THREE CHEERS FOR POOH!

Whether or not you remember – even hold as beloved – those childhood immortals Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin before they were appropriated by Walt Disney back in 1966, I think you'll enjoy Enchanted Places, a double-CD recording of A. A. Milne's verses (and Pooh's inimitable 'Hums') from the quartet of nursery classics: When We Were Very Young, Winnie-the-Pooh, Now We Are Six and The House at Pooh Corner – all of them accompanied by irreplaceable decorations by the magnificent Ernest H. Shepard.

 

Today, however, I guess there many Pooh-lovers who will be unfamiliar with the musical settings that were composed during the height of Mr. Milne's public popularity; although if you mention titles like 'They're Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace', 'Hush, Hush, Whisper Who Dares (Christopher Robin is Saying His Prayers)', 'Halfway Down the Stairs' and 'Cottleston Pie', then you may recall having heard them sung by performers as diverse as Gracie Fields, Robert Tear, David Tomlinson and Burl Ives – not to mention Robin and Rowlf from The Muppets!

 

The music was the work of H. Fraser-Simson, a popular composer of British light music and the long-running operetta, The Maid of the Mountains, and these delightful settings that have endured for almost 100 years and are now available on this new double-CD – the first-ever complete recording of the Milne/Fraser-Simson collaboration – released by EM Records.

 

The songs are performed by baritone Grant Major, accompanied at the piano by John Kember and singer and pianist deftly present the songs with considerable wit and a lightness of touch that is perfectly suited to the verses’ delightful mix of humour, sentiment, nostalgia and nonsense.

 

I might, immodestly, add that there's a cameo appearance by Yours Truly on Disc 2, narrating Milne's amusing introduction to his song, 'The King's Breakfast', and I also wrote the liner notes telling the story of Mr. Milne and Mr. Fraser-Simson and their enchanting collaboration, illustrated with rare Milne family photos from my persoanl collection.

 

This recording will certainly please all lovers of light verse and light music and will delight the young and the young-at-heart.

 

Enchanted Places is available from Amazon HERE

STUFF AND NONSENSE

There's another reason for celebrating today – 4 July – apart from its being American Independence Day and that's because 152 years ago an Oxford mathematic don, the Reverend C L Dodgson, took the three daughters of the Dean of Christ Church on a boating trip on the river Isis and wove a story to entertain his young passengers that featured the middle daughter, Alice Liddell, and was eventually written up as Alice's Adventures Underground...

...and was later refined into that classic of nonsense we now know as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1865 by Dodgson under the pen-name, Lewis Carroll...

To mark this occasion, it seemed to me that a song might be called for – well, two songs actually – so here's an extract from my second-ever radio programme for the BBC, The Tune's My Own Invention about the music written by various composers down the years as settings for the songs in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-glass and What Alice Found There...

The programme, first broadcast over thirty-five years ago in 1978, was written with my good friend the late Antony Miall and, between us, we provided all the character voices –– with the exception of Alice who was played by Miss Eva Haddon!

In this sequence Tony, as well playing the piano, speaks, sings and weeps for the doleful Mock Turtle while I growl away as the Gryphon.

Won't you come and join the dance...?

DO YOU THINK AT YOUR AGE IT IS RIGHT?

Today is the 181st birthday of Lewis Carroll, depicted, left, by one of his illustrators, Harry Furniss.

The pseudonymous alter ego of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Lewis Carroll single-handedly transformed children's literature with the adventures of his child muse, Alice, wandering through the logical conundrums and nonsensical confusions of Wonderland and Looking-glass World.

One of the enduring pleasures of the books is the rhymes and songs that are scattered through their pages. As far as most of us are concerned, we are unaware that Carroll wrote these verses as parodies of a popular trend in improving poetry that was so beloved by the Victorians. Ironically, the moral-laden originals are now largely forgotten (despite having been written by Wordsworth and his ilk) in favour of Carroll's fun versions...

