with Gran, and I don't think we ever had any trouble in the café. Maybe the word got round that "Nora" knows some hard fellas.

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15 hours ago, Waddo said:

When I worra  lad, les Kellet and mick McManus came into my Gran's café courtesy of Reg King, who was a great friend of the family. And I got autographs and tickets to see the wrestling at the ice rink.

Is that what they called it !

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The Playhouse did do a stage version of Saturday Night & Sunday Morning. A young Ian McKellen played Arthur Seaton. I think it was in 1964/65 - it was at a time I was a member of the Playhouse Club. Alan Sillitoe was in attendance for several rehearsals and the preview.

It was very moving play, especially the abortion scene where an enamel bucket of bloody, aborted foetus was sloshed around the stage.

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Away from the “fish in a barrel” aspect of meeting well-known people backstage at the Playhouse, others I have met include:

 

Margaret Lockwood at the top of Market Street. She asked if she was going in the right direction for Griffin & Spalding.

 

Eleanor Bron on Parliament St. Seemed like she’d been shopping at the Co-op as she bumped into me with her carrier bags and nearly knocked me flying.

 

Reg Varney wearing full stage make-up in a pub opposite Shire Hall (no longer there, very nice little pub, though). He was appearing in pantomime at the former Theatre Royal (before its conversion to what it is now) and getting tanked up on Scotch before going on stage. The theatre was just around the corner. I think the pub had a cue light connected to the theatre to let any stray performers know that the curtain was going up. Anyway, that’s beside the point. Nasty little (physically and figuratively) foul-mouthed cuss, pushing people away, including me, as he desperately tried to get out as he’d missed his cue.

 

I helped Tommy Trinder with the revolving doors of the Victoria Hotel (he was trying to go through clockwise when the doors worked the other way round). He then got into his Rolls Royce parked outside registration No. TT1.

 

Another Tommy I met much later was Tommy Cooper. I was walking down Gregory Boulevard and a car stopped beside me. The person in the passenger seat, Cooper, leaned out and asked if I knew the way to the Heart of the Midlands. Although I’d never been there, I knew where it was so I duly gave him directions.

 

He said “Thanks very much. I suppose you would like a tip.”

 

I replied, somewhat surprisedly, thinking I was going to receive some handout, “Oh, OK.”

 

He then said “Dobbin in the 3-30” and they drove off at speed.

 

Apparently, this was his normal riposte.

 

I remember seeing Peter Adamson (Len Fairclough, Coronation St.) rolling around, ratted, on slab square. I can’t remember whether it was before or after he was sacked from the show.

 

Elsie and Doris Waters (Gert & Daisy) were in Woollies on Lister Gate and on another occasion their brother Jack Warner (Dixon of Dock Green).

 

Also on Lister Gate were Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge and on yet another occasion, Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray. These last two couples were typical of the Noel Coward parodies “I know” “I know you know” “I know you know I know” “I know” demonstrated admirably by Betty Marsden & Hugh Paddick in Round the Horne with Celia Molestrangler and Binkie Huckaback aka Fiona & Charles.

 

I don’t know why there were so many theatricals on Lister Gate. Perhaps they were going (or had just been) to Woollies Cafeteria for a half-crown special lunch (Hot Meal of the day, and Choice of Hot Sweet). I went there quite a lot when at People’s College. Total digression there, I’ll get back to the subject at hand.

 

Actor Robin Bailey was from Hucknall and a friend of my family. Robin Bailey’s sister ran Bailey’s Pot Shop in the High Street.

 

My dad knew cricketer, Bill Voce fairly well but I don’t remember him at all.

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I'd forgotten that bit Jonab.  Probably a good thing, but I do remember some puking and general nastiness around the fight scene.  It must have been a hard play to do when compared to the film's ability to go to the actual locations where the story took place.

It would have been 64/65 as I remember going with future wife and inlaws.  It was our first time in the new Playhouse building.

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9 minutes ago, MargieH said:

I've never met anyone famous.... 

That reminds me - I sat next to Princess Michael of Kent on a flight back from Milan once, I saw Lionel Blair who was wearing a fur coat in the newsagent’s at Heathrow and I stood next to Stirling Moss at the check in desk at the same airport. All my celebrity meetings are flooding back now!

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59 minutes ago, MargieH said:

I've never met anyone famous.... 

I’ve met loads but other than sports stars in local nightspots (when I was a lot younger!) none were in the Nottingham area.  

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Near Sneinton market a bank change use from a bank to a scrap merchants and Wilfred Brambell was signing autographs.    (Old Man Steptoe)

 

Also met Gene Vincent when he was in a show at Yarmouth.

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Not in Nottingham. Was queueing for early tickets to Richard III in Stratford behind Jonathon Slinger who was playing the lead. Had a nice chat. Later that day met Judi Dench looking at the crisps in Marks. I said, “Bloody ‘ell. Richard III this morning and now Elizabeth I in the afternoon!” Charming lady, very small!

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Richard Wilson AKA victor Meldrew at a coffin manufactures in Bulwell making a TV documentary called "Two Feet in the Grave".

He hated anyone saying "Idon't belieeeeeve it" !! smashing bloke, very approachable, marvelous voice.

Frank Bruno with his two minders on Alfreton Road. Brian Clough on Trent Bridge. John McGovern once caught my bus from Broad Marsh to Radcliffe Road.

Ian Storey Moore in Wilford village. Been to Carl Froch's house a few times.

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When I lived next door to the Grosvenor I, together with other residents of the next door, often used to drink with Ray Gosling (and his then-boyfriend, Bryn Allsop (how apt that surname)). As he was just someone I had a drink with now and again, I never thought of him as being famous.

He always sat on the bay window seat in the front bar.

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A crowd of us once went to a party at Ray's house when he and Bryn lived on Hartley Rd / St Peters St, or thereabouts.

It definitely wasn't our scene, and we quickly left ! 

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Ha, ha. I didn't know then. It was just a party we invaded, as was the norm in those days. We steered well clear in future I can tell you.

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Not in Nottingham but Perth Western Oz, was walking down Hay street in the city and Pete Postlethwaite was just coming out of the Regal theater where he was doing some play or something, I spoke to him and said I thoroughly enjoyed his acting, he thanked me and asked how long we'd lived in Oz. Very nice fellow indeed, shame he has now passed.

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Another two people that I never thought of as famous (because I knew them quite well) were Paul Smith, designer and Len Masterman, university professor.

 

Smith was a regular visitor to our flat next to the Grosvenor as he had a "thing" going with the girl I shared with. He wasn't famous then, he was just starting up and had a poky little shop in Byard Lane. Apparently, he now has 300 shops worldwide.

 

Regarding Masterman, he was also a regular at the flat, ostensibly for the same purpose as Smith - it wasn't a knocking shop, honest! His fame is somewhat more obscure than that of Smith but in his area of expertise, he is renowned worldwide.

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I knew Paul Smith from our late teens as our student and Art College groups knocked about together. I mainly knew him from the early Birdcage Boutique days, but lost touch after he expanded from the Byard Lane shop.

By the early 70's, I was tired of knocking about with people whose only interest was what each other was wearing, and nothing else. 

A pretty shallow outlook !

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The name doesn't ring a bell, but it was nearly 50 years ago. 

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