In my early years in the biz I was watching and learning.
As an extra on early films you did as you were told in a scene and would end up at the back of the shot. (still got paid)..lol
When people (directors etc) got to know me they would bring you near the front of the camera and perhaps give you a line to say...Well the more you do they would get you back on the next production..(In sight,,In mind)
I didn't fare to well on this........lol
I spent 32 years working on British films and TV as a supporting artist going back to The Saint 1966 up to EastEnders 1998.
I have written my story on my home page and will answer any questions (If I can) on this thread.
I clocked up over 800 shows and have a full list of credits on page two of my site,
Here's a few to be going on with http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm0276092
Aitch,
Hey Aitch, impressive CV on imdb... got a couple of questions for you. What was Kenney Everett like to work with? Working on Pink Floyd's The Wall, did you get to meet any of the band? Any Floyd related quips?
Well, Aitch, you worked through what is regarded as the golden era and also you will have worked through the changeover to colour, the arrival of Channel 4, two ITV franchise rounds and the rise of satellite television. The mid sixties to the early nineties were my golden era.
Hey Aitch, impressive CV on imdb... got a couple of questions for you. What was Kenney Everett like to work with? Working on Pink Floyd's The Wall, did you get to meet any of the band? Any Floyd related quips?
Kenny was fun to work with and would shock some of the onlookers with his camp antics...
But it was all done ''IN THE BEST POSSIBLE TAST''
Didn't get to meet the band and I was only there for one night in a riot scene....(Dressed as a copper ???)
Hello Glenn.......
Kenny was fun to work with and would shock some of the onlookers with his camp antics...
But it was all done ''IN THE BEST POSSIBLE TAST''
Didn't get to meet the band and I was only there for one night in a riot scene....(Dressed as a copper ???)
Hello Glenn.......
First of all, please except my deepest sympathies on your dear wifes passing. I also hope you are keeping well these days.
I have been reading this thread as well as your website, and you certainly have had a fascinating life in television over the years.
I see you worked in various Hammer and Tigon horror movies. I must ask you as a horror movie fan, What was it like working on these movies and also working with the great Peter Cushing?
I have most of the Hammer movies on DVD as well as the Carry Ons..I must look out for you the next time I watch them.
I think my favourite line was something like this to the screw serving food.
"Look at the size you are getting , are you eating all the leftovers."
You can't teach that sort of acting ability mate
When I think back to McVicar the director Tom Clegg spoke to me before the film started and said ''Aitch, I want you to ad-lib some lines for me,,There's no lines written for you but I know you can add some''
I had worked with Tom on many tv shows over the years and he loved my cockney speech..
On the first day of shooting I had to push past Adam Faith and I said to him (ad-lib)'' excuse me'' Tom shouted out CUT.
He came over to me and said..''Excuse me ??''
''Aitch you're supposed to be a hard nut banged up in jail for life and you say to this little geezer, Excuse me ??...Tell him to f*ck off''
Well I had the next two weeks swearing in all the scenes I was in...Not bad for an extra...lol...
First of all, please except my deepest sympathies on your dear wifes passing. I also hope you are keeping well these days.
I have been reading this thread as well as your website, and you certainly have had a fascinating life in television over the years.
I see you worked in various Hammer and Tigon horror movies. I must ask you as a horror movie fan, What was it like working on these movies and also working with the great Peter Cushing?
I have most of the Hammer movies on DVD as well as the Carry Ons..I must look out for you the next time I watch them.
Thank you for your kind words..Mary is still with me...
I've enjoyed my life in the biz and met up with some great people.. Peter was a true gent to work with as was a lot more folk,,(There was a few others that were not so great)
Never kiss and tell...
I try to keep myself busy by doing conventions and charity work now .....bless...
It's been a very tough year for me getting over the loss of my dear wife Mary after forty seven years but now with the help of Clive (a book writer) we are nearly there with my biog....Here's the start....:D
Morning Aitch
Hirst Publishing have contacted me and they are very interested in your book! I'm sending them some sample chapters and a synopsis later today.
