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Heaven, I'm In Heaven . . .

We made it, we’re in London! Woo Hoo! No problems with the flight, arrived at our hotel around 11:30 a.m. and the room was ready. Unpacked and went to Victoria Station to get some money from the ATM, then on board the Hop On, Hop Off tour bus for a whirlwind trip round London. We crossed the Thames four times!? Wow, was Oxford Circus and Regent Street packed with people. Hamley’s was jammed. Harrod’s closed today – jinormous sale starts tomorrow. You can bet we won’t be there. We plan to do the alternate bus tour tomorrow, then the river cruise, then the Tower, then dinner at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, then the Ripper Walk with Donald Rumbleow. It’s cold here, but no worse than New Jersey.

Had dinner in the carvery here in the hotel – roast beef, Yorkshire pudd, gravy, veg and dessert – straight down the road to Gouts-ville, but who cares? Met a wonderful couple at the next table, got to talking about how I love UK telly, they love US telly, neither of us can access the other and so we’ve made a Devil’s Bargain to email each other links to our favorite shows. We’ll get around these restrictions or die trying. Speaking of which, Upstairs, Downstairs debuts here tonight, Antiques Roadshow is also on and they told me how to access the Royle Family Xmas special here (BBC Iplay, which you can’t access from the States, hence the Devils’ Pact). After dinner, Greg and I walked down the street to Buckingham Palace to see it lit up at night yes, Vicky, I did yell “Chuck!” even though I know he’s not there. One day . . .

There are gobs of William and Kate tat in the stores here already (yipppeee!) and I’m on the verge of tears every time I see a pub or currency exchange bureau. I know, crazy. Oh, btw, we were on the bus tour and I was telling Greg (or so I thought) about the In and Out Club in Piccadilly and the tour guide overheard me and asked, “How do you know about the In and Out Club/Melbourne House?” and so he turned off his mike and we started talking about the Melbournes and Palmerstons, about Artie’s having been at England’s first railroad fatality, about the Marble Arch, Lady Caro Lamb, etc etc etc . . . . . God, it’s good to be home. As you can see, the laptop is functioning fine, so I’ll be posting more about our trip tomorrow. Off to shower and watch Upstairs, Downstairs. I know I shouldn’t rub it in, but I promise to tell you all tomorrow. I can’t wait to see Rose . . . .

Basildon Park Rebirths

Basildon Park is in Berkshire overlooking the lovely Thames Valley, built in the 1770’s in the strict Palladian style by architect John Carr of York.

Basildon Park was abandoned about 1910 and stripped of its furnishings even including flooring, fireplace surrounds and woodwork. It was used to house troops or prisoners in both world wars. Some rooms were removed and reconstructed in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City (ballroom, below).

Basildon Park stood mostly empty and deteriorating until 1952 when Lord and Lady Iliffe, a newspaper tycoon and his wife, rescued the house. Lady Iliffe writes, “To say it was derelict is hardly good enough: no window was left intact, and most were repaired with cardboard or plywood; there was a large puddle on the Library floor, coming from the bedroom above, where a fire had just been stopped in time; walls were covered with signatures and graffiti from various occupants….It was appallingly cold and damp. And yet, there was still an atmosphere of former elegance, and a feeling of great solidity. Carr’s house was still there, damaged but basically unchanged.”

Views of the outside show the Bath stone construction. The Palladian window in the Garden Front  is in the Octagon Room.

The Iliffes were fortunate enough to find genuine Carr fireplaces and woodwork removed from other houses, mostly in Yorkshire. Carr employed meticulous craftsmen and used standard measurements so that the pieces were virtually interchangeable.

Again, Lady Iliffe: “Carr was such a precise architect that his mahogany doors from Panton (in Lincolnshire) fitted exactly in the sockets of the missing Basildon ones.” Thus Basildon is both authentic and a recreation in one.

Lady Iliffe collaborated with leading designers of the English Country House style of decorating to fit out the house with a combination of antiques and

contemporary pieces, including the inevitable floral chintzes that simply drip with that country house charm. Right, the Octagon Room interior.

