Roger Allam in Radio Times

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sejintenej
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by sejintenej »

alterblau wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 6:06 pm For those interested in the sums involved, in those halcyon days of the late 50s when all university expenses were paid, the university’s fees were paid directly by the central government. This covered all tuition and the costs of living in residence. The incidental other expenses, paid to the student, were about £450 pa. This sum was adequate to live simply without any stress. Oh for those happy days to return!
£450 was in addition to the costs of living in residence!!!!!!! Wow. That was more than my annual salary living far from home and including a bonus for being subject to being sent anywhere abroad at no notice! I still got less than that 7 years later in 1968
What happens if a politician drowns in a river? That is pollution.
What happens if all of them drown? That is solution!!!
AMP
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by AMP »

Mid A 15 wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:02 pm
AMP wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 10:46 am Going back to Roger Allam, as I started this detour(and I agree with all the previous comments and concerns, just don't have a thank button available):
The only reason I have ever heard of a number of these famous OBs (Magee etc)is because I was at CH, otherwise Roger would never have been on my radar.
I don't doubt that he is a fine actor and that I am ignorant, it's just that I have never seen him in anything I have ever watched.
However, I do plan to watch Uncle Vanya when it is shown on the BBC.

I had a habit of regularly bumping into OBs of all generations on trains etc shortly after I left CH and one of them was able to explain the phenomenon:

"It's because we've all got big mouths"
I would be surprised if you haven't seen Roger without being aware as for many years he was a prolific supporting rather than leading actor in a number of TV shows and films.
I am afaid I can't name one and 80s film and TV passed me by because I was at CH and there was only one telly and I wasn't interested in Eastenders, Match of the Day or The Young Ones.
Ajarn Philip
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by Ajarn Philip »

I imagine he would think of himself principally as a stage actor, but in terms of TV in the last decade his roles in Endeavour and Ashes to Ashes immediately spring to mind.
djmg
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by djmg »

Re: Ajarn Philip's post above
I was a friend and contemporary of Roger Allam. I also remember his solos at the carol service in December 1971. He sang solo "In the bleak mid winter" and also "3 Kings from Persian lands afar". I can still hear it.
Ruth
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Re: Roger Allam

Post by Ruth »

Page 25 of the Sunday Telegraph today - Allam on tough times at CH, "Eton for paupers"
harryh
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Re: Roger Allam

Post by harryh »

Ruth wrote: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:30 am Page 25 of the Sunday Telegraph today - Allam on tough times at CH, "Eton for paupers"
Hi Ruth. Interesting article.
We took the GE to The Globe to see him as Prospero about 6 years ago. He came down the following week to chat with the whole year group in the theatre about the play and its production, as well as his life as an actor...most enlightening.

Incidentally, from Macaulay days, my brother and sister, Robin and Anne Holdsworth, say hello.
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Re: Roger Allam

Post by Katharine »

Ruth wrote: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:30 am Page 25 of the Sunday Telegraph today - Allam on tough times at CH, "Eton for paupers"
Unusually, perhaps, it’s not behind a paywall https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/ ... ted-child/
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
Ruth
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by Ruth »

To Harryh - Macaulay! now that was a wonderful school. Still going
time please
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by time please »

From the article in the Telegraph:It sounds like a classic grooming technique that he managed to avoid, thanks to a stable family background with loving parents and two older sisters that gave him a sixth sense for danger and what was not right. "

Not quite sure why but this makes me feel very uneasy. Some type of shifting the blame?
time please
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by time please »

Continuing: the school at least in the 60s and 70s was full of " damaged children " children who grew up with one or more parents who suffered during WW2. Certainly there were other pupils who came from backgrounds not damaged by a war but a host of other difficulties . A lot of these if not most had loving parents. I certainly did even though my fathers love for me was horribly damaged by being a Lancaster pilot who somehow survived ( physically if not mentally ) three tours. The school was supposed to fend and care for us regardless if we had " loving parents "or not. It failed. Horribly. What is written in the Telegraph is disgusting.
Jabod2
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by Jabod2 »

My recollection is that it was Roger Allam who declaimed the spoonerism 'Give us hearty thanks, O Lord' in place of the standard words of the Grace in Dining Hall. At the time there was a underground competition of who could get away with what under the eagle eye of Pongo. Other wheezes were for the reader to mime with the voice being provided by someone below the pulpit, or for the Grace to be read in one breath (without gabbling). If Pongo detected anything amiss, it was repeated (and presumably other repercussions to follow). Who else recalls these?
time please
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by time please »

Thankful if someone please move my last two posts to a place that is more relevant for them.
sejintenej
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by sejintenej »

time please wrote: Sun Sep 12, 2021 7:10 pm Continuing: the school at least in the 60s and 70s was full of " damaged children " children who grew up with one or more parents who suffered during WW2. Certainly there were other pupils who came from backgrounds not damaged by a war but a host of other difficulties . A lot of these if not most had loving parents. I certainly did even though my fathers love for me was horribly damaged by being a Lancaster pilot who somehow survived ( physically if not mentally ) three tours.
I think your first two sentences got it right but was that not one of the prime aims of the school? That your father survived three tours is remarkable - the average lifespan in 101 sqdn was 5 sorties so what he would have experienced day in day out would have been terrible. Even training flights had a high level of danger. My brother survived 7 sorties.
The school was supposed to fend and care for us regardless if we had " loving parents "or not.

Two much older masters, many unmarried, themselves damaged by the war and a matron to control 50+ boys of mixed ages, backgrounds, temperaments, even languages; given the norms of the day what could they have done better? At least CH was better than home. We had hot meals, electricity for light, warmth (comparatively) decent clothing, no pollution - luxury.
What happens if a politician drowns in a river? That is pollution.
What happens if all of them drown? That is solution!!!
rockfreak
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by rockfreak »

In your list of luxuries at CH Sejintinej you mention hot meals. But you don't say what sort of hot meals.
loringa
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Re: Roger Allam in Radio Times

Post by loringa »

rockfreak wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 7:54 pm In your list of luxuries at CH Sejintinej you mention hot meals. But you don't say what sort of hot meals.
No idea what it was like in the 1950s but by the 1970s it was utterly dreadful, inedible slop and not even much of it and; from about 1975 onwards, it was also largely based on the meat substitute Kesp. We visited what was then known as an 'approved' school once and their food was considerably better! I was also exposed regularly to the food served to the Armed Forces, mainly the Royal Navy, and it was infinitely better but I doubt the victualling allowance was much greater. I think CH food has improved enormously since then; the only place I have, in recent times, seen slop of a comparably low standard was in St Michael's maternity hospital in Bristol when my dd was born.

I suppose they were hot, or hot-ish, kept warm in huge steam heated trolleys. Steamed toast anyone? Off topic but who cares?
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