Good news!
Regards
Clive
HARRY FIELDER - Biography
Extra, Extra, Read All About It!
INTRODUCTION
The Second World War was already eight months old when, right on cue, I made my very first public appearance, (next to my mother!), on April 26th 1940, the fifth child to William and Constance Fielder, nee Jackson.
At that time, we were living in a tiny house in the St Pancras area of London, but shortly after my arrival, we were bombed-out, so me and my brothers and sister were evacuated to the comparative safety of the Hertfordshire countryside. Being just a baby, I don’t remember very much about this time, however I can clearly recall returning to London when the war had finished in 1945. Arriving by train at Kings’ Cross Station and unable to afford a bus fare, we all had to walk to our new home in Islington and I can vividly recall us all walking along the Pentonville Road, Upper Street and Essex Road, gazing up at the flags and bunting that were strung across the road and draped across all the buildings in celebration of VE Day.
Home was now to be a two-up-two-down terraced house in St Philip’s Way, Islington where the house consisted of a small kitchen and Mum and Dad’s bedroom in the basement and two small bedrooms on the ground floor and, like the majority of this type of housing at that time, the toilet was located outside in the back yard. We were, like many families at that time, very poor and life was extremely difficult in our small, cramped house.
It’s incredible now to recall that at the time, we could have bought that house for about £400. Prices in that area now are closer to £800,000! How things change.
After my second sister, Maggie, arrived in 1948, she and my first sister, Patricia, shared one of the bedrooms leaving me and my brothers, William, David and Victor to share one bed in the other. We slept ‘top-to-toe’, two at one end and two at the other end, but the trouble was we all peed the bed at night. I remember one year for a birthday treat, my father asked me which end of the bed I would like.
“The shallow end” I replied!
Life got even harder in 1950 when Dad died aged just fifty, leaving Mum to struggle to make ends meet whilst trying to bring up six young children on her own. My older sister Pat and my two older brothers left the house in the mid-50s and in 1957 the council moved Mum, me Vic and Maggie to a two roomed flat at the top of a four storey house in Packington Street, just up the road. Our new home consisted of a two-roomed top floor flat with the WC in the basement, shared by 10 people! Our gas stove was on the top landing and our bathroom was at the local bathhouse, 'Tibbs' about a five minute walk away - or we would just go swimming! I remember the top floor rooms were taken by a man called Mr Davis and, after he died, a Scottish couple moved in. One day, my pal Peter Harvey and I were bouncing rather too enthusiastically up and down on my mum’s bed and making quite a racket, so much so that the Scotsman actually came downstairs to complain about the noise!
I managed to get a part time Saturday job when I was fourteen, working in a local butchers shop, cleaning down the greasy trays. For scrubbing these clean, my reward was two bob (10p) a day. However, on occasions, I did manage to smuggle out some sausages or maybe even some corned beef for our tea, by hiding them in my underpants! I remember my mum watching me take half a dozen sausages out when I got home one day and asking me about the other chipolata I had down there!
In 1955, aged 15, having attended three local schools, the first of which in 1945 was Charles Lamb Infants School, it was time to leave. I couldn’t wait because it gave me the chance at last to get myself a job and earn some much needed money to bring into the house to help my Mum. My first experience out in the big wide world was as a Telegraph Boy for the General Post Office working in and around the Piccadilly area of London. I hated it, so after a week or so I decided to leave and took a job as a Lift Boy in Hackney, East London. This was ok – “it had its ups and downs!” There followed spells of making Christmas crackers in 1956 and I even had a go at dyeing feathers in 1957. It seems very difficult to understand in today’s economic climate, but in those days, you could hand your notice in at one job in the morning and find yourself another in the afternoon. Jobs were plentiful, but all had one thing in common – they paid peanuts, however I was just pleased to be helping out financially at home. Finally, in 1957, I ended up at Anderson’s Timber Yard in Islington, where I was employed as a Porter-Tally-Clerk. I loved this job as it gave me the chance to chat with the public every day.