Thirty-five years ago, I compiled and presented/performed a radio programme entitled The Tune's My Own Invention with my late friend the composer, pianist, singer and authority on Victorian music, Antony Miall. Together we charted the story of some of the composers who, over a century, had set Carroll's words to music such as William Boyd, who in 1870 published Songs from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'.

Here, to mark this special day, is a snippet from our programme featuring Boyd's setting for one of Carroll most entertaining verses, 'You Are Old Father William'.

Tony is playing the piano and is the one who sounds young; whereas, I'm the one who sounds a good deal older than my then 29 years!

THE SONGS I LOVE

A while back, I posted a couple of songs performed by the late John Moffatt in Hit the Heights, a Christmas revue I compiled for BBC Radio 4 back around 1990.

Today, I am adding two glorious performances from the same show by the legendary Miss Elisabeth Welch.

Her extraordinary career is (briefly) described as follows in Stephen Bourne's biography, Elisabeth Welch: Soft Lights and Sweet Music:

From her stage debut in 1922 to her final professional appearance in 1996, Elisabeth Welch was an important figure in the world of popular song. In 1923, she launched the Charleston and throughout the Jazz Age, she was associated with some of the great names of the Harlem Renaissance, including Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall, Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson and Ethel Waters. 

On Broadway she popularised Cole Porter's scandalous song 'Love for Sale'. After settling in London in 1933, she introduced the classic torch song 'Stormy Weather' to British audiences, and that same year she appeared in Cole Porter's Nymph Errant, beginning a career in English musical theatre that lasted sixty years. In 1930s Britain, Ivor Novello wrote songs for her, Paul Robeson was her leading man in films, and she enjoyed popularity as a cabaret star of London's cafe society. Remaining in her adopted country for the duration of the war, Elisabeth entertained the troops and the British public, alongside such theatrical giants as Sir John Gielgud. 

In the post-war years she reigned supreme in sophisticated revues in London's West End and Elisabeth's appearance in Derek Jarman's 1979 film version of William Shakespeare's The Tempest (in which she sang 'Stormy Weather') won her a whole new legion of fans. 

At the age of 81, she returned to the Broadway stage and her performance in Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood earned her a Tony nomination. The stage, screen and radio career of this sophisticated African American actress and singer defied categorisation. Spanning almost a century of popular music, she did not fit the definition of jazz, torch, pop or ballad singer but defined her art quite simply as 'telling a story in song'. Whatever she sang, she demonstrated that she had no peer in the art of interpreting songs by the likes of Cole Porter, Noel Coward, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern.

I have some wonderful personal memories of working with Elisabeth on Hit the Heights: particularly the fact that, then in her upper 80s, her long term memory was still crystal clear (recounting, for example, vivid recollections of Paris in the Jazz Age) while her short-term memory was already fast failing. Indeed, she turned up for a dress rehearsal in full costume, thinking it was the performance and departed at the end saying how much she had enjoyed it – leaving us all wondering whether she would be there for the next day's show.

But, of course, she was!

Dressed to the nines in a stunning red dress, with bracelets, bangles and rings galore, she perched on a stool beside the grand piano and wowed the audience...

Having missed her cue to one of the songs a couple of times – seeming not to recognise the piano introduction – she eventually asked Musical Director, Richard Holmes: "What are we doing?" Richard replied: "'The Man I Love', Elisabeth," which was, of course, one of her signature numbers. Elisabeth shrugged and turning to the audience with astonished smile, responded: "They never tell you anything!" The audience loved her all the more and she then sang the song word and note perfect!

Obviously, the glitch was edited out of the broadcast, but the audience reaction at the end is an indication of the impact she made on everyone there and the affection in which we held this great star...

   

A story that I particularly remember from our conversations in the Green Room was one recounted with great relish: only once was she asked to audition when Bob Fosse was casting the musical Pippin.

"What would you like to sing for us?" asked Fosse – presumably unaware of her star status.

