Production Number: 3788
Videotape Number: VTR/ABC/3953 Cast
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Uncredited cast: The rehearsal script also included non-speaking roles for Mrs Roffey’s young son, Gerald; customers at the amusement arcade; and an assistant at the coffee bar, none of whom were credited in TV listings |
Production
Series based on an idea by Roger Marshall & Anthony Marriott
Theme Music composed by Robert Earley Story Editor: Richard Bates Floor Manager: Harry Lock |
Stage Manager: Betty Crowe
Production Assistant: Pamela Bailey Designed by Anne Spavin Producer: Don Leaver Directed by Mark Lawton |
Rehearsed from Friday 4 September 1964 at Steadfast Hall, Riverside, Kingston upon Thames
Camera rehearsed from Tuesday 15 September 1964 at Studio 2, ABC Television Studios, Broom Road, Teddington, Middlesex
Recorded on Tuesday 15 (VTR inserts) at Studio 3 and Wednesday 16 September 1964 at Studio 2, Teddington
Camera rehearsed from Tuesday 15 September 1964 at Studio 2, ABC Television Studios, Broom Road, Teddington, Middlesex
Recorded on Tuesday 15 (VTR inserts) at Studio 3 and Wednesday 16 September 1964 at Studio 2, Teddington
TV World Synopsis
Tuesday 2.15: James Sale, Ward C, County Hospital. “Hit and run – says the law’s shelved the case, 18,000 cops can’t work it, will I – he’s joking!”
Click here for detailed synopsis
Click here for detailed synopsis
Transmission
Saturday 27 March 1965, 9.10pm (ABC Midlands, ABC North, Southern and Ulster)
Saturday 17 July 1965, 10.10pm (ATV London, Border, Channel and Westward)
Saturday 7 August 1965, 10.10pm (Tyne Tees – postponed from Saturday 17 July 1965, 10.10pm)
Saturday 18 September 1965, 10.10pm (TWW)
Saturday 17 July 1965, 10.10pm (ATV London, Border, Channel and Westward)
Saturday 7 August 1965, 10.10pm (Tyne Tees – postponed from Saturday 17 July 1965, 10.10pm)
Saturday 18 September 1965, 10.10pm (TWW)
Archive
Rehearsal script – held in the BFI Special Collections
Story Notes
According to the script, this story takes place during the summer. This would have been the time of year at which Robert Holmes wrote the script, and coincidentally matches the season in which this episode was transmitted in the ATV London, Border, Channel, Westward and Tyne Tees regions.
In Act One of the script, Marker asks Jimmy Sale, “If eighty thousand coppers can’t find the driver, what chance have I got?” The ABC synopsis for this episode (see TV World Synopsis, above) suggests that this figure was reduced to eighteen thousand. The initial figure may have been a typo in the script, or it could be an estimate of the number of police officers working in the UK in 1964 (Home Office figures indicate that there were 71,692 police officers employed in England and Wales as at 31 March 1959, rising to 91,307 by 31 March 1970). The revised figure of 18,000 appears to refer to the number of officers working in the London area.
In Act One of the script, Marker asks Jimmy Sale, “If eighty thousand coppers can’t find the driver, what chance have I got?” The ABC synopsis for this episode (see TV World Synopsis, above) suggests that this figure was reduced to eighteen thousand. The initial figure may have been a typo in the script, or it could be an estimate of the number of police officers working in the UK in 1964 (Home Office figures indicate that there were 71,692 police officers employed in England and Wales as at 31 March 1959, rising to 91,307 by 31 March 1970). The revised figure of 18,000 appears to refer to the number of officers working in the London area.
A police constable was added to the cast of characters during rehearsals. According to the cast list in order of appearance, as published in TV listings magazines, the PC made his entrance after Tarrant and before the amusement arcade attendant Deirdre Harris. In this site’s detailed synopsis, it is assumed that the constable calls Tarrant away towards the end of the detective inspector’s first scene, when he is berating Wimpole. In the rehearsal script, Tarrant is given a different reason for leaving the room: “Tarrant stamps over to his own desk and shuffles through some papers. He finds what he is looking for and heads back towards the door.”
