Tim Coghlan looks at the remarkable life of Timothy West CBE both on stage and on the water – ‘a man who in his time played many parts’.
TIMOTHY West, who died in November last year, was born in Bradford in 1934 into an acting family and spent his wartime boyhood in the Bristol Blitz. He later spent well over 60 years performing on stage, and in TV, film and radio. Stage highlights included several seasons at the National and Royal Shakespeare Theatres, as well as making numerous West End appearances. Highlights of his TV appearances were spread over many years, from Edward VII to Churchill, Brass, and Bedtime. His last major TV appearance was in the acclaimed BBC series Gentleman Jack, which was filmed near Bradford, where his life began.
Tim never made the big star league – as Michael Caine or Sean Connery did – but he was nearly always working in one way or another and was highly respected for it. He once told me that he would never turn down work, provided it did not offend him in one way or another.
Tim was a great supporter of traditional theatre – now very much in decline, being taken over by musicals – a medium he despised. He enjoyed nothing more than being part of a company of ‘strolling players,’ taking plays on tour to all parts of the country, and beyond, including unglamorous northern towns, and staying in those old-fashioned landlady-digs. (Pru once told me that it was a landlady at digs in Eastbourne that had inspired her great performance as Sybil in Fawlty Towers – “Well, I know, I know!”)
Tim and Pru seemed to accept the long separations that such touring demanded, in which they were both involved. For example, Tim played King Lear in the English Touring Theatre’s autumn tour of 2002, which began on September 23 at the Malvern Theatre and ended at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford on December 14.
Long before I knew Tim personally, I caught the play on November 9 at the Warwick Arts Centre, with the 67-year-old Tim still able to rage in that night-storm on the heath and showing no signs of exhaustion, having been nearly seven weeks on the road. Pru, for her part, appeared in more than 400 performances of An Evening with Queen Victoria between 1979 and 2007, again taking her all over the UK and abroad.
Away from theatre and TV, Tim took part in more than 500 radio broadcasts and recorded many talking books – probably more than anyone else, including the whole of Trollope’s Barchester Towers, which makes up some 19 hours of recording. He wrote his autobiography A Moment Towards the End of the Play, which was published in 2001, and was made a CBE in 1984.
Crosshead: On the water
I personally came to the canal world in October 1988 when, on leaving my erstwhile stockbroking career, my wife and I bought the somewhat derelict Braunston Marina, then in receivership. From doing my research – reading the canal press and more – I became aware of Tim and Pru’s involvement. In particular, they were great supporters of many canal causes, especially the restoration of the K&A, now nearing completion. It was formally reopened by the Queen in 1990, with Tim and Pru’s boat being the first to navigate the whole of the restored canal.
I heard rumours that Tim and Pru moored their narrowboat not far away from Braunston Marina and had once used the marina’s facilities to refuel it with diesel. But I never actually met them until I was invited by the Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust as a guest to attend the opening ceremony of the Over Basin in September 2000, following the donations the Braunston Boat Shows have given the H&G over the years.
After the reopening, there was a reception for major supporters, and we were introduced – not quite in a receiving line – to Tim and Pru. I told Pru that she had made my life hell, as my two younger daughters, when both aged under 10, were given the tapes for Christmas of Fawlty Towers by a grandmother. These they insisted on being played on the school runs and other car journeys – time and again to the point when I knew them backwards. Pru was then still her brilliant old self – the onset of her dementia was some two years away – and with a touch of royalty, she said: ‘Your daughters probably knew my lines far better than I ever did!’
Thereafter I met Tim and Pru at other canal events, like the IWA National Rally of 2007 at St Ives, which they opened, and where there was what was termed a VIP reception for major exhibitors and supporters. But at best we had what my father would call ‘a nodding acquaintance’. However, all of this was about to change in 2010. Besides running Braunston Marina, I had been something of a hobby-writer, following up on things that had caught my interest.
Crosshead: Rolt and the Idle Women
One theme I picked up on was the Idle Women, a group of some 30 middle-class girls who volunteered to work as canal boatmen during the Second World War and survived the course. They included Sonia Rolt, who went on to marry the great canal and railways preservationist and prolific author, Tom Rolt, whose birth centenary it was that year. Rolt also saved a number of other things including the Cheltenham Literary Festival in 1962, and it was therefore appropriate that he should be commemorated at this year’s event, as part of the many centenary celebrations.
To my astonishment, I was rung in the spring of 2010 by the 91-year-old Sonia and asked if I would like to make a joint presentation with her friend, the great actor and canal and railways enthusiast Timothy West. My reaction was to tell her that there were many others more qualified than myself to make the presentation, some of whom had known Rolt personally, whereas he had died some 14 years before I had ever come near the canals. But Sonia was insistent that I should do it: “I know you’ll do a much better job of it!” How could I now refuse the lady?
To make matters worse, when arrangements were finally in place, we were billed for the very opening session of the festival, as Timothy West needed to be back in London that night where, now aged 75, he was still treading the boards and all 240 tickets had already been sold.
In the months leading up to the event, I felt as if I were now back at university, reading as many of Rolt’s 30-plus books as I could get my hands on. I finally put my thoughts together on paper, like writing a mini dissertation, as presenting a paper was what I had agreed to do for the organisers.