Upstairs the generously sized rooms were adapted to alternating bedrooms and huge bathrooms. It is a bit of a shock to see one of the perfectly proportioned rooms with its decorative plaster ceiling and elaborate woodwork and marble fireplace decked out with nothing more than the finest 1950’s plumbing fixtures.

Basildon Park was built between 1776 and 1782 by Sir Francis Sykes, created a baronet in 1781. His roots were in Yorkshire and he chose Carr of York to build his house, a classical Palladian villa with a main block of rooms joined to pavilions on either side. The Sykes fortune was made during his service in India. Right is the view of the countryside.

In 1838, the Sykes family sold the house to James Morrison (d. 1857), a Liberal MP who had turned his London haberdashery business into an international concern. By the way, when he was a shopman at Todd and Co., he married his employer’s daughter, and eventually took over the firm. Morrison engaged architect John Papworth to design handkerchiefs for his company and later to remodel Basildon. Morrison had acquired a fine collection of paintings and was one of the founding fathers of the National Gallery in London. Papworth worked at Basildon from 1837 to 1842, making some changes to the Octagon Room and other interior designs, all in keeping with the original spirit of Carr’s house. Morrison’s daughter Miss
Ellen Morrison was the last resident before Basildon Park fell into disuse.

Basildon Park was used to house soldiers during World War II, as were many country houses, and certainly suffered occasional, if not constant, abuse.
The Iliffes were collectors of the work of the distinguished English artist Graham Sutherland, whose gigantic tapestry adorns the modernist reconstruction of the Coventry Cathedral. (The 14th century cathedral was destroyed in 1940 by German bombs; a modern cathedral was built and filled

with works of contemporary art.) A number of Sutherland’s paintings and many studies for the tapestry he designed hang at Basildon. The Iliffe family  presented the house to the National Trust in 1978.

Basildon Park has often served as a set for costume dramas for the BBC and other producers. Here is a scene from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, where Basildon enacted the role of Netherfield Park.
This picture shows how carefully designed temporary baseboards can hide 21th century electrical outlets or cable connections.

To Basildon Park in Berkshire now in the capable hands of the National Trust, we wish as many more rebirths as necessary to keep out the damp and bring in the tourists.

Upstairs, Downstairs – Original Cast Update

Back-stage group photo from the 50-years BAFTA celebration event from October 2007.


From left to right: Christopher Beeny (Edward), Jacqueline Tong (Daisy), Simon Williams (James), Pauline Collins (Sarah), John Alderton (Thomas), Jean Marsh (Rose/co-creator), Meg Wynn Owen (Hazel), Lesley-Anne Down (Georgina) and Jenny Tomasin (Ruby).

When the original Upstairs, Downstairs aired 40 years ago, the series about life in Edwardian England was watched avidly by 300 million viewers in 50 countries and won five Emmy Awards in the United States. With the beginning of the new series (see our previous post here) to be aired on BBC One and BBC HD on 26th, 27th and 28th December, we got to wondering about what had happened to the original cast members in the intervening years. So, as our Christmas Eve present to you, here’s what we’ve found –

David Langton – Richard Bellamy – After his success in “Upstairs, Downstairs,” Mr. Langton appeared on television as a Cabinet minister in “Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years” in 1981, as Prime Minister Lord Asquith in “Number 10” in 1983, and as Lord Mountbatten in the television film “Charles and Diana: A Royal Love Story” in 1982. Before “Upstairs, Downstairs,” the Scottish-born Mr. Langton spent most of his acting career in the theater, playing supporting roles in London’s West End, but he also did some film work. Movies in which he appeared included Richard Lester’s Beatles film, “A Hard Day’s Night,” in 1964, “The Pumpkin Eater” in 1964 and “The Whistle Blower,” with Michael Caine, in 1986. He died in 1994 at the age of 82.
Rachel Gurney – Lady Marjorie Bellamy – After the success of the first two series of Upstairs Downstairs, she decided to move on to other work. The show’s writers, who prided themselves on their inclusion of historical events in the narrative, duly wrote her out, and Lady Marjorie left for America on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.
After Upstairs Downstairs her television work continued alongside her successful stage career, which included roles in J B Priestley’s Dangerous Corner (1974) with Gerald Flood and Barbara Jefford, and Richard III (1989) in which she played the mother of Richard (Derek Jacobi). She was modest  modest to a fault – when a producer offered her a part she was inclined to shake her head sadly and murmur: “I’m not really right for it, you know. Why don’t you get Faith Brook?” Indeed she had to be persuaded to take the part of Lady Marjorie., a role which generated fan mail for Gurney until the end – she passed away in 2001 at age 81.