"Oh," Miss Welch replied, "I think I'll sing the first song Cole Porter wrote for me."

Brilliant!

"DEFT AND SPEEDY"

I was saddened to hear of the passing of John Moffatt, a greatly talented actor whose career embraced stage, film, television and radio where he was the perfect embodiment of Agatha Christie's celebrated Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot.

His extraordinary range embraced everything from Shakespeare and the classics to pantomime and revue – notably his memorable performance in the Noel Coward tribute show, Cowardy Custard.

Radio was an especial love and my friend Jeremy Mortimer quotes John as saying that radio acting was like Japanese water colour painting - deft and speedy.

I can testify to his mastery of that technique from the one time we worked together, back in (I think) 1990, when I compiled a 90-minute show for BBC Radio 4 featuring songs and sketches from the revues of the 1920s.

Entitled Hit the Heights, it was produced by the wonderful Glyn Dearman and starred John Moffatt, Una Stubbs, Nickloas Grace and Charles Kay with a special appearance by the legendary Miss Elisabeth Welch.

John acted as compere, appeared in several sketches and, accompanied by Richard Holmes, sang the two numbers uploaded here and which I hope John's many admirers (and all my readers) will enjoy...

First is the comic song 'And Her Mother Came Too' by Ivor Novello and Dion Titheradge, originally performed by Jack Buchanan in the 1921 Andre Charlot revue, A to Z...

  

...and here is Noel Coward's autobiographical ballad, 'World Weary', first performed by the composer in the 1928 revue, This Year of Grace....

  

JOHN MOFFATT

(1922-2012)

An aside...

In compiling Hit the Heights, I examined the original scripts archived in the Westminster Library as part of the Lord Chamberlain's papers. These contained the blue pencil deletions and changes made under the then theatrical censorship laws. 

For a more tolerant age, I restored many of the cut words, phrases and innuendos but I was, until now, unaware that the lyrics to World Weary had also been censored with the line: "My loving friends will not be there, I'm so sick of their darnn-fool faces" being a substitute for the original "...God-damned faces..." An unhappy Coward complained: "This compromise, while soothing outraged public opinion, weakened the song considerably."

I dearly wish I could have had John sing it as Coward originally intended.

A SPOUSE FOR A MOUSE

One of the items from my Disney collection currently on display at The Cartoon Museum's exhibition Animal Crackers, is a piece of sheet music for a ‘Novelty Fox-trot’ with words by Edward Pola and Music by Franz Vienna, published in London by Keith Prowse in 1933 and entitled...

This is a classic example of early British Disney merchandising which was not subject to the same rigours as were applied to the American products from the studio (and which are now universal); hence the surprising revelation that Mickey and Minnie Mouse had tied the knot – a story seriously at variance with official Disney lore which has always maintained that they are 'just good friends'!

The cover artwork is by Wilfred Haughton, a prolific British artist working for Disney in London who was responsible for much of the artwork in early Disney comics and annuals published in the UK.

The words of the song go like this...

It’s gala day, the day of the year,

The sun will shine, the sky’ll be clear,

The bells will ring, the people will cheer,

For the wedding of Mister Mickey Mouse.

There’ll be ducks and drakes, a waddl’ing goose,

A chimpanzee, the Zoo turn’d loose,

And ‘Peg-Leg’ Pete’s declaring a truce,

For the wedding of Mister Mickey Mouse.

 

The big brown bear will dance for all the company,

The whole affair will be broadcast by the BBC;

There’ll be fancy hats and fancier clothes,

A kangaroo with pretty pink bows,

And elephants with manicured toes,

At the wedding of Mister Mickey Mouse.

The band will play a one-step and a gavotte,

And then the fox will dance a real fox-trot;

Clarabelle the cow will jump right over the moon,

Then you’ll hear Pluto croon the latest tune.