In speech prefixes, Jacob Rodziewicz’s name is abbreviated to “Rodzie”. In the rehearsal script, he wears “smoked glasses”, but these are not in evidence in a surviving photograph of his scene with Marker (see left). |
Production Notes
You Think It’ll Be Marvellous – But It’s Always a Rabbit was only the second episode of Series 1 to go into production. The rehearsal script still referred to the series title as The Public Eye.
The director of this episode was Mark Lawton (1917–1975), who was born in Vienna, Austria. He was an actor who had moved into directing, initially handling children’s programmes and variety shows such as Zoo Time for Granada and The Rosalina Neri Show for Associated-Rediffusion. He began directing drama in 1960, including an eight-part adaptation of Charles Dickens’s unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, episodes of the spy series Top Secret and the police procedural No Hiding Place, as well as numerous one-off plays, all for Associated-Rediffusion. Lawton’s first work for ABC was a 1964 episode of its crime series The Protectors. You Think It’ll Be Marvellous – But It’s Always a Rabbit would prove to be his only episode of Public Eye and one of his final jobs as a director, after which he took charge of a handful of educational programmes during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Robert Holmes’s script keeps the hit-and-run incident off screen, partly to preserve mystery and partly to avoid depicting gratuitous violence. After Jimmy Sale steps out on to the road, Mrs Roffey, pushing a pram, “steps right in front of the camera” to block our view. When she hears the sound of the accident and turns to look, the road remains out of shot: “The woman who has been blocking the camera spins round, staring into the road out of shot.” As Mrs Roffey leaves the scene, all we see of Sale is his motionless arm, the sleeve torn, the hand bloody.
When Marker appears in consecutive scenes, the writer ensures that he is out of shot for long enough to allow Alfred Burke to move from one set to another. For instance, the first police station scene, in Act One, opens with “Wimpole rocking his chair on its back legs and grinning into camera.” Only after he has delivered his first two speeches do we see who he is talking to – Marker, who had been on screen throughout the preceding scene, set in Jimmy Sale’s hospital ward. Similarly, the final amusement arcade scene, at the end of Act Two, occurs immediately after Marker’s conversation with Rodziewicz, but doesn’t show the inquiry agent until after Deirdre has spoken her opening line. Prior to this point, “A long-haired youth is [shown] playing a pinball machine. We crab [i.e. move the camera] round the machine and close on Deirdre in her accustomed place by the punchball.” She is leisurely filing her nails and inspects them as she delivers her first line.
The script specifies that the laundromat, where Mrs Roffey works, should be a corner rather than a full set, containing only “a desk with ‘SUPERVISOR’ on it, a telephone, a price/weight list on the backing wall and a Bendix [washing machine] just visible at the side of frame.”
Conscious of the constraints of as-live recording, Robert Holmes makes Sue Jefferson’s final costume change optional. At the beginning of her final scene, the penultimate scene of the episode, a scripted direction notes, “If enough time, Sue has changed into sweater and slacks.” Therefore, in the recorded episode, actress Dilys Laye may or may not have changed out of the robe she wore during her previous scene (see image at top of page).
This episode may have experienced technical difficulties or been considered below par in some other way by the production team. Though recorded second in production order, on Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 September 1964, it was held back from transmission until Saturday 27 March 1965, when it went out as the tenth episode of Series 1 and the final Don Leaver-produced episode to be shown in ABC broadcast order.
Opposition provided by BBC1 on Saturday 27 March took the form of documentary series Hollywood and the Stars at 9pm, followed by The Rogues at 9.25pm.
ATV London and its associates Border, Channel and Westward signed off on Frank Marker’s investigations with You Think It’ll Be Marvellous – But It’s Always a Rabbit on Saturday 17 July. Another ABC drama series, Undermind, took over the slot in these regions the following weekend.