Hannah Gordon – Virginia Bellamy -Gordon was just 33 when she played Viscountess Virginia Bellamy, Richard’s second wife. Gordon has kept busy, with roles in television (Midsomer Murder), on the stage and she does a tremendous amount of voice work, everything from animated features such as “Watership Down” to BBC radio plays and a plethora of audiobooks. In 1983 Kordes of Germany bred a floribunda rose which they named Hannah Gordon in her honour.She also presented “Watercolour Challenge,” a daytime television programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 from 1998 until 2002. In the programme three amateur artists are given four hours to paint the same scene or landscape, often with widely different interpretations.

Simon Williams – Oh, James, James, James. We hated him, w
e felt terrible when he committed suicide. As the series heart-throb, Williams played arrogant Major James Bellamy, who was briefly sent to India after getting maid Sarah pregnant, who later married Hazel and then spent the final years of his life pining for his cousin Georgina. When the series ended, Williams went on to make a career of playing upper-class roles in many t.v. shows, including Dr. Charles Cartwright in “Don’t Wait Up” and most recently Sir Charles Merrick in “Holby City.” He also has a successful career writing thrillers and plays and is to guest on a forthcoming Season Four episode of Murdoch Mysteries, a period drama made for Canadian TV about a police detective working in Toronto at the turn of the century. In addition, once the sell-out production of Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay’s play Yes, Prime Minister ends its London run at the Gielgud Theatre on 15 January, Williams will join the cast to on a UK-wide tour as Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, with Richard McCabe as Prime Minister Jim Hacker. Click here to read Williams’ behind-the-scenes article on making the original series and his own thoughts on James Bellamy.
Meg Wynn Owen – Hazel Bellamy. Originally Hazel Forrest and secretary to Major James Bellamy’s father Richard, she married the major after she comforted him over his mother’s death on the Titanic. Meg as since worked consistently in television and film. Recent film roles include character parts in Gosford Park, Love Actually and Pride and Prejudice. Most recently, Meg is playing the mother in the British sitcom Family Business.

Leslie-Ann Down – The undisputed beauty of the series, she played orphaned Georgina Worsley. Memorably, Miss Worsley accidentally killed a working class man after  borrowing the family car and driving down to the country while swilling champagne. The London-born star appeared in films The Pink Panther Strikes Again, A Little Night Music and Hanover Street opposite Harrison Ford and played Stephanie Rogers in Dallas in the early Nineties. Now iving in Los Angeles, she has played Jacqueline Payne Marone in the soap The Bold and the Beautiful since March 2003.

Nicola Pagett – Lady Elizabeth Kirbridge – Poor Elizabeth, she had no luck at all with men and finally moved to America to seek happiness. After leaving the series, Pagett went on to played the title role in a 1977 BBC adaptation of Anna Karenina, and she gave a memorable performance in David Nobbs’s TV series ‘A Bit of a Do’. She was in a variety of films including The Viking Queen and Oliver’s Story. Pagett also played a lead role in the 1994 to 1995 sitcom Ain’t Misbehavin’.

Nicola Pagett has suffered from manic depression, and chronicled her experiences with this in a 1998 book titled Diamonds Behind My Eyes. In 1995, while appearing in What The Butler Saw at the National Theatre, she began behaving erratically and was ultimately diagnosed as having acute manic depression. During this time she developed an obsession with Alastair Campbell, who used this obsession to distract attention from negative headlines about the New Labour Party Conference. She was later escorted from her home by four men to be confined in a closed psychiatric unit, but has since been able to control her illness with medication and self-awareness.