Preacher man will see the knot is properly tied,

He’ll shake hands with the groom, and kiss the bride;

Then off they’ll go to find their gingerbread house,

Where they’ll be happy as Mister and Missus Mickey Mouse.

And here's what it sounded like as performed in 1933 by Harry Leader's band (not, as it says on the record label, Jay Wilbur)...

HUM–ALONG–A-POOH

Do you remember this..

The year: 1977... A record made by a small green frog reaches No.7 in the UK Top Ten and earns him an appearance on the BBC's weekly TV show, Top of the Pops.

The frog was Robin, nephew of Kermit, Master of Ceremonies of The Muppet Show and the lyrics – by A A Milne (left) author, playwright and essayist and Assistant Editor of the humorous magazine Punch – had originally been published in 1924 in Milne's celebrated collection of children's verses, with illustrations by E H Shepard, When We Were Very Young.

The wistful melody was the work of Harold Fraser-Simson (right), a close neighbour of Milne's in Chelsea and a fellow member of the Garrick Club.

He had also earned a reputation as a successful composer of light music with his score for the phenomenal West End triumph, The Maid of the Mountains, an operetta that played for 1,352 performances: a record run second only, at the time, to that of Chu Chin Chow.

The partnership between Fraser-Simson and Milne began with a volume of Fourteen Songs from 'When We Were Very Young', which instantly capitalised on the huge success achieved by the book of verses, many of which were 'fictionally' based on the juvenile doings of Milne's son, Christopher Robin: going to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace ('with Alice') or being careful not to treads on the lines of the street – especially whenever he went 'Hoppity-hoppity-hoppity-hoppity-hop'!

One of the most famous songs to come out of this collaboration was Milne's first 'children's verse', published two years before When We Were Very Young in 1923, in the American magazine, Vanity Fair. It's formal title was 'Vespers' but most people know it as...

Some may think it is a tad too sentimental (and they'd probably be right!) but, in it's defence, I would point out that the writer later said that if you read the words carefully you'll see that it is, in fact, about a little boy NOT saying his prayers!

Many recordings of the song have been made over the years, from 'Belfast's Own Boy Soprano', Billy Neely...

...via Gracie Fields and Webster Booth to the New York Met's great Wagnerian soprano, Helen Traubel...

In addition to the verses in When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, Fraser-Simson provided musical settings for the Hums of Pooh, the ditties extemporised by Christopher Robin's 'bear of very little brain' in the books, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner.

Anyway, what all this is leading up to is that there is a 30-minute feature tomorrow (Tuesday) morning on BBC Radio 4 at 11:30 am about the MIlne/Fraser-Simson partnership.  

The Songs of Milne is presented by pianist John Kember (below right with baritone Richard Burkhard), who first came across the music on a friend's piano and set about collecting the scores for all of Fraser-Simson's sixty-seven settings of Milne's verses and Pooh's Hums. It is John's ambition that he and Richard might produce a complete recording of these delightful songs.

In the programme, John tells the story of this, now largely forgotten, partnership and explores the relationship between the words and the music, their rise and decline in popularity and ponders the question of whether they have any currency in today's world that is so very different to that of the 1920s era of nannies, nursery teas and prayers at bedtime...

Also taking part in the broadcast are Andrew Lamb, authority on musical theatre, Dr Clare Rose, Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth –– and the author of Three Cheers for Pooh, viz... Me! 

Following the broadcast, the programme can be heard via the BBC iPlayer for the next seven days.

I began by mentioning the Muppets and I think the late Jim Henson must have had an affection for these songs because, over the years, a number of them were featured on The Muppet Show. I'll leave you with Rowlf's rendition of one of Pooh's best hums, 'Cottleston Pie'...

TEARS FOR TEAR

The death has been announced of the great Welsh tenor Robert Tear at the age of 72.

Tear was one of the great performers in operas by Britten (Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw and Aschenbach in Death in Venice) and Tippett but he also used his magnificent voice in the service of a diversity of composers from Bach, Mozart and Monteverdi to Elgar and Vaughan Williams. And, long before cross-over became fashionable for opera-singers, he recorded A A Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh hums sung to the original settings by H Fraser-Simson!