In the Tyne Tees region, this episode was originally scheduled to be broadcast at 10.10pm on Saturday 17 July, as advertised in contemporary TV listings. It was replaced at short notice by You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, as shown in some local newspapers. The reason for the sudden change may have been to do with the hit-and-run incident at the heart of You Think It’ll Be Marvellous – But It’s Always a Rabbit. The previous weekend had seen a spate of road accidents in the North-East of England, which had resulted in four deaths and the hospitalisation of numerous other drivers, passengers and pedestrians, and would have made this story uncomfortable viewing for many in the area. The episode was eventually transmitted by Tyne Tees on Saturday 7 August.
The director of this episode was Mark Lawton (1917–1975), who was born in Vienna, Austria. He was an actor who had moved into directing, initially handling children’s programmes and variety shows such as Zoo Time for Granada and The Rosalina Neri Show for Associated-Rediffusion. He began directing drama in 1960, including an eight-part adaptation of Charles Dickens’s unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, episodes of the spy series Top Secret and the police procedural No Hiding Place, as well as numerous one-off plays, all for Associated-Rediffusion. Lawton’s first work for ABC was a 1964 episode of its crime series The Protectors. You Think It’ll Be Marvellous – But It’s Always a Rabbit would prove to be his only episode of Public Eye and one of his final jobs as a director, after which he took charge of a handful of educational programmes during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Robert Holmes’s script keeps the hit-and-run incident off screen, partly to preserve mystery and partly to avoid depicting gratuitous violence. After Jimmy Sale steps out on to the road, Mrs Roffey, pushing a pram, “steps right in front of the camera” to block our view. When she hears the sound of the accident and turns to look, the road remains out of shot: “The woman who has been blocking the camera spins round, staring into the road out of shot.” As Mrs Roffey leaves the scene, all we see of Sale is his motionless arm, the sleeve torn, the hand bloody.
When Marker appears in consecutive scenes, the writer ensures that he is out of shot for long enough to allow Alfred Burke to move from one set to another. For instance, the first police station scene, in Act One, opens with “Wimpole rocking his chair on its back legs and grinning into camera.” Only after he has delivered his first two speeches do we see who he is talking to – Marker, who had been on screen throughout the preceding scene, set in Jimmy Sale’s hospital ward. Similarly, the final amusement arcade scene, at the end of Act Two, occurs immediately after Marker’s conversation with Rodziewicz, but doesn’t show the inquiry agent until after Deirdre has spoken her opening line. Prior to this point, “A long-haired youth is [shown] playing a pinball machine. We crab [i.e. move the camera] round the machine and close on Deirdre in her accustomed place by the punchball.” She is leisurely filing her nails and inspects them as she delivers her first line.
The script specifies that the laundromat, where Mrs Roffey works, should be a corner rather than a full set, containing only “a desk with ‘SUPERVISOR’ on it, a telephone, a price/weight list on the backing wall and a Bendix [washing machine] just visible at the side of frame.”
Conscious of the constraints of as-live recording, Robert Holmes makes Sue Jefferson’s final costume change optional. At the beginning of her final scene, the penultimate scene of the episode, a scripted direction notes, “If enough time, Sue has changed into sweater and slacks.” Therefore, in the recorded episode, actress Dilys Laye may or may not have changed out of the robe she wore during her previous scene (see image at top of page).
This episode may have experienced technical difficulties or been considered below par in some other way by the production team. Though recorded second in production order, on Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 September 1964, it was held back from transmission until Saturday 27 March 1965, when it went out as the tenth episode of Series 1 and the final Don Leaver-produced episode to be shown in ABC broadcast order.
Opposition provided by BBC1 on Saturday 27 March took the form of documentary series Hollywood and the Stars at 9pm, followed by The Rogues at 9.25pm.
