Part 94
Part of History Pitt
Historical Performance Talks – Video Greetings – Meet, Greet and Mingles – and Merchandise
Young Snotty, Arabian Voyages
My History, Behind the Scenes History, and Fun History
The My History Part
It was Summer 2009. After spending the Spring in Scotland we were now back in Bulgaria. We had only been there for a couple of days before Penny’s brother Roger made his way over from London to stay for a few days.
Roger had travelled a bit around Eastern Europe not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall, so he had a bit of experience of how things could be. However, we told him which taxi company was the only one he should use to get from Sofia Airport to the train station to catch the train to the town nearest to us.
Most of the taxis in Sofia overcharged anyone who wasn’t from there, especially if they were from the West. Despite our warning, Roger had spoken to some Bulgarians he knew in London before leaving, and they told him any taxi would be fine. They were wrong.
Our neighbour Manol took us to the train station in the town to await Roger’s train. He didn’t – and still doesn’t – carry a mobile phone, so we just had to assume that his plane landed on time, that he made it to the train station in Sofia, and that he got onto the right train.
As the train pulled in we watched the passengers get off. One of them was Roger, he had made it. After introducing him to Manol we immediately asked him if the taxi was alright. He answered that he thought he may have been overcharged. Actually, he had been overcharged by so much – about 10 or 15 times what the journey should have cost – that the driver had to take him to a cashpoint to withdraw more money. We explained to Manol what had happened. I don’t think he was surprised.
Manol drove us all back to the village. It was evening by then, but the next day we showed Roger around the village and the plains.
There was still a lot left from the Soviet Era, and the village seemed little changed from that time except that German cars could now be seen driving around, the occasional visitor from the West could be seen, and the village church – closed by the Soviets – was preparing to reopen.
Roger had spent more than his entire budget for the trip on that first taxi ride but it wasn’t hard to treat him to food and drinks. Beer prices were less than ten percent what they were in the UK, and food was generally low priced as long as you knew where to go.
We also took him to the nearby town – probably even more Soviet in appearance than the village – and to Veliko Tarnovo, the once capital of Bulgaria, which is a little less Soviet but still had many reminders of those days.
After a few days with us, it was time for Roger to head back to the UK. Manol took us all to the train station to see Roger off. When the train arrived we showed him where best to get onboard. He spoke to us through an open window for a while before being somewhat forcefully directed to an available compartment by a female guard. After this the train soon pulled away, bound for Sofia. He had been told by his Bulgarian friends in London that he should visit the sites of Sofia. He therefore booked to stay one night there before flying to London the following evening. Talking to him later it seems that his Bulgarian friends’ sightseeing advice was about as good as their ‘any taxi is fine’ advice. I think Roger enjoyed his time with us, and liked the town and Veliko Tarnovo, but I think he enjoyed spending time in the village best, as not many visitors get to experience how people really live in such places.
We still had a bit of time left before we too had to head back to the UK. After being in Bulgaria in the Winter, being there in Summer seemed very different. As well as the extreme change in temperatures there was also an extreme change in the wildlife.
We saw less mice but more insects. Some were very strange, and there seemed to be many different types of grasshoppers. Some of the spiders were quite scary but most of them seemed to be outside. We also saw fireflies which flashed away in their thousands at night. We had thought these were nowhere to be found in Europe but there they were – for a short part of the Summer anyway – thousands of fireflies adding flashing lights to the nightly chorus of frogs coming from the wetter parts of the plains. There were also what looked like giant wasps, about 10 or 20 times the size of the wasps you see in the UK. We tried very hard – and seemed to succeed – in not being stung by these giants, which had they been much bigger would almost have looked at home on Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island.
It was soon time for us to head back to Scotland. We got our usual transfer to Sofia by car. This was a little – but not a lot – more than using the train but it meant we didn’t have to find a taxi at the train station which usually meant about 45 minutes of negotiation to get the cost down to only two or three times what it should have been.
It also meant that we didn’t have to endure the hours of Bulgarian rail travel. The Soviet Era trains still came with Soviet Era guards. The women were the worst. They only spoke Bulgarian which was shouted angrily at any passengers from the West. This wasn’t always the case, but most were like this.
It was also best to avoid using the toilets on a Bulgarian train. If any of you have seen the toilet on the Egyptian Railway train in the 2001 film The Mummy Returns starring Brendan Fraser, I have to tell you that this was nothing compared to a Bulgarian train toilet.
Firstly, although filthy and full of flies and stench, at least the Egyptian one in the film actually had a toilet. In some cases the Bulgarian train toilets – although they were fully equipped with filth, flies, and stench – were simply holes, where you could see the tracks below. Whatever you deposited into the toilet – or hole – would then hit the tracks without delay. The car option was much better.
We flew to London then made our way to our cliff top caravan in Scotland via Wales. We would travel a little more around Scotland before heading back to Bulgaria for our second Christmas and New Year in the house there. This Bulgarian Winter was to be our coldest by far.
What it was like being there in such low temperatures, and what we got up to this time, I will let you know in the next blog.
The Behind the Scenes Part
As some of you will probably know, I have a love of deserts, particularly those of Arabia. Along with that I also love the collection of tales known by some as The Thousand and One Nights, and by others as The Arabian Nights. One character that comes from these tales is Sinbad the Sailor. The four live action films that feature him – all with different casts and at very different times – capture very well some of the adventure that is contained within the many volumed editions of The Arabian Nights.
The first film I will talk about is the 1947 Sinbad the Sailor directed by Richard Wallace and starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Maureen O’Hara.