Gordon Jackson – Angus Hudson – The stern, bible quoting Mr. Hudson ran 165 Eaton Place with an iron hand, while at times his soft side w
as hard to conceal, as when he offered to marry Mrs. Bridges after she’d stolen a baby. Jackson was an accomplished actor who appered in several films including
“Mutiny on the Bounty”(1962), “The Great Escape”(1963), “The Ipcress File”(1965)and “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”(1969) before joining the series. Afterwards, he went in to star in the series “The Professionals.” Jackson died in 1990 at age 66. You can watch the news item about his passing here.

Angela Baddeley – Mrs. Bridges – Older sister to the actress Hermoine Baddeley, Angela made her stage debut at the age of 8 in 1912  at the Dalston Palace in London in a play called The Dawn of Happiness. She had a long career, but will always be remembered best as Mrs. Bridges, the cook at 165 Eaton Place (“Oh Ruby!”) Following the suicide of Emily, her first kitchen hand, Mrs. Bridges had a breakdown and kidnapped a child but with the help of the Bellamy’s she managed to escape punishment for it. In the series finale she married Mr Hudson after hints of a romance between the pair for years. Baddeley was set to reprise the role of Mrs Bridges in a spin-off from Upstairs, Downstairs which would have focused on Mr Hudson, Ruby and her running a boarding house by the sea. However, in February of 1976 she died in London of pneumonia at the age of 71. Her last role was on the London stage in the second cast of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. You can watch an interview with the actress here.

Jean Marsh – The co-creator of the series (with fellow actress Eileen Atkins), she played formidable parlourmaid Rose Buck. Marsh and Atkins also co-created the hit series House of Eliott. In the original series, Rose was always there as a shoulder to cry on for the rest of the staff, or as someone in whom to confide secrets, as Sarah did regarding her affair with James. Rose herself found no luck in love – her finace Gregory died on the battlefield and she lost all the money he left her in his will to James’s investments in the stock market. Since the series ended, Marsh has maintained a very busy career in the theatre and on TV- including a starring role in the US sitcom “9 to 5” (1982) and films such as “Return to Oz” (1985) and “Willow” (1988).

Marsh will again play Rose in the new version of U/D, but this time her position in the household will be housekeeper. Marsh can be seen on the left in this photo.

Christopher Beeney played Edward Barnes the footman, who later went on to marry housemaid Daisy Peel. When Edward returned from the Great War he was depicted as suffering from shell shock. Beeney was a regular on the UK’s first soap opera The Grove Family. He went on to star in the comedy In Loving Memory. In recent years has cameoed on Last of the Summer Wine.
John Alderton played Thomas Watkins the moustachioed chauffeur, a character Alderton himself described as “a conniving, thieving, chauvinistic baddie.” The series also featured his wife Pauline Collins. They went on to star together in the spin-off drama Thomas and Sarah. Before playing Watkins, he starred in the classic sitcom Please, Sir! and later appeared in the sitcom No Honestly and Wodehouse Playhouse. Alderton has also made appearances in James Herriot’s 1975 film It Shouldn’t Happen To A Vet and in the 2003 movie Calendar Girls. Most recently, Alderton  played Christopher Casby in the 2008 BBC adaptation of the Dickens classic Little Dorrit. 
Pauline Collins – The real life wife of John Alderton, Collins played maid Sarah Moffat, who became pregnant by Major James Bellamy before beginning a relationship with the chauffeur Thomas. Best known for Bafta-winning title role in 1989 film Shirley Valentine. After Shirley Valentine, Collins again starred alongside her husband in the popular ITV drama series Forever Green in which the couple escape the city with their children to start a new life in the country. It ran from 1989 to 1992 over 18 episodes. In 2005, she starred alongside Gillian Anderson in BBC’s version of Bleak House, playing Miss Fite.  Collins was awarded an OBE in 2001.