ATV London and its associates Border, Channel and Westward signed off on Frank Marker’s investigations with You Think It’ll Be Marvellous – But It’s Always a Rabbit on Saturday 17 July. Another ABC drama series, Undermind, took over the slot in these regions the following weekend.
In the Tyne Tees region, this episode was originally scheduled to be broadcast at 10.10pm on Saturday 17 July, as advertised in contemporary TV listings. It was replaced at short notice by You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, as shown in some local newspapers. The reason for the sudden change may have been to do with the hit-and-run incident at the heart of You Think It’ll Be Marvellous – But It’s Always a Rabbit. The previous weekend had seen a spate of road accidents in the North-East of England, which had resulted in four deaths and the hospitalisation of numerous other drivers, passengers and pedestrians, and would have made this story uncomfortable viewing for many in the area. The episode was eventually transmitted by Tyne Tees on Saturday 7 August.
Home and Away
Writer Robert Holmes envisaged that the zebra crossing scene at the start of the episode would be shot on location. The laundromat scene in Act Two refers back to it as a film sequence: “The woman we saw with the pram in the opening film sequence is sitting behind the desk.” However, the list of sets at the front of the script includes the zebra crossing, indicating that the scene was to be realised in the television studio.
Many a Slip
Near the beginning of his scene, Rodziewicz says that he is living with his daughter. However, he later refers to her as “the daughter of my brother”, which would make her his niece.
Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?
The ABC press release for You Think It’ll Be Marvellous – But It’s Always a Rabbit noted that guest actor Gary Watson, who played Detective Sergeant Walter Wimpole, had previously appeared in the same company’s The Avengers (his most recent episode at the time being Lobster Quadrille in 1964) and Redcap (A Question of Initiative in 1965) and that he had performed alongside Susannah York “in the last ABC play I Took My Little World Away.” This was an episode of Armchair Theatre that was broadcast by ABC on Sunday 14 March 1965. The press release’s use of the word “last” suggests that it was issued or prepared before Sunday 21 March 1965, when the next episode in the play series, A Voice in the Sky, was transmitted. The document also noted that Dilys Laye, alias Sue Jefferson, “was in ABC’s Protectors series last year, and is also known as a comedienne with Charlie Drake,” adding that she was married to actor Garfield Morgan (who would himself appear three times in Public Eye). Laye’s appearances with comedy actor Charlie Drake included roles in the 1961 film Petticoat Pirates (in which, coincidentally, she played a character called Sue) and the opening episode of Drake’s long-running 1965–1978 ATV/LWT sitcom The Worker.
Richard Bates was interviewed by Marjorie Bilbow about the role of the story editor in Television Today on Thursday 25 March 1965. This had been a recurring theme in Bilbow’s column of late, with several of the writers she had interviewed accusing script and story editors of being capricious hacks. Now given the opportunity to tell his side of the story, in a piece entitled Writers who can’t see themselves as part of a team (see below), Bates believed there were faults on both sides. “Every writer should have the job of story editing just once in his lifetime and learn what goes on on the other side of the fence,” he opined. “The really professional writers do understand, but too many of them are not really professional. They don’t seem to be able to see themselves as part of a team. No doubt a lot of story editors are to blame for the bad feeling that so often exists between them and writers. I know there are story editors who treat writers without any respect at all. But writers – some writers – are to blame, too. The really professional writers know that a script is very unlikely to be fit to go into rehearsal exactly as it stands and they always give their blessing to any small changes. The others are down on us like a ton of bricks if we change a word.” He explained that if a script required major revisions, “At ABC, we always get in touch with the writer and ask him to do it. Or we ask his permission to do it ourselves. I think we have a pretty good relationship with writers at ABC. They are invited to the read-throughs, they are welcome to attend rehearsals at any time. We expect them to come to the dress rehearsal and the recording. They are members of a team and they have the right – we try to give them the right – to contribute beyond the actual writing of the script. They shouldn’t neglect their work once it gets into production because this is where they learn … by staying with the story, being with the director, and seeing the way the director does it.” The modest Bates also told the interviewer that he did not consider himself a good television writer, so there was no danger of him trying to imprint his own style on every script that passed through his hands. “I know I can’t write anywhere near as well as the writers I do employ, and I wouldn’t dream of tinkering with the script. If it’s just a question of changing a line, I’ll do it, but if it means rewriting a scene, I always give it back to the writer, discuss it with him, and tell him the way we feel it should go. I don’t know how a really good television writer can be a script editor, because it seems to me such a person would want every script written the way he would write it. This is quite wrong, because every writer sees a story in a slightly different way. I’m sure there are many story editors who disprove my theory, but the temptation must be enormous.”
