What's My Line? (5/7/13)

Waiting for the decking to dry. Slight miscalculation.

I'm on holiday (third day thereof), the sun came out, I have (quite successfully) done bugger all. All day. Read some comics (Invincible by Robert Kirkman who wrote The Walking Dead, you know, the one you watch on telly. Read the first 20 issues in one sitting. Smart. I'm only ten years late on this) listened to some music, had some lunch, fell asleep on a giant bean bag in the garden.

And when I awoke I had a bit of a bee in my bonnet. The decking has needed staining to ages but you need a couple of dry days to do that and when was the last time we had that? So I decided. Now. It gets done now. Went to B&Q (detest that place) got stain. Came home, washed the decking down with my nice shiny Karcher. No Rickenbacker but I have a Karcher. Priority failure again.

The miscalculation? The sun's not on the decking this time of day. It'll dry in the heat but it's going to take longer. So I'm here, writing.

The thing is, yesterday was slightly factually inaccurate. You can't get everything on the Internet. The photo was the second thing that I looked for. The first was a bit of footage from 'What's My Line?'

For those of you that don't recall (or aren't old enough) 'What's My Line?' was a fairly major BBC show of the early to mid 70s. The guests would come on, carry out a mime which was pertinent to their occupation and the panel would have to work out what they did for a living through the mime and a series of questions that could only be answered with a yes or a no.

When you search for clips from the show all you tend to find is snippets from the earlier, American version, some of which involve Groucho Marx. The Americans have always been better at keeping their old shows in existence than we have and the BBC has always been notorious for wiping old tapes. Beatles and Stones on TOTP? Sorry mate. Dr Who from the 60s? Errrr no but I've a handful of Pebble Mill At Ones if they're any use?

Anyway, it's hardly surprising that you can't find clips of 'Whats My Line'. Which is a shame because in 1974(ish) my Dad beat the panel.

Until he retired (15 years ago now) the majority of my Dad's working life was spent in bakeries. He mainly worked in confectionary. The Confeccy as it was known. The BBC though wanted something specific for the show, something diffcult to guess; they wanted a crumpet maker. Obviously my Dad could make and had made crumpets. I've no idea whether he volunteered or found himself put forward but he ended up being Scott's (the bakery he worked for at the time, best known for Sunblest bread) choice as their representative for the show.

So, one night in the 70s, he and my Mum headed for London? Manchester? for the recording of the show. Mum's Auntie Freda babysat the three of us. We knew the show, we'd watched the show, knew the panel; from memory (so possible errors here) William Franklyn, debonair actor and voice of the Schweppes adverts (Schhh, you know who). Nanette Newman, English Rose, actress and Nation's Sweetheart. Lady Isobel Barnett, member of the gentry, no idea what she did but very BBC, very establishment. The presenter was (I think) David Jacobs.

And then there was Kenneth Williams. He was the big star. The really BIG star. We knew him from the Carry On films, we'd seen him on telly loads of times, he was the funny guy who said 'ooh, matron' so we were kind of disappointed when, on returning, we asked Dad what everybody was like and he had good words for everybody, they'd met all the panel and everybody was pleasant, polite, nice, ordinary people really. Except Williams. Old Ken was just basically rude, arrogant, unpleasant. Not a nice guy at all.

Obviously now we all know that this was basically Kenneth William's default setting but back then? When I was about ten? To find out that somebody famous might not be nice? Shocking.

So we saw the photos from the night. Saw the certificate that Dad was given saying 'I beat the panel' and waited until we could see the show itself.

I've no idea how much later the show was broadcast; weeks? Months? Not a clue but we saw our Dad walk out from the curtained entrance, sign in on the big board that they had for each guest to add their dramatic signature to, carry out his mime and sit to answer the panel's questions.

We watched our Dad beat the panel on a prime time, properly major BBC television show. And that was the last time we saw it. The only time we saw it. There were no videos, no way of preserving moments that may only happen once; it wasn't the kind of show that would be repeated. It's not on YouTube. Try googling Robert Salmon and you get the usual; a picture of a bloke called Robert with a Salmon that he caught, Salmon bloody Fishing in the bloody Yemen on DVD and a cornucopia of other fish based frustration. Nothing of any use.

The Vox pop that he did for Sky outside Anfield the day after Kenny Dalglish lost his first away game to Blackpool in his second reign? Yeah, got that, it's marked 'keep' on the Sky+ but his genuine 5 minutes of fame from back in the day? From when he was a full decade younger than I am now?

Can't see any way that we'll ever see it again.

But how great would it be to just come across it one day?

I'll keep looking.