It was whilst I was at the timber yard that I made my first tentative steps in the world of entertainment, when for the princely sum of fifty shillings (£2.50 today) I bought myself a second-hand Spanish guitar in a local junk shop in Camden Passage, Islington. I had soon taught myself a few chords and with the support and encouragement of my friend Lenny Ross, we decided to try our luck in the then fledgling world of pop music. We were always listening to the latest releases by the likes of Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde, and Adam Faith and decided that was what we wanted to be – pop stars! So, having learned a couple of the top skiffle tunes of the time, in particular those performed by Lonnie Donnigan, armed with our guitars and nattily dressed in matching checked shirts, cravats and jeans, we marched into the North Pole public house on The New North Road and introduced ourselves to the landlord.
“Can you play those guitars?” he enquired,
“Of course we can” we replied confidently.
“Well, get out to the back room and see if you can liven things up a bit then” he suggested.
Usually, there was an old-boy who provided the ‘entertainment’ by murdering the piano in the back room, so this was obviously an opportunity to make our mark.
“How much are you going to pay us?” we asked, to which he replied
“Two bottles of brown ales each – consider this an audition”.
So, we duly strummed and sang our way through the six skiffle songs we knew and when we had finished, sat down to enjoy our two free brown ales! As we were sitting there, feeling pleased with ourselves, the landlord came over to us and asked if we knew any more songs.
“Of course we do – loads!” came our reply.
Quite what we were thinking I had no idea as we had already exhausted our complete repertoire!
“Well then” continued the landlord,
”if you get back out there for the final hour until closing time, I’ll give you free brown ales for the rest of the night”.
So up we got again and proceeded to play anything we thought we could get away with. We certainly didn’t play all the right chords all the time, but as the night went on, nobody seemed to mind one bit. In fact, what I learned that night was the more drunk people got, the more they thought they could sing like Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis and the music really wasn’t all that important! We had a great evening entertaining the customers and when time was finally called, me and Lenny at last sat down to a table brimmed-full of well-earned brown ales, bought for us by the landlord AND the punters! To round the night off, a collection was made for us and we received nearly as much for that one evening than I earned in a whole week back at the timber yard. It was 1958, this was Rock ‘n’ Roll…..and we were part of it!
Later, we added another friend Derek ‘Spike’ Milligan to the band as a bass player and I still talk with ‘Spike’ today. In addition, Barry Rose was a good ballad singer and he joined us as well.
We continued to play around the local pubs and within a month we had invested in brand new electric guitars, bought on credit back at Camden Passage in a shop, which if I remember rightly was called Susan‘s and had even added a drummer, Peter Airs, to our little group. He used to play drums in the local Boy Scouts Band! As the guitarist and lead singer, I spent every spare moment practising the guitar and learning new songs, even coming home at lunchtimes from my job at the timber yard.
Over the next eight years I was involved in many bands, playing in pubs and clubs across London, including an appearance at the famous 2Is Coffee Bar in Old Compton Street with a band called ''Terry Young and the Teens,'' the venue that launched Tommy Steele’s career.
It was during this time at one gig in South London that I met a young lady called Mary. She very quickly became the love of my life and we married in 1963, the beginning of 47 wonderful years together.
My mother died in 1963 and Mary looked after me. Sadly, Mary died in 2010, but she is still with me every day - God bless xx.
Hello folks,,
On Saturday September 15th start at 11am I am doing my book signing at Asda, the Dome Watford Herts. I am donating some of the money To womans cancer charity.
My wife Mary of 47 years died in 2010 of cancer and I did an event for her and other women for the same cause..
I will be joined by my co-writer of the book, Clive Saunders and hope to get some costumed guys and gals from some of the shows I worked on to help me collect monies for the charity..