Finding new writers was always difficult, Bates told Bilbow, referring back to his earlier role as story editor on another ABC show. “When I worked on the last series of The Avengers, I saw over 80 writers,” he recalled. “Two-thirds of them had never written for The Avengers before, about one-third of these had never written for television before. Out of that one-third, I found one new writer. It was hard work, but it was worth it.” Asked about the “very special atmosphere” of that series, Bates laughed and replied, “On The Avengers, I discovered to my surprise that I had a very weird imagination! The moment I got together with a writer, we were very quickly bounding away with all kinds of exciting ideas – mostly because the writers were delighted to have the opportunity to write something as absolutely crazy as The Avengers. We used to have hilarious sessions.” The atmosphere of Public Eye, on the other hand, could scarcely have been more different. “In a sense, it’s the very opposite of The Avengers,” said Bates. “It’s a question of holding one’s imagination in check, making it as real as possible, and keeping in mind what it is that makes people tick. This didn’t matter in The Avengers. We made people tick the way we wanted them to. I’m glad it’s so completely different, otherwise there might have been too much temptation to make Public Eye a bit like The Avengers.”
Richard Bates was interviewed by Marjorie Bilbow about the role of the story editor in Television Today on Thursday 25 March 1965. This had been a recurring theme in Bilbow’s column of late, with several of the writers she had interviewed accusing script and story editors of being capricious hacks. Now given the opportunity to tell his side of the story, in a piece entitled Writers who can’t see themselves as part of a team (see below), Bates believed there were faults on both sides. “Every writer should have the job of story editing just once in his lifetime and learn what goes on on the other side of the fence,” he opined. “The really professional writers do understand, but too many of them are not really professional. They don’t seem to be able to see themselves as part of a team. No doubt a lot of story editors are to blame for the bad feeling that so often exists between them and writers. I know there are story editors who treat writers without any respect at all. But writers – some writers – are to blame, too. The really professional writers know that a script is very unlikely to be fit to go into rehearsal exactly as it stands and they always give their blessing to any small changes. The others are down on us like a ton of bricks if we change a word.” He explained that if a script required major revisions, “At ABC, we always get in touch with the writer and ask him to do it. Or we ask his permission to do it ourselves. I think we have a pretty good relationship with writers at ABC. They are invited to the read-throughs, they are welcome to attend rehearsals at any time. We expect them to come to the dress rehearsal and the recording. They are members of a team and they have the right – we try to give them the right – to contribute beyond the actual writing of the script. They shouldn’t neglect their work once it gets into production because this is where they learn … by staying with the story, being with the director, and seeing the way the director does it.” The modest Bates also told the interviewer that he did not consider himself a good television writer, so there was no danger of him trying to imprint his own style on every script that passed through his hands. “I know I can’t write anywhere near as well as the writers I do employ, and I wouldn’t dream of tinkering with the script. If it’s just a question of changing a line, I’ll do it, but if it means rewriting a scene, I always give it back to the writer, discuss it with him, and tell him the way we feel it should go. I don’t know how a really good television writer can be a script editor, because it seems to me such a person would want every script written the way he would write it. This is quite wrong, because every writer sees a story in a slightly different way. I’m sure there are many story editors who disprove my theory, but the temptation must be enormous.”