Here he is singing Charles Dibdin's 18th century song, 'Tom Bowling'...

Tom never from his word departed,
His virtues were so rare;
His friends were many and true-hearted,
His Poll was kind and fair:
And then he’d sing so blithe and jolly,
Ah, many’s the time and oft!
But mirth is turned to melancholy,
For Tom is gone aloft.

ROBERT TEAR
1939-2011

LEGS A MILE LONG!

This week saw the passing of one of great Hollywood sirens who memorably graced a surprisingly short roll-call of movies with her extraordinarily long legs and shapely hourglass figure. I refer, of course, to the woman Bob Hope once described as "the two and only Jane Russell"!

Here she is in what was (for the time) a shocking outfit, dancing up a storm and singing 'Lookin' for Trouble' in the 1954 film, The French Line; and having a ball in the hysterically camp 'Ain't There Anyone Here for Love' routine from the previous year's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes...

JANE RUSSELL
21 June 1921–28 February 2011

PARTRIDGES AND NUTCRACKERS

Today the BBC is providing listeners with yet another blast from Sibley's past...

It was back in 1977 - which, heaven help us, is thirty-three years ago - that I wrote what was only my second programme for radio, but which turned out to be something of a classic. Entitled ...And Yet Another Partridge in a Pear Tree, it was a quirky take on that well-known song about the seasonal gifts which someone sent to his True Love on the Twelve Days of Christmas.

It was, I later discovered, not exactly a new joke and it has been re-worked by others since, but it had the distinctive twist of literally following the cumulative list in the lyrics, thus providing the recipient not with one partridge in a pear tree, two turtle doves, three French hens and so on, but with twelve partridges, twenty-two turtle doves, thirty French hens and so forth.

...Fresh milk is one thing. Eight enormous Frisians in the drawing room is something else altogether. True, the milkmaids have a certain rustic charm, but you wouldn't believe how much they eat. You may also care to note that my bath has only so much room in it for swans with a seemingly insatiable urge to be a-swimming, and it will definitely not hold fourteen of them. Take that from one who has tried!

I was extremely fortunate in having Penelope Keith (then at the height of her fame as Margot Leadbetter in the wildly successful TV sit-com, The Good Life) play Miss Cynthia Bracegirdle, the increasingly harassed lady who has to cope with (among other nuisances) forty maids a-milking, thirty-six ladies dancing, thirty lords a-leaping and twenty-two pipers piping...

...And Yet Another Partridge was repeated annually for many years and is still broadcast at Christmas in all kinds of places from America to Australia. In fact, every year I get requests for copies of the broadcast (which unfortunately is not possible because the BBC have never commercially released the programme) and transcripts of Miss Bracegirdle's correspondence.

Anyway, if - like others - you remember this little piece of fluff and would like to hear it again or if you've never heard it and think it might tickle your funny bone, then TODAY'S the DAY!

BBC Radio 7 is giving this tragi-comic tale another outing with the partridges coming home to roost at 14.15 and 21.15. I hope you enjoy the experience rather more than poor Cynthia!

And anyone caring to read the uncensored Bracegirdle letters, will find the full text here

ALSO...

Beginning today on Radio 7 and running until 30 December: my four-part dramatisation of E T A Hoffman's seasonal favourite, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King starring Tony Robinson and, once again, with wonderful music by The Fox at the Manger composer, David Hewson.

Now largely known to the world as the Tchaikovsky-scored ballet, the original story – funny, sentimental and really rather scary – unfolds daily at 05:30 and 10:30 and (for those who go to bed late) 03:30 the following day.

All these programmes , of course, will be available on BBC iPlayer for seven days following the last broadcast.

Illustration to The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by Dagmar Bercova.

