Whilst studying the foundation plans this morning and comparing them with the dig out, I found that the builder had missed out one of the foundation trenches. It’s a good job that I am an ex-papermaker and know what I am doing concerning building a house ????dhhh??? Anyway we phoned down to Bob and Pam, who were meeting Dario the builder today anyway, and they said that they would talk to him about it.
Elayne and I, (and Saffy and Pip) then went off olive pruning and picking again. The two trees that we did today were barren for all intents and purposes. They both had a huge amount of internal growth in them but very little fruit on them. We didn’t even make 1kg today although we have both been working on them for over four hours.
Whilst we were working on the trees, Bob, Pam and Dario arrived on site to see ‘the missing trench’. After much ‘oo-ing and ah-ing’ they said that they would call the JCB back up and do the trench on Tuesday at the same time as they do the ‘steel work’. Fine by me but how many times have they built foundations and not done all the trenches properly.?
This, of course, is the distinct advantage of living up on site where the action is. Had we gone back to the UK for three months and come back again on an inspection/ progress visit, which a lot of ‘place in the sunners’ do, we wouldn’t have been able to see that the building had less foundations than it should have.
Anyway today has been beautiful, sunny and warm again, perhaps even warmer than yesterday.
We are both tired out and glad that we can come home, to the caravan, and slob out for a few hours before we have a meal.
Unusually last night there was a film on BBC1 called ‘Mrs Henderson Presents’ staring Judy Dench, Bob Hoskins and Will Young. I don’t normally watch too many films but this one caught my eye so we both watched it.
It traces the story in 1932 about Mrs Henderson (Judy Dench), now in her seventies and after burying her husband, being persuaded by a friend to use some of her spare time and great wealth on a hobby, to take her mind off her husbands’ death. She is also still mourning the loss of her son in the first world war at the age of 21.
She dwells on this but eventually buys the derelict Windmill Theatre in London and has it done up again. She scouts around for a manager and eventually employs Mr Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins). They are like chalk and cheese and fight like hell but each holds a respect for the other that transcends the arguments. VVD decides to open the theatre and have nonstop reviews, no other theatre had ever done this before. They are successful for a while until all the other London theatres start to copy them and slowly they subside and start to lose money in a big way. At a very heated meeting between VVD and Mrs H, Mrs H all of a sudden says that they should put on nude review shows to gain back the public. VVD is mortified and says that they will not get this past the very strict theatre censor. Mrs H happens to know the censor, an old friend, and has him come round to tea in a specially erected tent in Green Park, in front of Buckingham Palace. Mrs H wines and dines the censor and eventually she broaches the subject of a nude review with actual naked ladies on stage. The censor blows his top but eventually they draw a comparison between a nude painting and a nude lady on stage. The censor says that providing that the nude ladies do not move at all, he will give them a certificate to open.
This then is how the Windmill Theatre started putting on nude reviews before the war.
When the war starts a lot of the audience is made up of forces lads home on leave. The censor changes and the new censor tries to close them down. Mrs H is furious and in public outside the theatre, tells the censor to ‘F off‘. They continue with the shows right through the London blitz and become famous for being the theatre that never closes. Mrs H dies in 1944 and leaves the theatre to VVD. The theatre still did these reviews right up until the sixtees, I think. Sheila Van Damm took over the show when her father died in 1960 but closed the theatre in 1964. Sheila died in London in 1987. Sorry to go on but this is relevant to me on two fronts. One being that I used to frequent the Lyric Tavern (right across the street from the Windmill theatre) quite a lot when I was in the forces in London,(not during the war, in case you were thinking) I had an eye for one of the barmaids. On the wall of the theatre is a role of honour naming all the postwar stars who have appeared at the Windmill, and who then went on to become famous in show business. Harry Secombe, Peggy Mount, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Tommy Handley, Eric Sykes, Hattie Jaques, Michael Bentine, Tommy Cooper and even, I think, Bruce Forsyth etc . Each of these stars tells many funny tales, in their books, of appearing at the Windmill and having a hard time because the audience only went there to see the nude girls and wanted nothing to do with ‘the warm up acts‘. One of them said that as soon as anyone left one of the front seats, there would be a mad scramble of men climbing over the seats trying to get nearer to the stage and the nude girls.
On the second front, for a long while and a long time ago I belonged to an internet email group of people from all around the world called The Devs. One lovely lady called Trisha Jackson, who was part of this group, lived in Australia. She was great fun to correspond with. She told us that in her youth she used to go rally driving with the famous lady racing driver Sheila Van Damm (Vivian’s daughter). This was in the days when Pat Moss (Stirling’s sister) was motor racing and horse show jumping. She told of some hairy moments being a friend and passenger with Sheila.
So there you are, an item not about Spain (thank goodness I hear you cry). If any of the information above is slightly inaccurate I am sorry, it was after all a long, long time ago.