Part 15 (1/2)

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During our act, we have been spotted by an impresario in the Judges' Box who sends us a note promising untold riches in the future.

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The note that promised us work in England (original in the British Museum) After the show we are all presented to Miss Fields. ”Ow do lads,” she says. ”Ee, I could do with a nice cup o' tea.” She says she ”looved our act and would we like a nice cup o' tea?”

Captain Reg O'List wants us to have dinner with him again. He treats Us to a horse-drawn - ”Mean b.u.g.g.e.r won't pay for a taxi,” says Hall - again it's spaghetti and wine, and again he will sing 'Begin the Beguine'. I can see by the look in Bill Hall's eyes he fears Reg O'List could become the male Gracie Fields. As the evening goes on, he does, Hall is leaving. ”We got to leave for Naples at nine, Reg.” Too late - Reg O'List has already become Gracie Fields and is singing 'Begin the Beguine'.

ISCHIA.

Ischia March 1946. Our cleaning ladies consisted of pretty young Italian things, all on the lookout for potential husbands to take them to Inghilterra. Bornheim and I are pursued by two Marias. (All cleaners in twos are called Marias in Italy.) My Maria I used for laundry, sock repairs and groping.

We decided to take the girls to Ischia as a repayment for squeezing them. When we told them, they shrieked with excitement. No, they'd never been out of Napoli, was there somewhere else? They'd certainly never been to Ischia.

On the Sunday, they turned up carrying raffia baskets full of home-cooked Neapolitan goodies. The ferry was crammed, the noise of their chattering drowning out the engines. Forty minutes and we are there; I try my luck and take us to the Colonel Startling Grope Villa of yore.

Yes, the manservant remembers me of yore - Can we use the private beach? Er - yes. The 'yes' is good, the 'er' is worrying. We disport ourselves and are soon immersed in the sparkling waters. The girls are delirious. Maria I, who is mine, I had only seen in her scruffy working clothes, but now, in her black one-piece bathing costume she is very very dishy and ready to be squongled, and it can't be long now. The girls open the 'hamper'. In half an hour we put on a stone and sink like one. Oh, Neapolitan cooking! We must see the Grotto Azura, says a plying prying boatman. We argue the price and then he rows us to the enchanted hole in the cliff. We enter with our heads ducked and lo, a wonderous luminescent cavern, flickering with diaphanous suns.h.i.+ne on the cavern wall; by a trick of the light we appear to be floating on air. I dive over the side and give an underwater cabaret, in which I look as if I am suspended in air under the boat. It's all wondrous, the girls squeal with delight that echoes round the cavern. Out again into the white sunlight and back to the beach. On dark winter nights I recall that day - the clock should have stopped there. Our 'yes' has run out and the 'er' I was worried about is operating. Er - would we leave now as the owner is returning from Naples where he has been selling packets of sawdust.

We caught the last ferry as twilight fell across the Bay of Naples; pimples of light are starting to appear on the sh.o.r.e. A thousand shouts as we draw to the quay, brown hands grasp the ropes and affix them to rusting bollards. We hire an ancient Fiat taxi that looks like a grave on wheels. It chugs and rattles its way up the slopes of the Vomero. ”Qui, qui, ferma qui,” shout the girls. In the dark there's a brief kissing. We are waving the girls goodbye, when Keras.h.!.+ from nowhere a drunk appears and punches through the taxi window.

”Attenzione,” shouts the driver. ”Coltello.” (Look out he's got a knife.) We leap out and set off hot foot. He is shouting something in Italian that sounds like 'My mother keeps legless goats' that can't be right. Why are we we running away from a man whose mother keeps legless goats? Cowards all! running away from a man whose mother keeps legless goats? Cowards all!

I suddenly stop, turn, thrust my hand inside my battledress pocket and whip out an imaginary pistol.

”Attenzione!” I shout. ”Pistole!” He stops in his tracks and runs away. He could have sung 'Lae thar p.i.s.s tub dawn bab' but didn't. Very good Milligan. The day ended with a pointed finger. It wasn't the end of a perfect day, but it was an end. ”Who the f.u.c.k was he?” said Bornheim, much much further down the hill.

Civilain Status The Central Pool of Artists is changed to The Combined Services Entertainment. Why? I suppose it's the result of a 'meeting'. In its wake we, the Bill Hall Trio, are being offered officer status and wages if, when we are demobbed, we sign with the CSE for six months. Hedonists, we all say yes. Officer status? Cor Blimey! All the b.l.o.o.d.y months in the line and you become Lance-Bombardier. Play the guitar in perfect safety, you become an officer. If I learned the banjo and the tuba I could become a Field-Marshal!

I wrote home and told my delighted parents. Mother proudly informed the neighbours that her son was a 'Banjo-playing Officer'.

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Copy of letter asking us to stay on six month contract The signature looks like 'Waolb Petal'. I didn't know we had one. Now, upgrading to officer status caused problems -though still not due for demob till August, we jumped the gun and donned civvies - officers' peaked caps, with green and gold shoulder flash CSE. It was a culture shock for the Officers' Club in Naples when Gunner Bill Hall entered its portals.

”'ere! where you goin'?” said the door sergeant, to someone who looked like a dustman.

”I am going in,” said Hall. ”Where you you goin'?” goin'?”

The sergeant looked at the thin scruffy apparition in crumpled khaki drill with a fall of cigarette ash on the s.h.i.+rt front. ”This club is for officers,” he said, pointing to the door.

”I am a bleedin' orficer,” said Hall, pointing to himself.

The sergeant demands identification. I watched his face gradually crumple as he read the authorization slip. He gave a sob and walked away. The barman treats Hall like a leper and moves the fly papers nearer.