Jenny Tomasin played dim-witted and downtrodden scullery maid Ruby Finch, replacing Emily, a maid who committed suicide. After Upstairs, Downstairs ended, Tomasin joined the cast of Midland based soap Crossroads playing waitress Florence Baker, who was close friends with the infamous Benny Hawkins. The actress remained with the Motel soap until 1979. In the 1980s she made a memorable appearance in Doctor Who during Colin Baker’s tenure as the Doctor. Her character, Tasambeker, was exterminated by the Daleks. More recently Tomasin appeared in ITV soap Emmerdale before her character, Noreen Bell, was killed off.

You can watch most of the surviving cast members discussing the series and their roles in The Making of Upstairs, Downstairs beginning here.

Staying at the Palace – Maybe

Update 12/22 1:30 p.m. – I can’t find anything new being posted re: Heathrow on the web, nor on the t.v. news. So I’m going to go on the assumption that things are evening out, that flghts are making it in and out and that no news is good news. The news outlets apparently don’t publish stories on things getting back to normal, only on events at their worst. Using yet another cliche, while there’s good news, there’s also bad news – 20% chance of snow in London today and again on Saturday. It’s all still iffy in my mind, therefore I shall continue to pray, hope, keep my fingers crossed and sing voodoo chants while swinging a dead chicken round and round above my head. It would be much appreciated if you’d do the same.

Update 12/22 a.m. – Heathrow’s second runway is now operational. I just check the arrivals – all flights arriving from the U.S. have either landed or are expected. The only airline that consistently reads “contact carrier” is British Airways. We’re flying Continental. A ray of hope . . . . .

I wrote the post below a few weeks ago, when our trip to London looked certain. However, it’s now December 21st and I truly doubt we’ll be able to make it. We’re scheduled to fly into Heathrow. Go ahead, laugh. Done? Okay then, we’re flying to NJ on Thursday to spend Xmas with my mom and daughter and are supposed to then fly to London on Saturday night. As you may have heard, Heathrow is a refugee camp just now, flights both in and out are in the main cancelled and weekend flights look doubtful. More snow is predicted today for London. Sigh. Seeing as how Gatwick Airport is still running smoothly, I’ve been online to see if I could possibly book flights into that airport instead. The only flights from the NY metropolitan area that fly into Gatwick are connecting flights, with the least airtime being 11 hours. Sigh. So, I’m going to go to NJ and can only play it by ear from then on, checking with the airline and hoping (against hope) that we can make it out. If so, it looks as though it will truly be a Christmas miracle. Keep your fingers crossed for us, say a prayer and read the post below in the hopes that we actually see London.

Keeping my fingers crossed that neither snow or terrorists prevent our landing, my husband, Greg, and I fly out on the night of the 25th to London and will be staying at the Rubens at the Palace Hotel, whose entrance directly faces the gates to the Royal Mews. I suppose staying at a hotel within spitting distance of the palace has a certain cache, but in earlier times the area was not one to boast about.

We find the following overview of the area in London Illustrated with Bird’s Eye Views of the Principal Streets: “In Buckingham Palace Road we are in Pimlico, once noted for its Gardens for public entertainment, of which the chief was known as ‘ Jenny’s Whim.’ The District Post-office, and Buckingham Palace Hotel, one of the largest hotels in London, face the garden wall of Buckingham Palace. Farther west Arabella Bow turns off a little to the north, and the road is continued past Grosvenor Place to Hyde Park Corner. If, however, we pursue our way through Buckingham Palace Road but a little farther, we shall cross a main thoroughfare, the left or eastern side of which almost immediately becomes Victoria Street, Westminster—a, modern street of mansions divided into suites of chambers or flats, which has been recently constructed upon the site of Old Tothill Fields. The Tothill Fields Prison, built in 1834 upon the site of a Bridewell, said to have been erected in 1618, was demolished in 1884. It was of late used for women exclusively.”

The Library Restaurant

The Rubens Hotel was purpose built in 1911/12 to house debutantes making their first court appearances at Buckingham Palace and in 1985, thirteen people were arrested in connection with a suspected IRA mainland bombing campaign uncovered by police when a bomb was discovered in the Rubens Hotel, where civil dignitaries and mayors were expected to stay for three Buckingham Palace garden parties.