Finding new writers was always difficult, Bates told Bilbow, referring back to his earlier role as story editor on another ABC show. “When I worked on the last series of The Avengers, I saw over 80 writers,” he recalled. “Two-thirds of them had never written for The Avengers before, about one-third of these had never written for television before. Out of that one-third, I found one new writer. It was hard work, but it was worth it.” Asked about the “very special atmosphere” of that series, Bates laughed and replied, “On The Avengers, I discovered to my surprise that I had a very weird imagination! The moment I got together with a writer, we were very quickly bounding away with all kinds of exciting ideas – mostly because the writers were delighted to have the opportunity to write something as absolutely crazy as The Avengers. We used to have hilarious sessions.” The atmosphere of Public Eye, on the other hand, could scarcely have been more different. “In a sense, it’s the very opposite of The Avengers,” said Bates. “It’s a question of holding one’s imagination in check, making it as real as possible, and keeping in mind what it is that makes people tick. This didn’t matter in The Avengers. We made people tick the way we wanted them to. I’m glad it’s so completely different, otherwise there might have been too much temptation to make Public Eye a bit like The Avengers.”
The programme billing for You Think It’ll Be Marvellous – But It’s Always a Rabbit in TV World (27 March–2 April 1965) was accompanied by a shot of Alfred Burke as Marker with Helen Cotterill as Deirdre Harris, while a Women feature on Dilys Laye referred again to her work with Charlie Drake. Laye revealed that, when offered the role of Sue Jefferson, she called her agent and asked, “Are you sure they meant the part for me?” because it was such a departure from the comedy roles audiences were used to seeing her in, including her recent work with Drake. Meanwhile, the listing in the Southern edition of TV Times included an image of Marker with Wimpole. After Public Eye completed its first run on ATV London with this episode on Saturday 17 July, Bill Edmund noted its passing in the next edition of Television Today on Thursday 22 July. “Another show comes to London to take the place of Public Eye and Alfred Burke takes Frank Marker for a rest,” wrote Edmund, in his My View round-up column. “I hope he comes back. This is a series that I shall miss.” |
The series was still well underway on TWW, however. On Saturday 18 September, Peter Forth of the Bristolian newspaper the Western Daily Press recommended You Think It’ll Be Marvellous – But It’s Always a Rabbit. Clearly, he had little to go on apart from the “story-length title”, but added, “and if that does not tempt you to sample it, I can only say that the series offers a down-to-earth view of private detection, English style.”
Nobody Wants to Know
Robert Holmes carries out a bit of literary word association when Colin Jefferson struggles to remember Detective Sergeant Wimpole’s surname. “Barratt?” guesses Colin. The poet Elizabeth Barrett (1806–1861) is arguably the most famous resident of Wimpole Street in Marylebone, Central London. She lived at number 50 with her family from 1838 until 1846, when she eloped with fellow poet Robert Browning (1812–1889). The street became famous thanks to a play based on the couple’s courtship, entitled The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Written by the Dutch/English dramatist Rudolf Besier and first performed in 1930, the play was subsequently adapted into two films (in 1934 and 1957, both directed by Sidney Franklin) and numerous television productions. A Royal Society of Arts plaque now commemorates Elizabeth at 50 Wimpole Street.
In Act One, Jimmy Sale says that the hospital’s almoner wrote to Marker on his behalf. An almoner is a chaplain or church officer who originally was in charge of distributing money to the deserving poor, though the title has largely fallen out of use in English. The title of almoner was also used for a hospital official who interviews prospective patients to qualify them as needy, and was later applied to officials who were responsible for patient welfare and aftercare. This position evolved into the modern profession of medical social work.
During the same scene, when Marker asks him if he is having wife trouble, Sale very nearly predicts the title of a Series 2 episode about marriage difficulties: “Oh, no, nothing like that.”
