Jack Warner

I thought I had uploaded some tracks from this LP on the Music For Pleasure label (1968) but seems I haven't which is much remiss of me. I have fond memories of Jack in Dixon Of Dock Green that was on TV for many years from the 50's through the 60's on the BBC. He made his name earlier though as a star of music hall and variety performing monologues very much like you hear on this record but these have been re-recorded in the 60's.

Wikipedia says-

Jack Warner OBE (24 October 1895 – 24 May 1981) was an English film and television actor.
He was born in London, his real name being Horace John Waters. His sisters Elsie and Doris Waters were well-known comediennes under the names Gert and Daisy. Like them, Jack Warner made his name in music hall and radio, but he became known to cinema audiences as the patriarch in a trio of popular post-World War II family films beginning with Here Come the Huggetts. He also co-starred in the 1955 Hammer film version of The Quatermass Xperiment and as a police superintendent in the 1955 Ealing Studios black comedy The Ladykillers.
Warner attended the Coopers' Company's Grammar School for Boys in Mile End, while his sisters both attended the nearby sister school, Coborn School for Girls in Bow. The three children were choristers at St. Leonard's Church, Bromley-by-Bow, and for a time, Warner was the choir's soloist.
By the early war years Warner was nationally known and starred in a BBC radio comedy show Garrison Theatre, invariably opening with, "A Monologue Entitled...".
It was in 1949 that Warner first played the role for which he would be remembered, PC George Dixon in the film, The Blue Lamp. One observer predicted, "This film will make Jack the most famous policeman in Britain". Although the police constable was shot dead in the film, the character was revived in 1955 for the BBC television series, Dixon of Dock Green, which ran until 1976. In later years though, Warner and his long-past-retirement-age character were confined to a less prominent desk sergeant role. The series had a prime-time slot on Saturday evenings, and always opened with PC Dixon giving a little soliloquy to the camera, beginning with the words, "Good evening, all". According to Warner's autobiography, Jack of All Trades, Elizabeth II once visited the television studio where the series was made and told Warner "that she thought Dixon of Dock Green had become part of the British way of life"."


Jack Warner - I Didn't Orter 'A' Ett It

Jack Warner - My Bruvver In The Life Guards

Jack Warner - Walking Hup And Dahn The Rawlway Laines

Jack Warner - You Can't Help Laughing

Jack Warner - Sea Lions And Seals

Jack Warner - Funny Occupations

Bernard Miles

Found this EP by Bernard Miles today at the boot sale for 50p. I vaguley remember this act from the early 60's on TV where he appeared on The Good Old Days etc. as a bucolic old yokel leaning over a five bar gate - hence the title of this record.

Wikipedia says -

"Bernard James Miles, Baron Miles, CBE (27 September 1907–14 June 1991) was an English character actor, writer and director.

Miles was born in Uxbridge, Middlesex and attended Bishopshalt School in Hillingdon. While his parents were respectively a farm labourer and a cook, he was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He entered the theatre in the 1930s, soon appearing in films. Like many actors, he featured prominently in the patriotic cinema during the Second World War, including classics of the genre such as In Which We Serve and One of Our Aircraft is Missing. He also had an uncredited role in the WWII classic The First of the Few, released in the US as Spitfire.

His typical persona as an actor was as a countryman, with a strong accent typical of the Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire counties. He was also, after Robert Newton the actor most associated with the part of Long John Silver, which he played in a British TV version of Treasure Island, and in an annual performance at the Mermaid. He had a pleasant rolling bass-baritone voice that worked well in theatre and film, as well as being much in demand for voice-overs. As a performer, he was most well known for a series of comic monologues, often given in a rural dialect. These were recorded and sold as record albums, which were quite popular. Some of his comic monologues are currently available on youtube.com.

He opened the Mermaid Theatre in London in 1959, the first new theatre opened in London since the 17th century. He was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1953, was knighted in 1969, and was granted a life peerage as Baron Miles, of Blackfriars in the City of London in 1979. He was only the second British actor ever to be given a peerage (the first was Laurence Olivier). In 1981, he co-authored the book Curtain Calls with J.C. Trewin. He died in Yorkshire

His daughters are the actress Sally Miles and the artist Bridget Miles. His son John Miles was a Grand Prix Driver in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the Lotus team."


Bernard Miles - Over The Gate / Me an' Old Charlie

Bernard Miles - One Of The Old School

Bernard Miles - Billy & Toggie