My book will be signed free by me and you also get a free signed photo of some of the jobs I worked on.
This might seem like a daft question but it's something I often wondered about (my imagination does tend to get the better of me sometimes ) This applies to directors/actors alike I suppose - Does being involved in the actual making of the programmes/films themselves and being familiar with the workings of how programmes are made (cut! action! take 5, etc) ever spoil your enjoyment of watching other films/programmes in any way at all?
I suppose what I'm really asking is, when there's a particularly steamy love scene (or similar) do you ever imagine the cameras or sound equipment being just a few inches away? Or can you just lose yourself in the drama like the rest of us?
Comments
As an extra on early films you did as you were told in a scene and would end up at the back of the shot. (still got paid)..lol
When people (directors etc) got to know me they would bring you near the front of the camera and perhaps give you a line to say...Well the more you do they would get you back on the next production..(In sight,,In mind)
I didn't fare to well on this........lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQhv9yS4kQ4
Aitch,
Hey Aitch, impressive CV on imdb... got a couple of questions for you. What was Kenney Everett like to work with? Working on Pink Floyd's The Wall, did you get to meet any of the band? Any Floyd related quips?
Kenny was fun to work with and would shock some of the onlookers with his camp antics...
But it was all done ''IN THE BEST POSSIBLE TAST''
Didn't get to meet the band and I was only there for one night in a riot scene....(Dressed as a copper ???)
Hello Glenn.......
See Harry Fielder on You tube.....
Aitch,
That part alone should have put you up there with Deniro and Pacino
Up there with Punch and Judy more like....:D
Thanks for the reply
I think my favourite line was something like this to the screw serving food.
"Look at the size you are getting , are you eating all the leftovers."
You can't teach that sort of acting ability mate
First of all, please except my deepest sympathies on your dear wifes passing. I also hope you are keeping well these days.
I have been reading this thread as well as your website, and you certainly have had a fascinating life in television over the years.
I see you worked in various Hammer and Tigon horror movies. I must ask you as a horror movie fan, What was it like working on these movies and also working with the great Peter Cushing?
I have most of the Hammer movies on DVD as well as the Carry Ons..I must look out for you the next time I watch them.
When I think back to McVicar the director Tom Clegg spoke to me before the film started and said ''Aitch, I want you to ad-lib some lines for me,,There's no lines written for you but I know you can add some''
I had worked with Tom on many tv shows over the years and he loved my cockney speech..
On the first day of shooting I had to push past Adam Faith and I said to him (ad-lib)'' excuse me'' Tom shouted out CUT.
He came over to me and said..''Excuse me ??''
''Aitch you're supposed to be a hard nut banged up in jail for life and you say to this little geezer, Excuse me ??...Tell him to f*ck off''
Well I had the next two weeks swearing in all the scenes I was in...Not bad for an extra...lol...
Aitch,
Thank you for your kind words..Mary is still with me...
I've enjoyed my life in the biz and met up with some great people.. Peter was a true gent to work with as was a lot more folk,,(There was a few others that were not so great)
Never kiss and tell...
I try to keep myself busy by doing conventions and charity work now .....bless...
Aitch,
Morning Aitch
Hirst Publishing have contacted me and they are very interested in your book! I'm sending them some sample chapters and a synopsis later today.
Good news!
Regards
Clive
HARRY FIELDER - Biography
Extra, Extra, Read All About It!
INTRODUCTION
The Second World War was already eight months old when, right on cue, I made my very first public appearance, (next to my mother!), on April 26th 1940, the fifth child to William and Constance Fielder, nee Jackson.
At that time, we were living in a tiny house in the St Pancras area of London, but shortly after my arrival, we were bombed-out, so me and my brothers and sister were evacuated to the comparative safety of the Hertfordshire countryside. Being just a baby, I don’t remember very much about this time, however I can clearly recall returning to London when the war had finished in 1945. Arriving by train at Kings’ Cross Station and unable to afford a bus fare, we all had to walk to our new home in Islington and I can vividly recall us all walking along the Pentonville Road, Upper Street and Essex Road, gazing up at the flags and bunting that were strung across the road and draped across all the buildings in celebration of VE Day.