In the next scene, Wimpole informs Marker that Cuttle and Harris, the two witnesses to the hit-and-run incident, are “as dim as NAAFI candles”. The acronym NAAFI stands for Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes, a company set up by the British government on Thursday 9 December 1920 to run recreational establishments required by the British Armed Forces, and to sell goods to servicemen and their families. It runs clubhouses, bars, shops, supermarkets, launderettes, restaurants, cafés and other facilities on most British military bases, as well as canteens on board Royal Navy ships. As a much-in-demand, not-for-profit organisation, the NAAFI gained a (sometimes unfair) reputation for providing goods and services that were perceived to be substandard, giving rise to disparaging expressions such as “dim as a NAAFI candle”, meaning not very bright. Similarly derogatory sayings include to “lie like a cheap NAAFI watch”, that is, to be an unreliable source of information. NAAFI has been humorously said to mean “Never ’Ave Any Fags In”, referring to frequent shortages of cigarettes, while a “NAAFI sandwich” consists of two slices of bread with margarine but no other filling.
Later in this scene, Detective Inspector Tarrant threatens to put Wimpole on a number one docket, i.e. a corruption charge.
At the amusement arcade, Marker dubs the nonchalant Deirdre “Miss Pococurante 1964”. Pococurante is a noun and an adjective borrowed from Italian, even retaining its Italian pronunciation. It means indifferent or unconcerned, or a person exhibiting such an attitude.
Jacob Rodziewicz mentions the concentration camp at Dachau, a town in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. Dachau concentration camp was one of the first to be built by Nazi Germany and it was the longest serving. Opened on Wednesday 22 March 1933 by SS officer Heinrich Himmler, the facility was initially intended to detain Hitler’s political opponents, consisting of communists, social democrats and other dissidents. Its purpose was expanded to include forced labour and, eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, German and Austrian criminals, and foreign nationals from countries occupied or invaded by Germany. During Nazi rule, the facility is estimated to have held around 200,000 inmates, about 32,000 of whom are known to have died. Thousands more deaths were undocumented. The camp was liberated by American forces on Sunday 29 April 1945 and subsequently served to incarcerate SS soldiers awaiting trial. After 1948, it housed ethnic Germans who had been expelled from Eastern Europe and were awaiting resettlement, and was also used as an American military base during the 1945–1949 Allied occupation of Germany. Dachau concentration camp was finally closed in 1960.
Rodziewicz also uses a number of Yiddish and German terms. The elderly Polish Jew calls Marker a schfatzer (a fellow; a chap), he dismisses the furniture in his niece’s home as schofel (worthless stuff; rubbish), and he recalls himself and the window cleaner Charlie Andrews smiling at each other like schlemihls (fools; incompetents). However, I have been unable to find a definition for shobbs, another word used by the old man.
During the final scene, Wimpole warns Charlie Andrews that he could “Send you down for a carpet any time.” Carpet is Cockney rhyming slang for the number three, or more specifically a three-month (or three-year) prison sentence. From around the turn of the 20th century, three months’ hard labour was known as a “carpet bag”, to rhyme with “drag” and also in reference to the assumption that prison workshops took 90 days to produce a particular type of regulation-size carpet. There is also a belief that prisoners used to be afforded the luxury of a piece of carpet in their cell after being incarcerated for three years. Since the early 20th century, the term has also been used by bookmakers, where “carpet” refers to odds of three to one, and in the car trade, where it means a price of £300.
In Act One, Jimmy Sale says that the hospital’s almoner wrote to Marker on his behalf. An almoner is a chaplain or church officer who originally was in charge of distributing money to the deserving poor, though the title has largely fallen out of use in English. The title of almoner was also used for a hospital official who interviews prospective patients to qualify them as needy, and was later applied to officials who were responsible for patient welfare and aftercare. This position evolved into the modern profession of medical social work.
During the same scene, when Marker asks him if he is having wife trouble, Sale very nearly predicts the title of a Series 2 episode about marriage difficulties: “Oh, no, nothing like that.”
