ANOTHER SAD PASSING..

It`s a funny old world.  Today the papers are treating us to page after page about Ferguson`s retirement.  There have even been some deluded calls (by Labour politicians, of course) for him to be elevated to the peerage, where in the House of Lords he could form a double act with Lord Prescott to rival the Chuckle Brothers.  There have been `specials` on television, even on the BBC where for so many years Ferguson refused to be interviewed by them over some kerfuffle involving one of his sons.   Sky are almost treating it like an obituary.  Why, you might almost have had the impression that Ferguson had passed away.

So it was with some curiosity that, probably in keeping with today`s priorities, I noticed that much less attention is being given to the news that Bryan Forbes passed away yesterday at the age of 86 following a long illness.   He was without doubt one of the giant figures in the film industry and was responsible for a host of screenplays and for directing  memorable films including Whistle Down the Wind, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, The Mad Woman of Chaillot, The Wrong Box, King Rat and The Stepford Wives. The picture above is a still shot from that film and not, I have to confirm, a recent image of life in Kings Hill.

Forbes was rightly awarded the CBE many years ago and there are those who would reasonably argue that he was as deserving of a knighthood as Ferguson.   But then Forbes was a West Ham fan.  But for me, I will remember Bryan Forbes for two things in particular.   First he wrote, produced and directed International Velvet which introduced me to the wonders of the Flete Estate and Mothecombe in south Devon, which we sought out having been enchanted by the filming locations and where we have stayed and revisited time and again ever since.

I also remember seeing his cameo performance as the nudist guitar-playing Turk Thrust in `A Shot in the Dark` when he declined to appear in the cast list under his own name, preferring to be listed as Turk Thrust - a decision which, along with his performance in that brief role, seemed somehow to confirm his fun loving, modest yet wholly admirable attitude to life.   He was one of the good guys and I was sorry to learn that he has left us even though in doing so he has left an impressive body of work for us to enjoy.