h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Harold,
Of course you are right but who was the chap with the Oxford voice who sang "mud mud Glorious mud" and songs of the same ilk. My dad used to fall off his chair listening to them. He also sang "Grandfather clock" and the Eton boat song.
Regards Frank.

Hello folks
Just a line to say I can remember Ian Wallace singing Mud, Glorious Mud. I don't think the other two songs were by him, though Frank.
Can't write more at present. I will when I fully recover, to Martyn etc.
All the best
Elvie (Elvira)

Hello Frank
Apologies. Ian Wallace sang The Wart Hog. Flanders and Swan, The Hippopotomus Song, Mud Mud Mud.
See you all.
Goodnight
Elvie

Nov. 21,Dear Frank,I stood at least 1/2 hr "in Line"to see whether I could go on the internet tonite on my way to R.to the F.
Somehow I got stranded at your name and started to read about Martyn's-forgot his last name-request about music during the war.
Despite the German occupation, we did listen in Holland to all the music mentioned.
I had a small radio and I used t listen to :"Music While You Work". There was a very good dutch band:"The Ramblers" who knew all the songs you mentioned,so they must have listened to music from the UK and the USA too.
But no bright lights , evening clothes and all that made a dance special in your time.For us those times were no fun but that was why music was so important :it was a link with the free world. and better times .
Maybe one day we would be able to go to dances in new evening dresses(My favourite eve. dress I found shredded ,hanging in the rafters of the house we were billeted as nurses. The liberation of our city saw fierce fighting) This was the other side of the coin: dancing in England and different hardships from what we had to endure,but with hope that one day we might be free ,be able to go dancing in a new evening dress and sing the songs we knew already.
Being young and optimistic we KNEW that that day would come.Josephine.

Dear Frank

I'm trying to remember who sang the songs in an Oxford voice. Was it one (or both) of Flotsam and Jetsam? I think one of them was Ronald Frankau, but I'm not sure if he was a singer or just a raconteur. Or there was a couple called Murgatroyd and Winterbottom, one of whom I think was Tommy Handley.
Sorry not to be sure.

Harold

Hello Harold,
I remember Flotsam and Jetsam, I thought Ronald Frankau was a pianist singer like Charley Kunz. The other names you mention were part of the show ITMA also we had Bandwaggon and Happydrome, as a lad those were never to be missed.
Dad loved Al Bowlly and Paul Robeson along with Richard Tauber and John McCormack. He also introduced me to the string quartet's who often played during lunch breaks, with my learning piano which was mainly classical in those days he gave me the love of Classical as well as all other kinds of music.
I remember the songs of Empire that were sung quite a lot on Radio, "The Road to Mandalay" and such but cannot remember who sang them. We had a lot of singers and most of their names have gone now apart from a few I really loved. One was Chick Henderson the Hartlepool Crooner, I thought he was better than Al Bowlley but then no accounting for taste is there.
Regards Frank.

Dear Harold and Frank,
To the best of my memory, Murgatroyd and Winterbottom were a double act played by Ronald Frankau and Tommy Handley.
Charlie Kunz played the piano but didn't sing. He had a most distinctive style, unlike anything before or since that I can remember.
There was, what we would call stand-up comedians, eg Stainless Stephen and I'm certain Ronald Frankau. The Western Brothers at the piano. I didn't appreciate their caustic humour as a child but now see how clever they were.
I have just been singing something from the past, Flotsam and Jetsam's Dear Miss Bouncer, loved an announcer, Down at the BBC. Do either of you remember it?
I am going to stop, time for a cup of tea. I deserve it, don't I?
All the best, tell me if you remember.
Elvie (Elvira)

Dear Elvie,
Right again, I loved to hear Charlie Kunz, it was Hutch who played piano and sang. Dad loved the Western brothers but they were a bit above me.
Do you remember Trois and his Mandoliers, Carmen Miranda.
Artie Shaw, Rudy Vallee, Ambrose, Harry James with his trumpet I loved them all.
I still play Moonlight and Roses, birth of the blues and Amapola, when I am practicing alone or playing to myself along with most of the Glen Miller of course. What happened to good music.
Regards Frank.

Dear Frank
Yes I remember all the people you mentioned. Harry James was fab. The Dorsey Brothers too. Wonderful music to dance to and listen to. Troise and his Mandoliers was a must in our house as my father, though his main instrument was the violin, played the mandolin and was in a gipsy band, dressed in bright orange wide sleeved Tops (blouses) and black trousers. I wanded to be Carmen Miranda, as well as Betty Grable! Another favourite was Amopola. Moonlight and Roses, of course, I can't sing the melody, the harmony comes naturally. Birth of the Blues has particular nostalgia for me as the Southland, which is mentioned in it reminds me of the American sailor based on the USS Southland, aah, sweet memories.
Incidentally, I walked past Hutch in Hamptead and was so excited I nearly fell over.
Speak to you all soon.
Elvie

Dear Frank and Elvie

I recall that when the American forces were building up in Britain there was plenty of American music on the BBC played by American bands and orchestras. All kinds of bands whose names I cannot now recall. But among British dance bands on the wireless there were several: Henry Hall, Jack Payne, Ambrose, Lew Stone, Jack Hylton. But I'm not sure how many actually played in wartine, some were pre-war and post-war, certainly. But wot about Vera Lynn? Tough soldiers used to melt whene they heard her.