In the next scene, Wimpole informs Marker that Cuttle and Harris, the two witnesses to the hit-and-run incident, are “as dim as NAAFI candles”. The acronym NAAFI stands for Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes, a company set up by the British government on Thursday 9 December 1920 to run recreational establishments required by the British Armed Forces, and to sell goods to servicemen and their families. It runs clubhouses, bars, shops, supermarkets, launderettes, restaurants, cafés and other facilities on most British military bases, as well as canteens on board Royal Navy ships. As a much-in-demand, not-for-profit organisation, the NAAFI gained a (sometimes unfair) reputation for providing goods and services that were perceived to be substandard, giving rise to disparaging expressions such as “dim as a NAAFI candle”, meaning not very bright. Similarly derogatory sayings include to “lie like a cheap NAAFI watch”, that is, to be an unreliable source of information. NAAFI has been humorously said to mean “Never ’Ave Any Fags In”, referring to frequent shortages of cigarettes, while a “NAAFI sandwich” consists of two slices of bread with margarine but no other filling.
Later in this scene, Detective Inspector Tarrant threatens to put Wimpole on a number one docket, i.e. a corruption charge.
At the amusement arcade, Marker dubs the nonchalant Deirdre “Miss Pococurante 1964”. Pococurante is a noun and an adjective borrowed from Italian, even retaining its Italian pronunciation. It means indifferent or unconcerned, or a person exhibiting such an attitude.
Jacob Rodziewicz mentions the concentration camp at Dachau, a town in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. Dachau concentration camp was one of the first to be built by Nazi Germany and it was the longest serving. Opened on Wednesday 22 March 1933 by SS officer Heinrich Himmler, the facility was initially intended to detain Hitler’s political opponents, consisting of communists, social democrats and other dissidents. Its purpose was expanded to include forced labour and, eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, German and Austrian criminals, and foreign nationals from countries occupied or invaded by Germany. During Nazi rule, the facility is estimated to have held around 200,000 inmates, about 32,000 of whom are known to have died. Thousands more deaths were undocumented. The camp was liberated by American forces on Sunday 29 April 1945 and subsequently served to incarcerate SS soldiers awaiting trial. After 1948, it housed ethnic Germans who had been expelled from Eastern Europe and were awaiting resettlement, and was also used as an American military base during the 1945–1949 Allied occupation of Germany. Dachau concentration camp was finally closed in 1960.
Rodziewicz also uses a number of Yiddish and German terms. The elderly Polish Jew calls Marker a schfatzer (a fellow; a chap), he dismisses the furniture in his niece’s home as schofel (worthless stuff; rubbish), and he recalls himself and the window cleaner Charlie Andrews smiling at each other like schlemihls (fools; incompetents). However, I have been unable to find a definition for shobbs, another word used by the old man.
During the final scene, Wimpole warns Charlie Andrews that he could “Send you down for a carpet any time.” Carpet is Cockney rhyming slang for the number three, or more specifically a three-month (or three-year) prison sentence. From around the turn of the 20th century, three months’ hard labour was known as a “carpet bag”, to rhyme with “drag” and also in reference to the assumption that prison workshops took 90 days to produce a particular type of regulation-size carpet. There is also a belief that prisoners used to be afforded the luxury of a piece of carpet in their cell after being incarcerated for three years. Since the early 20th century, the term has also been used by bookmakers, where “carpet” refers to odds of three to one, and in the car trade, where it means a price of £300.
With thanks to Simon Coward, Jonny Davies, Andrew Pixley, Barbara Toft, the BFI Special Collections, the British Newspaper Archive and Network Distributing.
The Missing Markers is a not-for-profit fan website written and edited by and copyright © Richard McGinlay. All rights reserved.
Public Eye (the ABC years) is copyright © StudioCanal. No attempt to infringe this copyright is intended.
The Missing Markers is a not-for-profit fan website written and edited by and copyright © Richard McGinlay. All rights reserved.
Public Eye (the ABC years) is copyright © StudioCanal. No attempt to infringe this copyright is intended.