And as if you haven't heard enough of Sibley for one seasonal period, I'll just mention that you catch up on a couple of recent broadcasts with which I had an association as writer: Radio 2's two-part documentary, The London Palladium Story.

Michael Grade celebrates the centenary of what is arguably London's most famous theatre with contributions from Tommy Steele, Barry Cryer, Wayne Sleep, Bruce Forsyth, Des O'Connor, Whoopi Goldberg, Philip Schofield, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Barbara Windsor, Anita Harris, Cliff Richard and many others.

Part 1 (broadcast on Christmas Day) can be heard via BBC iPlayer here for the next seven days.

Part 2 (broadcast yesterday evening) will be on BBC iPlayer here, until next Sunday.

"YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT..."

Oh! You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town.


He's making a list
Checking it twice
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice
Santa Claus is coming to town.


He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!


So! You better watch out
Oh! You better watch out
You better not cry You better not pout,
I'm telling you why, Santa Claus is coming
Santa Claus is coming
Santa Claus is coming to town!

The song Santa Claus is Coming to Town was written by J Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie and was first sung on Eddie Cantor's radio show in November 1934. It became an instant hit with orders for 100,000 copies of sheet music the next day and more than 400,000 copies sold by Christmas.

The line illustrations of Santa Claus above are the work of Thomas Nast who not only helped shape the American (and eventually worldwide) image of Father Christmas, but was also responsible for far less jolly imagery in his capacity as an exceptional chronicler of the American Civil War

In posting this popular ballad and the accompanying illustrations, I wish you, dear reader,

A VERY HAPPY
CHRISTMAS EVE!

CARTWRIGHTS & RIGHT CARS

Mention was made in the comments to my recent post on the (mercifully) rarely-heard lyrics to the Star Trek theme tune that there were also words to the theme tune for another TV favourite of my youth, Bonanza - a favourite because, at the time, I had a bit of a teenage-boy-crush on Michael Landon's not-so-little Little Joe...

Anyway, enough of my pubescent fantasies, my informants told me that Lorne Greene, who played Pa Cartwright had recorded the Bonanza song and indeed he did and here it is...

And since all this started with my posting about the unsung lyrics to the Bewitched theme tune, I thought you might enjoy seeing the Bonanza boys and the Bewitched babes (along with the Man from U.N.C.L.E.) promoting the latest line-up of automobiles available from their series' sponsors, Chevrolet, back in 1965...

TO BOLDLY SING

It was in the comments section of a post I wrote about the unsung lyrics to the Bewitched TV theme song, that the story of the unheard lyrics to the Star Trek theme song came up.


The scandalous facts are as follows...

The music for the pilot show in the series was written by Alexander Courage (left). At the time, the job probably seemed an unlikely long-term earner, but Courage was a pro: he arranged and orchestrated on some of the greatest movie musicals, including Show Boat, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Gigi and, until his death in 2008, worked on dozens of films and TV shows, orchestrating for John Williams on Superman and Jurassic Park and Jerry Goldsmith on Mulan, The Mummy and - er - Star Trek: The Motion Picture!

When, back in 1966, NBC picked up the Star Trek pilot and the show started its initial three-year run it was soon clear that it was heading off towards the much-sought-after and highly lucrative galaxy known as syndication. Alexander Courage could now expect to earn some decent royalties for his memorable theme tune.

But that was when the series' creator, Gene Roddenberry, stepped onto the flight deck of the Enterprise brandishing a piece of paper containing the 'lyrics' to the theme tune and laid claim to a half-share of Courage's royalties as 'co-composer'.

According to Courage, he had been pressurised into a 'hand-shake deal' that gave Roddenberry the option of writing lyrics although the contract he signed to that effect, he maintained, was done so unknowingly. Whatever the preliminaries, Roddenberry clearly saw the writing on the balance-sheet and cashed-in his option by writing lyrics that, whilst never used, generously contributed to the Roddenberry bank balance. Courage subsequently quit the series.