Home was now to be a two-up-two-down terraced house in St Philip’s Way, Islington where the house consisted of a small kitchen and Mum and Dad’s bedroom in the basement and two small bedrooms on the ground floor and, like the majority of this type of housing at that time, the toilet was located outside in the back yard. We were, like many families at that time, very poor and life was extremely difficult in our small, cramped house.
It’s incredible now to recall that at the time, we could have bought that house for about £400. Prices in that area now are closer to £800,000! How things change.
After my second sister, Maggie, arrived in 1948, she and my first sister, Patricia, shared one of the bedrooms leaving me and my brothers, William, David and Victor to share one bed in the other. We slept ‘top-to-toe’, two at one end and two at the other end, but the trouble was we all peed the bed at night. I remember one year for a birthday treat, my father asked me which end of the bed I would like.
“The shallow end” I replied!
Life got even harder in 1950 when Dad died aged just fifty, leaving Mum to struggle to make ends meet whilst trying to bring up six young children on her own. My older sister Pat and my two older brothers left the house in the mid-50s and in 1957 the council moved Mum, me Vic and Maggie to a two roomed flat at the top of a four storey house in Packington Street, just up the road. Our new home consisted of a two-roomed top floor flat with the WC in the basement, shared by 10 people! Our gas stove was on the top landing and our bathroom was at the local bathhouse, 'Tibbs' about a five minute walk away - or we would just go swimming! I remember the top floor rooms were taken by a man called Mr Davis and, after he died, a Scottish couple moved in. One day, my pal Peter Harvey and I were bouncing rather too enthusiastically up and down on my mum’s bed and making quite a racket, so much so that the Scotsman actually came downstairs to complain about the noise!
I managed to get a part time Saturday job when I was fourteen, working in a local butchers shop, cleaning down the greasy trays. For scrubbing these clean, my reward was two bob (10p) a day. However, on occasions, I did manage to smuggle out some sausages or maybe even some corned beef for our tea, by hiding them in my underpants! I remember my mum watching me take half a dozen sausages out when I got home one day and asking me about the other chipolata I had down there!
In 1955, aged 15, having attended three local schools, the first of which in 1945 was Charles Lamb Infants School, it was time to leave. I couldn’t wait because it gave me the chance at last to get myself a job and earn some much needed money to bring into the house to help my Mum. My first experience out in the big wide world was as a Telegraph Boy for the General Post Office working in and around the Piccadilly area of London. I hated it, so after a week or so I decided to leave and took a job as a Lift Boy in Hackney, East London. This was ok – “it had its ups and downs!” There followed spells of making Christmas crackers in 1956 and I even had a go at dyeing feathers in 1957. It seems very difficult to understand in today’s economic climate, but in those days, you could hand your notice in at one job in the morning and find yourself another in the afternoon. Jobs were plentiful, but all had one thing in common – they paid peanuts, however I was just pleased to be helping out financially at home. Finally, in 1957, I ended up at Anderson’s Timber Yard in Islington, where I was employed as a Porter-Tally-Clerk. I loved this job as it gave me the chance to chat with the public every day.
It was whilst I was at the timber yard that I made my first tentative steps in the world of entertainment, when for the princely sum of fifty shillings (£2.50 today) I bought myself a second-hand Spanish guitar in a local junk shop in Camden Passage, Islington. I had soon taught myself a few chords and with the support and encouragement of my friend Lenny Ross, we decided to try our luck in the then fledgling world of pop music. We were always listening to the latest releases by the likes of Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde, and Adam Faith and decided that was what we wanted to be – pop stars! So, having learned a couple of the top skiffle tunes of the time, in particular those performed by Lonnie Donnigan, armed with our guitars and nattily dressed in matching checked shirts, cravats and jeans, we marched into the North Pole public house on The New North Road and introduced ourselves to the landlord.
