John's East Anglia Womb

In this weeks Radio Times...

On Camera - The Sergeant from Sandhurst
Tuesday 10.15
BBC1

John Le Mesurier, who was brought up in Bury St Edmunds, often returns to East Anglia to film Dad's Army. Here he takes William Raynor on a nostalgic tour of his old haunts.

'RETURNING TO East Anglia' says John Le Mesurier wistfully, as he watches traffic stream across what was once a quiet, traffic-free square in Bury St Edmunds, 'is like returning to the womb. The towns may be less sleepy and more commercial and somehow even more unwanted and melancholy as they used to. But the countryside seems to have changed very little - so much is still so lovely that I hate having to leave.'

From one window he saw a Zeppelin

It's been a wistful day. Now, behind him as he sits on the weathered wooden bench of Bury's square, are the two fine houses in which he spent most of his childhood and youth: the one tall, red brick, town Georgian, and taken over by the council; the other low, white country Queen Anne, and occupied by an architectural practice.

'I remember putting my hand through that kitchen window when my bike wouldn't stop,' he says, then points to another window upstairs: ' And I remember seeing a Zeppelin from there when I was only four or five. I think it even dropped a few sticks of bombs. It was the only one I saw, and we knew it was coming because all the pheasants started up.'

He was about the same age when he saw his first 'proper' entertainment at Bury's Theatre Royal. 'I saw Robin Hood in panto, and I was very soon hooked.'

After the First World War he went to prep school in Kent, then to public school in Dorset. He went to matinees on his way through London and during the holidays frequented the theatre, movies and concerts.

'I knew lots of girls here, of course, but they tended to be rather hearty and jolly hockey stick types and, when I was 18 or 19, the only person of the opposite sex I was at all attracted to was about 33 - very different, very eccentric and very beautiful.'

Finally his father had persuaded him to do law and, for three years, he was under articles.

'I listened to cases here and in Norwich and most of them were terribly, desperately tedious. But my parents were very gentle and, when I told them I couldn't stand law any longer and wanted to act, they were very encouraging.'

'A good place to be brought up in'

He went to the Fay Compton Studio in London, where he found Alec Guinness and 24 girls, and stayed there four months. His first stage appearance was the end of term play but it was enough to get him a £3 10s a week job in the Edinburgh Rep. He survived in the theatre until he went to war and served as a trooper in the Royal armoured Corps. It was good grounding for the part of the ineffectual Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army.

"I arrived in a taxi carrying a case and golf clubs and the sergeant-major told me later he thought I was arriving for "a long bloody weekend." He said I'd make a rotten NCO so I was sent for officer training and got a posting to India.'

Although his sister still lives outside Bury and filming for his other 'army' has brought him to nearby Thetford on and off for the past five years, he feels 'rather out of touch.'

'This was a good place to be brought up in.' he says. 'But I wanted to do something different and country people always find that strange, though if one's a success they're very pleased to know.'

Transcribed by Andy Howells from the original interview, August, 2003

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