Three days before we were due to go on, I was rung by a lady, whose name I half remembered. It transpired that she used to be a glamorous and prominent ITN news broadcaster, who told me she would be chairing the session. She didn’t want paper presentations but would use them as a theme for her asking us questions and then bringing in the audience. It all sounded dreadful – like a daytime television chat show – and I could see myself making a dog’s dinner of it.
I then rang Tim, who tried to calm my stage nerves: He didn’t like the idea either and he was going to do just what he had originally intended, and that was to give some readings, making comments on them as he went along, and then take questions. And that was that, and I should do the same. I replanned accordingly.
Once settled on the podium, and the lights dimmed on the large audience, Tim was asked an inane opening question like: “Tom Rolt’s books were nearly all written over 50 years ago. Why are they still relevant today?” “A very good question,” replied West, “which is best illustrated by a few readings I have brought along with me.” And he was off for 20 minutes, giving a stentorian performance, for he is one of our greatest readers. Then he seemed to suddenly stop and turn to me and said: “Tim, what do you think?” Here was the great actor helping the terrified understudy to find his lines.
So I said: “I have also brought along a few favourite readings from Tom Rolt, which I would now like to present.” Before our chairman could interrupt, I likewise was off for 20 minutes. I had already made a Plan B of them – all from Rolt’s wonderfully written Irish inland voyage in 1946, his Green & Silver. This voyage my wife and I had followed in part, some 50 years later in 1997. I could therefore add comments from firsthand knowledge, which raised a good few laughs.
By chance, I was given the last word. I concluded my contribution by saying that the true test of any author is the test of time: and in Rolt’s case, the fact that several of his books were still in print and that we were here today discussing him, was proof enough.
My 15 (or 20!) minutes of fame did not end there, as waiting to interview Tim and myself immediately after our joint performance was Julian May from BBC Radio 4, who was making a programme on Rolt. It also involved a number of others, including of course Sonia, but I still felt honoured to be included. Julian made a very good programme which, with interviews with people who had known Rolt personally, I suspect will become part of the Rolt legend. Then in no time, Tim was on the train to London for his evening’s performance at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre. We didn’t even have a celebratory drink.
Bath Literature Festival
As if all of this were not enough, Timothy West was then invited towards the end of October to appear at the Bath Literature Festival in March 2011, talking about his recent autobiography, A Moment Towards The End Of The Play… Bath would have been a fitting place for him to talk about his stage life, what with his frequent appearance at its Theatre Royal, and the nearby Bristol Old Vic, and his education at the Bristol Grammar School, from which, as he relates in his book, he was expelled for truancy.
However, Tim asked if instead he could do his Rolt presentation again with his ‘friend Tim’, as he had so enjoyed it. The producer rang me and asked me if I would come – of course I would be honoured to come. And then: “Who knows, we could become the greatest literature double-act since Jekyll & Hyde!” On the back of Tim’s name, the event was sold out well in advance and I had to beg for three tickets for Sonia Rolt and her two sons, who had only decided to come at the last minute – they having already seen the performance at Cheltenham.
Reading of the King James Bible
Our ‘middle-March’ performance nearly became a mini-Titanic disaster. The problem was that 2011 was the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. To commemorate this great literary work, it was read in its entirety – all 400,000 words of it – during the festival in Bath Town Hall by a succession of actors and literary celebs. Topping the bill was Tim, who at his request had signed up to read the final chapter, the Book of Revelations, in its entirety. This is a lengthy and troublesome piece, concerned with the end of the world and the Day of Judgment. Heaven is only for the righteous few, with the jaws of Hell wide open and waiting for us lesser mortals.
Tim was scheduled to read the chapter on the Saturday afternoon before he joined me for our performance at 6.15pm. Our venue was at the Mission Theatre, a converted chapel appropriately down by the former Bath Wharf. That day’s Bible readings had somehow got out of hand and Tim was now running late, which I was told when I arrived dutifully at 5.30pm for a final check-through.
Our young session host, who is a writer living on her narrowboat in Bath, said that I might well have to start without the great man. Then followed more frantic telephone calls, the news just got worse. Could I do the whole thing without him? I started seeing the gallows trapdoor falling beneath my feet.
The problem was that we were only slotted in for one hour, after which the theatre would be needed for setting up the next session at 8pm. The death-knell moment of 6.15pm arrived. Then, just as the young lady and I were about to mount the scaffold, an exhausted Timothy West arrived leaping out of a taxi and clutching only his Bible reading printout.
Previously, at Cheltenham, he had taken along a veritable pile of Rolt’s books with carefully placed coloured bookmarks and then read from them in his great way, which took up a good chunk of our performance to the delight of our audience. Now he had nothing.
Once settled on the podium, he responded to the host’s opening question with a bit of ad-libbing and then handed over to me after what seemed a mere few minutes. I didn’t want to be seen to upstage the great man who our full audience had paid to come and see. But what else could I do, but go through all the material I had brought – including favourite bits from Narrow Boat?
What saved the show was a recently discovered home movie made in 1947 by an IWA enthusiast, of Sonia Rolt and her then-husband George Smith taking a load from Limehouse Basin to Tyseley in Birmingham. The man’s granddaughter had found it in his attic after his death, had it put on DVD, and brought it to my attention. So with her permission, I had the honour of showing it for the first time in public and seeing Sonia and her sons’ reactions. That did it.
So as they say on the stage, it was all right on the night, with a warm reception from the audience, despite Tim’s unexpected cameo performance. It was indeed a narrow escape!
Tim Coghlan concludes his reminiscences of Timothy West in the next edition of Towpath Talk…