“Can you play those guitars?” he enquired,
“Of course we can” we replied confidently.
“Well, get out to the back room and see if you can liven things up a bit then” he suggested.
Usually, there was an old-boy who provided the ‘entertainment’ by murdering the piano in the back room, so this was obviously an opportunity to make our mark.
“How much are you going to pay us?” we asked, to which he replied
“Two bottles of brown ales each – consider this an audition”.
So, we duly strummed and sang our way through the six skiffle songs we knew and when we had finished, sat down to enjoy our two free brown ales! As we were sitting there, feeling pleased with ourselves, the landlord came over to us and asked if we knew any more songs.
“Of course we do – loads!” came our reply.
Quite what we were thinking I had no idea as we had already exhausted our complete repertoire!
“Well then” continued the landlord,
”if you get back out there for the final hour until closing time, I’ll give you free brown ales for the rest of the night”.
So up we got again and proceeded to play anything we thought we could get away with. We certainly didn’t play all the right chords all the time, but as the night went on, nobody seemed to mind one bit. In fact, what I learned that night was the more drunk people got, the more they thought they could sing like Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis and the music really wasn’t all that important! We had a great evening entertaining the customers and when time was finally called, me and Lenny at last sat down to a table brimmed-full of well-earned brown ales, bought for us by the landlord AND the punters! To round the night off, a collection was made for us and we received nearly as much for that one evening than I earned in a whole week back at the timber yard. It was 1958, this was Rock ‘n’ Roll…..and we were part of it!
Later, we added another friend Derek ‘Spike’ Milligan to the band as a bass player and I still talk with ‘Spike’ today. In addition, Barry Rose was a good ballad singer and he joined us as well.
We continued to play around the local pubs and within a month we had invested in brand new electric guitars, bought on credit back at Camden Passage in a shop, which if I remember rightly was called Susan‘s and had even added a drummer, Peter Airs, to our little group. He used to play drums in the local Boy Scouts Band! As the guitarist and lead singer, I spent every spare moment practising the guitar and learning new songs, even coming home at lunchtimes from my job at the timber yard.
Over the next eight years I was involved in many bands, playing in pubs and clubs across London, including an appearance at the famous 2Is Coffee Bar in Old Compton Street with a band called ''Terry Young and the Teens,'' the venue that launched Tommy Steele’s career.
It was during this time at one gig in South London that I met a young lady called Mary. She very quickly became the love of my life and we married in 1963, the beginning of 47 wonderful years together.
My mother died in 1963 and Mary looked after me. Sadly, Mary died in 2010, but she is still with me every day - God bless xx.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v422/harryfielder/photo4.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dje4usD38-4&feature=colike
On Saturday September 15th start at 11am I am doing my book signing at Asda, the Dome Watford Herts. I am donating some of the money To womans cancer charity.
My wife Mary of 47 years died in 2010 of cancer and I did an event for her and other women for the same cause..
http://www.harryfielder.co.uk/mary
I will be joined by my co-writer of the book, Clive Saunders and hope to get some costumed guys and gals from some of the shows I worked on to help me collect monies for the charity..
My book will be signed free by me and you also get a free signed photo of some of the jobs I worked on.
Come along on the 15th and show your support
Thank you.....(Aitch) (H)..........Harry Fielder.....
http://youtu.be/Dje4usD38-4
Aitch,
This might seem like a daft question but it's something I often wondered about (my imagination does tend to get the better of me sometimes
I suppose what I'm really asking is, when there's a particularly steamy love scene (or similar) do you ever imagine the cameras or sound equipment being just a few inches away? Or can you just lose yourself in the drama like the rest of us?
Lovely to talk to you btw. :cool:
I had a Stroke 6 month ago...
Darned good read.
Hope you're reading this, Aitch!