The
Captain of Dad's Army Is A Sailor at Heart
By
George Tremlett
Source:
TV Times (Australian Edition), March 3rd 1971
Arthur
Lowe’s heart picked up a few extra beats as he read the advertisement
in The Times’ classifieds: For sale, Amazon genuine Victorian
steam yacht, built 1885, overall length 104 ft, beam 15 ft, sleep
10. Cubit's Basin, Chiswick. He raced down from London and found
the old boat – filthy, battered but somehow imperious as it lolled
on the Thames. For $3700 he got Amazon-and put together some of
the pieces of a shattered boyhood dream.
"You
see," says Lowe, who plays Captain Mainwaring in the TV comedy
series, Dad’s Army, "as a lad I only had one ambition. To be
a sailor. I was absolutely dead set on it. "But I failed the Board
of Trade eyesight test – and if you fail that, you’ve had it."
And though he went on to work in an aircraft factory, join
the Calvary, serve abroad with the Army, enter the theatre and
subsequently achieve TV comedy fame, Lowe still retained a hankering
for the sea.
When
he became a star in the series Coronation Street about 10 years
ago, he started taking holidays afloat – "Primarily, it was
to escape," he says. "We started going out on cargo boats
because you can get some privacy if you’re on a ship with only
12 passengers, whereas if you are on a normal cruise you are pestered
to death."
Lowe
has travelled with his wife, Joan, and son, Stephen, to many parts
of the world. They have toured Scandinavia, spent a month in the
Mediterranean, and travelled to the Windward Islands on a banana
boat. He is restoring Amazon to its original condition, complete
with brass fittings, imitation aluminium funnel (though it will
be powered by diesel), and every luxury. By the time he has finished,
he will have spent more than $40,000 on the restoration, but the
boat will be worth at least twice as much as that, and possibly
very much more.
"Its
unique," says Lowe. "When I have finished it will be the
oldest private yacht in commission, so it’s quite impossible to
put a price on it. "It will be a very comfortable vessel, and
a good investment too." The Amazon has a saloon, a dining
saloon, a galley and a captain’s suite with a separate dressing
room and bathroom. Lowe will have a ship’s steward permanently
on his staff, and will recruit a crew of between six and eight
every time he takes the yacht for a cruise. "I’d like to say
I was taking her to Australia," he says. "And she could
do it-she has been all around the world in her time. But she’s
getting on a bit for a voyage like that, and I couldn’t take that
much time off work.
"I’ll
be able to take her around the coast, or down to the Mediterranean
in the summer. If I’m working, I could keep her at Ramsgate
or somewhere like that, and then travel up to town to work during
the week."
At
first, the purchase and restoration of Amazon seems a very surprising
venture for Lowe who is 55 and one of the most hardworking stars
in British Television. To give you some idea of what a worker
he is: After finishing a series of Dad’s Army he went straight
into seven full-length Ben Travers farces for BBC-TV, and then
without a break began another series of Dad’s Army. With only
four days’ break after that, he began filming the cinema version
of Dad’s Army for Norman Cohen, who produced the movie of Till
Death Us Do Part.
Why,
if he’s so busy, buy a boat? Is he thinking of retiring? "Oh,
no," says Lowe. "An actor never retires. If the work comes
up it’s a job to resist it. It’s just an instinct of self – preservation.
But the time is coming when I would like to phase my work down
gradually.
"I
would like to be able to take long holidays between working.
"We thought of getting a cottage, but we preferred the thought
of a boat – after all no one can build a road through us, or
an aerodrome over us. "When I bought Amazon, she had been moored
as a houseboat for 30 years. She was a real mess. "But its much
more exciting to get an old boat like this and restore her to
her former glory. I don’t think I’d be really happy in a cottage,
tending my roses. "I don’t think that’s really me. I like to
be doing something."
Back
in those days before the war when he so desperately wanted to
become a sailor, Lowe’s career took some strange turns. He worked
in the Fairey Aviation factory for four years, and then joined
the Yeomanry "because I wanted to learn how to ride a horse…and
anyway, I was pretty sure there was going to be a war so I wanted
to get in before it started." He was in the Army for seven
years, ending up a Sergeant-Major in the Middle East, appearing
in and putting on several plays for Army Welfare. He enjoyed this
so much that he decided to get a job in repertory when the war
ended. "The war was just one of those things that happened
to people." Says Lowe. "I suppose if the war hadn’t come
along I would still be working at Fairey Aviation – just as if
I had passed the eyesight test I would be in the Merchant Navy
and would never have become an actor at all."
Transcribed
by Andy Howells from the original interview, April 2000. Thanks
to David Somen for sending a copy of the original interview.
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