I’ve stayed at the Rubens before, when I was acting as tour guide during a Novel Explorations Tour. It’s marvelously English – uniformed male staff complete with top hats and gloves, a tuxedo clad pianist in the lounge in the evenings, afternoon teas and beef carved to order. Did I mention the full English breakfasts? And just a few streets away is Eaton Place, where Upstairs, Downstairs was set. You can bet I’ll be taking a stroll over there in order to take a snap for a future blog. Lucky for me, the new Upstairs, Downstairs series will be airing in the UK whilst I’m there and I’m hoping to be able to see at least one episode without having to wait until April, when it’s set to air in the States.

I’ll also be looking for fabulous prizes for future contests on this blog. And I’ll be showing my husband England – he’s never been, whilst I’ve been twice since meeting him four years ago. I’m a tad nervous, as it’s important that he comes to love London, and England, as much as I do. He’s already seriously agreed that we’ll get a place across the pond one day. He is not interested in British history at all. The only thing he knows about the Duke of Wellington is that he has to walk past his portraits a few times a day. He does like watching Foyle’s War, so perhaps there’s hope. And there’s the fact that my daughter, Brooke, who is also not into history, loves London. And England in general.

So I plan on doing all the rounds of tourist attractions with Greg – the Hop On, Hop Off double decker bus tour, the Tower, Madame Tussaud’s, Horse Guards to see the Guards mount up for the changing, Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, etc., etc. I’ve also got a few London Walks on the agenda (if it’s not absolutely freezing), as well as day trips to Bath and Leeds Castle. I mean, everyone’s got to see a real castle when in England, no? Of course, all of some of these outdoor plans may change depending on the weather and the threat of frostbite. There are a few things on the itinerary for me – Cecil Court, Hatchard’s, the antiques market at St. James’s Churchyard on the Tuesday, the Thomas Lawrence exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery and . . . . Apsley House, my place of pilgrimage whenever in London. Brooke actually groaned when I told her I was going to take Greg there, “You’re kidding me, right?” Wrong. Oh, and I suppose I’ll point out to Greg the spot where Brooke is going to scatter our ashes after he and I turn up our toes. I’m confident they will be scattered there because I’m leaving Brooke money
in my will in order to travel to London specifically for that purpose. And Brooke will do almost anything for a trip to London.

We fly out to New Jersey on the 23rd in order to spend Xmas with Brooke and my Mom, then Greg and I fly to London on the night of the 25th. With snow predicted for London at Xmas, I’m packing my warmest clothes and I’ll be bringing my laptop and hope to be able to log on from time to time during our visit – stay tuned for a few “blog postcards” in the near future.

Meet Albert Nobbs

Glenn Close is set to appear on the big screen as the gendre switching title character Albert Nobbs in a new film currently in production. Close starred in an off-Broadway adaptation of George Moore’s short story in 1982 as the title character, a woman who lives as a man in the Victorian era in order to take advantage of the luxuries and opportunities not otherwise afforded to women at that time. Close is starring as Albert Nobbs this time around too; she also co-wrote the screenplay and is producing the Rodrigo García-directed film.

Set around a luxury hotel in Dublin in the 19th century, this is the story of a woman must pretend to be a man in order to survive in 19th century Ireland. The film began shooting in June in Dublin with a cast that includes Michael Gambon, Janet McTeer, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Orlando Bloom. The story finds Close’s heroine trapped in a prison of her own making after spending 20 years dressing and working as a man. Close won an Obie Award in 1983 playing the same character in Simone Benmussa’s Off Broadway interpretation of “The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs.”

Actress Amanda Seyfried has come on board to play Close’s love interest and recently told and interviewer, “[Close] cast me in it to play her love interest … and it’s f*cking amazing. It’s a really amazing script! It’s crazy. It’s a version of myself, but with an accent, so it’s going to be really challenging in a very technical way, but I’m so excited to talk about that. That’s confirmed!”