So, what are those mysterious lyrics?

Well, here they are - together with the original TV credit sequence - so you can sing along with Mr Roddenberry's money-spinning little ditty...

Beyond
The rim of the starlight,
My love
Is wand'ring in star-flight.
I know
He'll find in star-clustered reaches
Love,
Strange love a star woman teaches.
I know his journey ends never.
His star trek
Will go on forever.
But tell him
While he wanders his starry sea,
Remember, remember me.

OK, off you go... And good luck! Personally, I can't get beyond the sixth line, although, frankly, that's more than enough!

BEWITCHING LYRICS

Back to Bewitched...

You remember the theme-tune: "Dee-dum, dee-dum, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee..."? Well, you only know the half of it!

As a young (but quite observant) viewer I was always puzzled by one of the closing credits...


"Title Song by HOWARD GREENFIELD & JACK KELLER"

Er...? Excuse me...

WHAT song?

There was music, yes, but no lyrics!

Well, actually there were, it's just that we never ever heard them.

And here they are...

Bewitched, Bewitched,
You've got me in your spell.
Bewitched, Bewitched,
You know your craft so well.
Before I knew what I was doing
I looked in your eyes
That brand of woo you've been brewin'
Took me by surprise.

You witch, you witch,
One thing is for sure.
That stuff you pitch
Just hasn't got a cure.
My heart was under lock and key,
But somehow it got unhitched.
I never thought that I could be had
But now I'm caught and I'm kinda glad to be---
Bewitched.

And here they are being sung --- with a bit of help in the nose-twitching department from the witch herself, Elizabeth Montgomery...

Composer, Jack Keller recalled of the song he wrote with Howard Greenfield once said: "The pilot had used Frank Sinatra's 'Witchcraft', but they didn't want to pay for 'Witchcraft', so they asked us to write something. We only had a week to write the song, do the demo, and get it out to California, and they accepted it and they put it on. The show was a smash."

However, despite the fact that Greenfield and Keller and already had several hits including 'Everybody's Somebody's Fool', the song was only ever used orchestrally. I first came across the words on a recording by one of my favourite singers, Peggy Lee, for who it might almost have been written...

Among others who recorded the number was Steve Lawrence ('Mr Eydie Gormé', for those old enough to know what the hell I'm talking about) on the flip-side of his 1964 single, 'I Will Wait For You'. Forty-one years later, that version was included on the soundtrack of the 2005 less-than-magical movie version of Bewitched starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrel. Here it is, accompanied by images from the original TV show...

You can read more about the Bewitched theme tune, incidental music and much more here.

WINKLE-PICKERS

Sorting through the effects of our late friend, Ali Bongo, we came across a curious find: a winkle shell filled with wax and a membership card of the Hastings Winkle Club.

Click on the image below to enlarge and read the hilarious club rules...


After we'd finished laughing, we consulted Professor Google and discovered that, 109 years on, the Hastings Winkle Club is still going strong.

In fact, it turns out to be an internationally famous charitable organisation originally formed by Hastings fishermen to help the under-privileged families of Hastings Old Town.

The club's headquarters, opened in 1882, is located at the Fishermen's Club: a building given in trust for the use of Hastings Fishermen and initially used for the making and repairing of nets.

Winkle Club members have included some illustrious personalities such as HMs the Queen and the Queen Mother, Lord Montgomery, Sir Winston Churchill, the Duke of Windsor and a number of showbiz personalities of which Ali was obviously one.

Each Winkle Club Member (or 'Winkler') carries a winkle shell which they must produce when challenged to 'Winkle Up'. Failure to do so results in a fine which goes towards local charities.

You can read more about the history and work of The Hastings Winkle Club here.

Time, now, to lower the tone (if that is possible!) and remind you of that saucy old music hall number -- all together now -- I Can't Get My Winkle Out!

Take it away, Paul Carr! And, please, everyone, feel free to join in and sing along...