Arthur of the Britons

Sunday 16 October (I)

Went down at 9-ish, got a tea, and went and sat with Oliver. He spoke about his experiences at East 15 Acting School. He said that he met lots of different kinds of people – including a good-looking young man who was a “collector” for the Krays. The Krays paid his drama school fees, as a gift.

He also spoke about a role he had [in ITV series, "The Knock"] as a gay heroin addict who had killed his boyfriend, and had to dump the body out of a boat, into a lake. He said it was hard to dump a body from a boat without falling in yourself, and also noted what an odd profession acting was. “What did you do today?” “I dumped my boyfriend’s body in a lake.”

The weather today was glorious! The group had all assembled by around 10 am., so we set off in convoy, with Steve’s car leading, and Oliver’s Chevrolet second, so that the others could all see which way the head of the column was going. Oliver pointed out views of Glastonbury Tor as we went past.

Chatted in the car about other conventions. Oliver said he’d made thousands at Autographica – you just sit at a table signing and at the end, take away a whole lot of money, but it “made me feel slightly grubby.” He was sitting near a whole group of Bond girls. Minor stars of big films can make a basic living, of around £12,000, from doing a few per year. I told him that I heard that James Marsters, who played Spike in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, once signed so many autographs that his hand bled. Oliver said, “More fool, him!”

He also mentioned Joan Collins again, and how unpleasant she was to other women. He said she was completely different to her sister Jackie, who is lovely. He’d worked with her to help promote her books.

We arrived at the Compton Inn at around 11:30, and met up with Michael Gothard’s adopted sister, Wendy, who was waiting for us, with her border terrier, George. Everyone was fascinated to meet her. She said she couldn’t believe that Michael would have been 83 this year.

Wendy showed people an example of her school homework. She’d been asked to write about a member of her family, and had written about Michael.

Write About A Member of My Family.

My brother is called Michael. We adapted him, but he has kept his surname which is "Gothard.”
He does lovely things with me.
We go to the library, then he buys me a cake and he has coffee.
He takes me to the British Museum and the one in Priry Park.
We go swimming and to our beach hut. He doesn't like water-skiing, but we go horse riding.
I ride "Mystery", Michael rides "Cadenza.”
Sometimes he comes with me to get the milk.
We read together a lot. I like it when my brother reads to me. He is reading "Of Mice and Men.” I like "Lennie.”
My brother is older than me, so he is my big brother.
I love his bedroom, there are lovely things in it and sometimes I am allowed to take his coffee to him in the morning.
He makes me do my prep.
He has to go away to work and I am sad when he is not at home.
I am lucky to have my brother and I love him very much.

She said she wanted everyone to know what a wonderful man he was.

We all walked the short distance to the bridge over the River Chew, and went through a gate onto the long grassy track along which Oliver and Michael had often galloped.





He clearly recognised it, and soon got his bearings.



We arrived at the muddy bank, and the slope behind it which was used so often, and most notably in “The Challenge.”





Beside the Chew at this point was the long sloping hillside on which a lot of the action in "The Challenge" took place.



There follows a series of transcripts of videos taken by Jelly, while at this location:

OT: It opens up a bit more at the top … I was just wondering where that … my horse had bolted. It must have been from there … [points] I remember I had the spears on the side, there was a conversation, and I cantered off, and then the horse got spooked by … 'cause I had to use my second horse, who got spooked by the shield that was on its side and the spears, so every time it [galloping noise and motion] this thing went, “Boom! Boom!” on the back and the horse went on and on, and I just remember racing down this valley, and then there was a telegraph pole, and I thought, ‘alright, well, I’ll just steer it towards the telegraph, he’ll see that and stop.

Well, it didn’t, and by this time, you know, pshew … the tears were coming out of the sides, pshew [mimes tears streaming along the side of his face] it gets fast, you know? And the horse is going rew, rew, rew [mimes] down this valley, then I saw the ditch - was more open – and ‘I’ll just steer it towards the ditch, it’s not gonna go in there’ and it went straight in, and then I pulled it right ’cause somebody said “just stick your left foot forward and lock the rein in the left” [mimes the action] and pull with the right, pull its neck around” and I was going round and round and round in circles like that until I finally managed to stop … I was like that [mimes exhaustion] I was … it was sheer terror.