Harold Pollins

Dear Harold,
It is good to have you talking with us. That is what is so good about WW2 People's War. Nostalgia is something we think about more and more as we get older, which is, of course natural.
I think the British bands you referred to were all in wartime as well as pre-war. I wonder what it was about Vera Lynn, she wasn't a great SINGER but she had something that appealed to everyone. A feeling of home, perhaps for the forces boys and girls? Even youngsters like me, 11 in 1939, had a special feeling when I heard her sing. And the songs, White Cliffs of Dover, When the Lights go on Again. and so many others. She really did have an affect on us all.
Like Frank, I loved all the music during the war years. My love of dancing, the same as friend Frank had a lot to do with that.
Happy memories, Harold , some of them.
Best wishes.
Elvie

Hello Elvie, Harold,
What did Vera Lynn have. I can tell you, like Our Gracy Fields she had the common touch. Watch her on some of those old films entertaining the troops, she got down to them and I bet every man there thought she was singing for him alone. She would mix with the lads by accounts I heard and often passed the Officers mess to do so unlike many of those entertainers.
I suppose like me most people thought when America came into the war it was a certainty we would win and took to the big bands and music with lighter hearts.
It was not new to us film buffs who went to all the musical films because they were nearly always in colour. We already knew the big band leaders and a lot of the soloists like Gene Kruper the manic drummer. Carmen Miranda was so eaxotic to my eyes on film I fell instantly for her and Latin music which I still play better than any other kind. A rhythm takes over and I want to be dancing again, happy days and many happy memories indeed.
Regards Frank.

Dear Frank and Elvie
Well, Carmen Miranda was certainly exotic, erotic even. But as a teenager I was in love with Deanna Durbin and also a film star called Bonits Something.
Actually my musical memories of my time in the army are more to do with bawdy songs such as 'Roll me over in the clover' and 'Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness, After the dance was over there were four and twenty less.'

Harold

Dear Harold and Frank,
This will have to be brief. Deanna Durbin was wonderful to my eyes. I so wanted to be the girl in 100 Men and a Girl. Aah, our dreams/ Harold I think the other girl to which you referred was Bonita Granville. I loved her too. Thought I'd tell you before I forgot.
Sorry Frank there's no more on our R to F but I have just lost a dear friend and had news yesterday that my lovely cousin has a brain tumour and it has knocked me for six. Hope to be back in jollier mood.
Regards
Elvie

I can only agree, Deanna Durbin was wonderful but I also loved Dinah Shore. Remember Xavier Cugat, Al Bowllly & Ray Noble, Artie Shaw, June Christy.
We also had two music halls in Stockton and my Dad dragged me there as he loved the live acts. We had some good music hall acts in those days and it must have soaked into me like a sponge. I do not know what happened to music as i cannot understand any of the latest Rap or whatever and the singers all scream, I will bet Bing Crosby is turning in his grave.
Regards Frank.

Ah. Bing Crosby.

I recall that my parents took all the family (4 children) to see The Big Broadcast of 1932 in a West End cinema (I don't know where they got the money from for that.) It was the first major outing for Bing Crosby. I don't remember the plot or anything except that I think there was a scene where Bing Crosby dreamt of a skull.
But I may be confusing it with some other film.
My parents didn't repeat that outing. In fact as far as I can remember in the 1930s we sometimes went for a ride in the car into the Eseex countryside or visited relations (my father had 8 siblings), or visited my maternal grandmother who was in a home until she died in 1935.
In any case, having a shop was a hindrance as it was opened until 8 pm each day except Thursday, half-day closing, and Saturday, when it closed at 9.
I didn't watch the Palestine programme. It would have been too painful, in the same way that I find it difficult to watch programmes on the Holocaust.

I find that reviewing books is quite interesting. I do them mostly for a journal on whose Advisory Panel I sit. Well, we don't actually meet.
The editor asked me if I would be on it to take the place of Lord Beloff who had died. I asked if I had to do anything. No, she said. Then she sent me two articles in typescript sent to her for possible publication. She wanted me to give my opinion whether or not they were worth publication

The review I've just done amounts to over 4,000 words, took me a few weeks altogether.

By the way, who was June Christy?
Don't recall her.

Best wishes

Hartold

Dear Frank and Harold
Very briefly I ask the same question, who was June Christy? Singer or actress. I don't recall.
Best wishes
Elvie

Elvie

I meant to thank you for reminding me that the name I didn't remember was Bonita Granville. (I wrote Bonits in error. Hit the wrong key.)

Harold

Hello Each,
June Christy and Stan Kenton sang and danced the Continental it must have been a comedy act. You will have heard of Helen Forrest "Long ago and far away" "All the things you are" plus more. how about Alice Faye "You'l never know" "I'll see you in my dreams" then there was the London Accordion Band which I liked because I had an accordion. It is in America now with my Daughter but I got to play it when I was out there last.
As I said music was my life along with dancing and we all sang at the drop of a hat so those things are forever young in my memory "Errr" I think?
Regards Frank.

Hello Frank and Harold
I still have no memory of a June Christy. Stan Kenton's band of course, I do remember. Troise also had Troise and his Banjoliers. They weren't as popular as the Mandoliers but I love banjo music, especially hill billy. Such vibrancy, it's a shame all these old instruments have given way to 'singers' yelling indecipherable 'lyrics' into a microphone, to say nothing of the loud beat of the drum. Shame as the drums, played properly, like Buddy Rich and ??? can't think of his name!
just made your feet tap automatically.
The singers you named, Frank, Alice Faye, Helen Forrester etc. Wonderful, Do you remember the Eberley brothers? Bob and Ray, more of my favourites. It was Bob, I think who sang with Glenn Miller. We could dance to those melodies, couldn't we, until the last waltz, 'Who's taking you home Tonight,' and for the really daring, nervously kissing goodnight on the doorstep. One of our own at the time of Vera Lynn was Anne Shelton.
I must get in touch on email with our other friends, tulips and rose. Rob is in Holland this week.
Cheerio
Elvie