In his wake, the new-found Officer Hall left a series of broken club secretaries. One offered to sell him a suit, another resigned. Several asked Hall for medical certificates. Mulgrew and his evil sense of humour relished the confrontations. He told how on one occasion at an Officers' Bar, on the approach of Hall, they put newspapers down. He was popularly known in the Officers' Clubs as 'Oh Christ, here he comes', or 'Thank Christ, there he goes'.

Barbary Coast Rumours of another show are in the offing. Raymond Agoult and his wife asked me how would I like to 'write a musical'. I said 'sitting down'. The theme was to be Anne Bonney, the lady pirate, and her lover Calico Jack. I remember the opening chorus. Lyrics - There'll be ten thousand dollars There'll be ten thousand dollars For anyone who collars For anyone who collars Calico Jack. Calico Jack. CHORUS: Calico Jack! CHORUS: Calico Jack!

Again it was too ambitious financially. ”G.o.d, Milligan, we'd have to sell the Navy to pay for it,” said Captain O'List.

There's an alternative - it's to be called Barbary Coast Barbary Coast, a series of variety acts done in an 1880s Bowery Bar setting. The MC is Jimmy Molloy, a forty-year-old Crash Bang Wallop insult-type comic. Jimmy is overweight and over here. The Bill Hall Trio will perform 'as directed', so we wait, directionless, while the wheels of power turn.

Meantime, I must prepare for my civilian status. I must buy clothes to adorn my civilian body and shoes for my civilian feet. Drawing out my savings, I course the Via Roma; for the life of me I could not understand how the Italians could produce such luxurious clothes. There's a wealth of real silk, pure wool, pure cotton garments. I chose a dark blue corduroy jacket and a lighter pair of trousers, a black and white check sporting jacket with 'British' flannels, three white silk s.h.i.+rts and a blue satin tie, a white polo-neck sweater, all of which would hide my post-war back-up army underwear. One thing I never bought - shoes. I had a pair of huge 'sensible' brown brogues that made my feet look five times the size, shaped like marrows, apparently inflated and about to burst.

”Wot yer want ter buy all that c.r.a.p for?” says Bill Hall. ”You'll only draw attention to yourself.” I understood him not.

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Me in civvies standing against the statue of Goethe in Rome

The Voodoo Moon Club We would use the rehearsal room, yes! A dance! ORs only! Bornheim, George Puttock and myself took it upon ourselves to turn the room into a London night club. We begged, borrowed, stealed, bribed. I wanted it to look like a giant aquarium. I blacked out windows, filled the s.p.a.ce with underwater features, rocks, etc., all from the scenery department, put low-key lighting in, then covered the whole with a large piece of aquamarine perspex. We stapled plain white paper to the scruffy table-tops, hung velvet drapes all round the walls, put green red and blue bulbs into the lights, got the chippies to make music stands with lighting cut-outs with the words VOODOO MOON VOODOO MOON, that went - like Hollywood marriages - on-off.

Food; our hermetically sealed food flasks we topped with spaghetti bought locally, bottles of local red plonk. Where to serve the food from? Of course! the nearest room - the lavatory opposite. We set up a serving hatch and a masking curtain. From the local ENSA show we try to get Hy Hazell, a strapping in-favour-at-the-time cabaret singer. To wait on table we had ma.s.sed Marias. Word got around and officers asked if they could come. Yes. ”Make the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds pay,” said Bill Hall. So we 'Made the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds Pay'.

Puttock wants to know. ”Why has it got to be an Aquarium?” What does he think it ought to be? He doesn't know.

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The Bill Hall Quintet in the Voodoo Moon Club Well, if you like we can get it done up as an 'I don't know club', and he can stand at the b.l.o.o.d.y door and when people say what's going on here, he can say ”I don't know.”

I trap my Maria while she is bending down and she is well pleased. Do you still love me Maria? Oh si, si, si, sempre, sempre. Good. Can she and her clutch of Marias act as waitresses on the night? No money, but they'll get danced, groped and allowed to walk home free of charge. Will I marry her and take her to Inghilterra? Of course, yes, si si. The Great Zoll, the master of magic electricity and twit, ”can he help serve the spaghetti from the Karzi?” We need a touch of magic, yes, can he dress up as a sultan for it? Of course, the Spaghetti Sultan, yes, we'll give him that billing. The scenic artist knocks up a sign to go over the Karzi: SPAGHETTI NOW BEING SERVED BY THE GREAT ZOLL, 200 LIRE. SPAGHETTI NOW BEING SERVED BY THE GREAT ZOLL, 200 LIRE.

I phone the ENSA hotel. Can I speak with Miss Hy Hazell? Un momento. Several un momentos later she speaks. Can she do a cabaret for us? Yes, is there transport? Yes, trams stop at the bottom of the road. Can she bring friends? Yes. How many? Twenty-seven! Sorry, that's too many. OK, then do the b.l.o.o.d.y cabaret yourself. Of course she can bring twenty-seven.

”We don't want to play orl b.l.o.o.d.y evening,” says Hall, who has a bint coming. Len Singleton, pianist, comes to the rescue. Not to worry, he will pick up a scratch combination. Name? Oh anything, how about 'Singleton's Black and Whites'?

Perfect, the entire band turns out to be white. The Karzis do niff a little, can we lay it to rest? OK, can the ma.s.sed Marias wash it with phenyl? Si, si, if I'll marry her and take her to England. Si, si, yes yes, and a quick squeeze of them both.

The Duty Officer Lieutenant Higgins is asking questions. ”What's going on?”