I tell you, those things are very powerful things, horses, when they lose the plot – it just lost the plot – and I thought I – but this, my point of the story is this. This is where I should have been warned. We were into this violent film where we took it … [mimes fierce fighting] there. Then here, just on that slope over there – we had the spear scene, and, um … it wasn’t Michael, Michael was opposite me, throwing the spear, and this is where … I want to tell you that story, Wendy [Michael’s adopted sister approaches] … He … this went on, it was fine, you know it was completely insane because you don’t do that so the camera would be say, where James is there, and I would be standing … this was over … we can go there [walks away] that slope … [inaudible] … must have been that we filmed that beginning somewhere on a bank here and … because this was the run down here, with this horse, ‘cause it went quite a long way, it was long enough, you know, to really get a [inaudible] on, which … we filmed that dialogue just up here, and then …

JG: I think it might have been up there [points]

OT: It might well have been there, in that clearing there.

Wendy: I’m guessing Arthur and Kai, they had a big falling out.

OT: No, no it started as a game … [inaudible] …It may have been … conversation … and it may have been … this might have been more open when I steered the horse towards that bank there, and then I went on down the valley, and I think just beyond there, there’s the telegraph pole which I steered it towards … Is this where the bank goes down?

JG: Yes.

OT: So this is where we filmed the … I’m sure this is where we filmed, here.

JG: you definitely came lolloping down, like, laughing and making jokes at each other, but very –

OT: I probably would have gone that way, and if it wouldn’t … decided not to stop, pulled it that way, and on down, ‘cause I remember seeing the village on the right when I started to pull it round, but this is … um … I share this with you, well, this is very traumatic for me; I was here, somewhere and erm … the camera was over there, and then they started, this er, champion started throwing a spear at me, and I’d ward it off – “Voom, Voom” [mimes] like this, you know, it’d come over the top, and 6 feet long with a plastic tip and it was towards … yeah … then I got tired, and it went “Dong!” and it went into the back of my head, and I … it … oh, I felt like a ship that had … it went right down my spine, and I sat down here, and, er … looked around and I thought I was … I was going, and the last thing I remember was Michael holding my head like that [mimes], me looking up at him saying, “Olly! You alright?” you know? And then I woke up at Bristol Infirmary after a coma … It was quite serious, because I was very badly injured, and I had … er … you know, concussion.

JG: There must have been a lot a lot of blood as well; it must have been very alarming for everyone.

OT: Would have been horrible.

Wendy: Any form of “Health and Safety” didn’t really exist …

OT: But they don’t … you don’t … there’s no pain … but I felt like … “I’m dead” … I kind of remember that sort of … I took one last look around that … sort of … I had a … death experience here – that’s the truth, and er … that’s the truth, and er …. That’s why I tell you how gentle a man Michael was.

Wendy: He was lovely … he was. Unless you didn’t do your homework!

OT: So that was … that’s here. And also, the … those Roman swords were here yeah, and that horse went down because there’s the telegraph pole, now I remember, so that’s the sort of experience we had.

JG: Llud was telling you off up there somewhere.

OT: Might well have been the start of the trouble, was this … [points] Did you see that? This is definitely where that took place. And the spears took place up there, banging around with the spears …. But you can see the terrain is not flat and worked out. It’s … um… if you are, you know, if you start racing down there with a horse, the terrain is, you know, undulous; there’s pot-holes, there’s … it undulates, it’s not … we were … might have been foolish, but we were very brave, Michael and me.

Wendy: Absolutely. I mean, if you’re cantering or galloping down a hill, that … particularly if the horse decides to have away with you.

OT: And it’s all, yeah, downhill’s always the thing, and you don’t test that before … often we would do test runs with the horses; always teach a horse the track – the way you’re gonna go, we always did that, because we became very good horsemen, and Michael became a good horseman during –

Wendy: He was very good, yeah he was.

OT: And then, er, yeah … but mistakes happen. So I had this warning when that thing went off there …

JG: So that was the same day …

OT: And I … just didn’t see it. I didn’t see the danger, I was stupid, and then that was definitely a warning from God, and then of course it went on, and then I ended up in … severely concussed, and basically, I’ve never been the same!

…

OT: … gold … gold cross swinging over my head, and like that, and I’m looking up at this beautiful blonde angel … looking up quite close, and it’s this Irish nurse saying, “Oliver, Oliver, are you alright?” I thought I was in heaven … [laughter] Yes, so … and then it was very nasty. I don’t know if any of you have ever had, or treated, bad concussion, but that is …

JD: Yeah, it can last a while, as well.

OT: You can’t … finish a thought; you can’t sleep; you’re always in between the sleep … trying to go to sleep … you wake up … you can’t finish … a thought. It’s real horror time, it went on for … quite a while, and then, er … yeah, three weeks that took, I was back on a horse!

JG: Did that make it hard to learn your lines?

OT: Not really. Once it all clicks slowly back into place, it’s alright, um … but it was horrendous, it’s the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. I mean, you break bones, and things like that, I’ve had all that, but that’s … that’s … no, no, I don’t recommend it. [inaudible] It went through three layers of my skull, I was lucky it didn’t go and touch the … well, whatever is inside there, and er … they stitched it up.
When I had short back and sides, ‘cause I’ve … my son’s made me join this er … World War II re-enactment regiment, so I became an American major in World War II, and they took me to the barbers to make me get a short back and sides, and this huge scar appeared on the back of my head, he said, “Man! Daddy, that’s cool!"

[Laughter]

…

Oliver whistles like the Buzzard which flies overhead; the buzzard replies!

OT: Nice spot, isn’t it?

JG: I guess there’s more areas you might have been up there …

OT: I’ll probably have a good think about it, and then when we watch it …

OT: Now looking at it, it’s not a bad place to die in …

JG: Well, don’t go doing that today because we’ve still got a long way to go, yet!

CV: Did they call your parents?

OT: Probably not.

JG: I don’t suppose you had information about your next-of-kin on you …?

OT: No … I had a girlfriend … that was about it. My parents, you know … my mother was working somewhere …

…

JG: So you’d shot all the fighting –

OT: Yeah … I think so … yeah …

JG: - before the spears.

OT: It was towards the end of the day … you know, and you get tired.

JG: Yeah.

OT …and er, yeah, and then they shot … I think they changed things, and they shot Michael’s episode, you know, with the … yeah, they –

JG: … shot a couple of episodes with you … too much –

OT: … and, er … top-and-tailed with me.

JG: Then you rode away that way, and Garet and Gawain rode away that way.

OT: Yeah, pretty much … Ah! The scene with the … them …

JG: Yeah.

OT: I’ll show you where that was … now you remind me.

JG: I really like those guys, ‘cause of the way they –

OT: Wonderful actors.

JG: The way they were –

OT: What was his name?

JG: I can’t remember their actual names … just the way they were looking at each other, as if, “we thought we were crazy” sort of thing.

OT: Yes … yes …

JG: When you came up that bank –

OT: Ken … Ken …

JG: - with Kai.

OT: Yes.

JG: Were you thinking to try and fool Garet and Gawain that you’d intended it all as a lesson to them?

OT: Well … I mean … I … it isn’t what I feel, it’s how it was.

…



We walked up the slope nearly to the top.



While we were near one of the clumps of bushes, Oliver pointed out the tree into which they had thrown spears during the early stage of the conflict.



Fans had wondered for a long time about whether this tree was at a different location, but no! There it was!



I scrambled down to it to check it out, up close!



Someone (Steve!) may have asked whether anyone had a spear …



We looked at the terrain, which Oliver said would have been much more open 50 years ago – with fewer trees along the edge of the river. Also, a large house nearby had been built since filming.



We went back down to the muddy bank:

OT: Hey, this might have been … fifty years, it’s probably … washed out even more.



I looked for the split tree root which was in the original episode, and had still been visible last time we’d been there. I thought maybe it had grass growing on it, so I scrambled down the bank to have a look, but when I got close, the mud became very slippery, and I slid down and down, almost into the water! So I gingerly came back up.



…

[My phone alarm went off]

OT: Joya …

JG: I’ve gotta take my pill.

OT: Yeah, you’d better now take a pill to calm yourself down! This is all too much! Are you taking some ancient Druidic mushrooms?

JG: Yes, that’s exactly what it is! With herbs and moss!

OT: ‘erbs.

JG: Moss and fungus.

OT: Mushrooms!

…

Too soon, we had to trundle back to the Compton Inn, for our 12:15 lunch booking.

On the walk back, Martin asked Oliver whether they had to deliver the lines exactly as they were written on “Arthur of the Britons.” He replied that it wasn't always required on a lot of things he'd done, including “Arthur of the Britons”, where you could vary the lines slightly as long as they delivered the same message. A notable exception was “Luke's Kingdom”, where someone - he said the writer, but Martin also thinks he said 'Peter' someone (Peter Weir was the Director) - was heavily involved in other aspects of the project, and you couldn't get away with telling him that the script could be varied.