Planning for the film began in 1944, and RKO Radio Pictures announced their intention to make the film in 1945. Filming began in 1946, and by January 1947 it was in cinemas in the US.
The next film was released in 1958. It was directed by Nathan H Juran and starred Kerwin Matthews, and Kathryn Grant. The film was titled The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, which hopefully didn’t make too many potential viewers think they had missed six previous instalments, which they hadn’t.
This was the first of three films to feature Sinbad that were made by Columbia Pictures. All three Columbia films would feature the fantastic stop-motion special effects of Ray Harryhausen. The special effects used in The 7th Voyage took Harryhausen 11 months to complete.
The next film would not be released until 1973. This was The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and was directed by Gordon Hessler. It starred John Phillip Law, the lovely Caroline Munro, and Blackadder’s Tom Baker as the baddie.
It was filmed in various locations in Spain in quite a short time from June to August 1972, but wasn’t released until December 1973, and in some places in early 1974.
Ray Harryhausen’s effects are again wonderful in this film, and add so much to the action and suspense.
Sinbad fans didn’t have to wait as long for the next film, which was Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, released in 1977, and directed by Sam Wanamaker. It starred Patrick Wayne – son of actor John Wayne – and Jane Seymour.
This was the only Sinbad film which I can say I saw in the cinema. I must have been about 7 years old. It was in the cinema in Penzance in Cornwall, and I remember how many older boys – of which their seemed to be many – stamped their feet rapidly in some strange form of appreciation every time Jane Seymour or Taryn Power – who also appeared in the film, and was the daughter of actor Tyrone Power – appeared onscreen.
Thanks to the success of the previous film, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger had a large enough budget to film in different locations. Spain was again used, but filming also took place at locations in Malta, including the wonderful walled city of Mdina.
Some important scenes were also shot in Petra in Jordan. However, as I have said in a previous Behind the Scenes Part, the scenes shot in Petra did not include the main cast, who appear in front of screens in a studio to make it appear as though they are in Petra, while long shots and shots from behind were shot using doubles.
The effects for this film took Ray Harryhausen even longer, and took him from October 1975 to March 1977, with the film appearing in cinemas in August that year. Some of the stop-motion models used in the special effects were altered and reused in the 1981 film Clash of the Titans.
It is believed by some that the Sinbad tales didn’t appear in the original Arabian Nights but were added later. They do not appear in the known about copies from the 14th Century but do appear in those from the 18th Century.
However, they are now established as part of those wonderful tales that have inspired many to search deeper into them and to visit some of the fantastic places that were the origin of such characters as Sinbad the Sailor.
The collection of tales that make up The Arabian Nights have had many different translations but my favoured version is that translated by Sir Richard Francis Burton of which I have before mentioned I have an 1886 set.
Like the writing of Homer in Ancient Greece, The Arabian Nights tales are set hundreds of years before they were written. However, we can’t really know if the original tales were written down at the time and the only remaining copies we know about are from a few hundred years later. Whether written later or at the time, they are wonderful to read, especially if you can find very old copies which to me adds even more to the wonder. I also like to believe that just like Homer’s works that some of these Arabian works are also based on historical truths, which is why many of the characters can be traced to actual historical figures.
I would highly recommend reading some of the tales if you get the chance, they are full of Sultans, Caliphs, Viziers, adventure, and lots of Magic. I would also recommend seeing the Sinbad films if you like action films from the 1940s to 1970s, along with the fantastic special effects by Ray Harryhausen.
I have written in a previous Behind the Scenes Part about attending a Talking Pictures TV event in 2022. In the next Behind the Scenes Part I will be talking about the first of two other Talking Pictures events that we have recently attended. Who we met and what performances we saw, I will let you know in the next blog.
The History Part
Those of you familiar with Blackadder 1 will be aware just how important castles were in Medieval England to keep the rulers of the land safe. Well, there were castles and fortifications in many parts of Britain long before these times, and some were built by people from far off places.
Those of you who know me will also know that I have quite a thing about castles. We visit castles whenever we can, and there is one particular fortification that also suits my love of the Ancient World. That place is Burgh Castle in Norfolk, built by the Romans in the late 3rd Century AD.
Burgh isn’t the oldest fortification in Britain by far, but it is one of the most intact and impressive of the time.
It was one of many fortifications built along what became known as the Saxon Shore. As well as garrisons for troops – it is thought that those based at Burgh were mostly Roman cavalry – they were also safe places to conduct trade, and to guard against Saxon attacks on that part of the coast.
Three of Burgh’s defensive walls stand almost entirely intact. They are 11 feet deep at the base, 5 feet deep at the top, and about 15 feet in height. The fourth wall collapsed into the marshes centuries ago.
After the Norman Invasion the outer walls of Burgh were used again, this time to support a newly built defensive structure inside. There are signs of where the structure was but this Norman building did not last as long as the Roman walls.
The Normans however were fantastic castle-builders. It was from the point of their arrival that massive stone-built fortifications started to appear, and many of these structures – including the Tower of London – still stand.
A couple of centuries later Edward I of England would build his Ring of Steel. This was a series of castles built to guard – and control – Wales. These castles are about the best built in the World. Massive, largely self-sufficient with easy availability of being resupplied by ship, and with incredible defensive features, Edward’s castles in Wales were almost impossible to take by either attack or by siege. Most of my favourite castles are in Wales, and most of them have some connection to Edward I, and were fully in use at the time that Blackadder 1 is set.
So, next time you think of castles in Britain as being a thing of the Medieval Era, just remember that Britain had seen the building of massive fortifications long before this time, long before Prince Edmund called himself The Blackadder, and that some, like Burgh Castle in Norfolk, are still standing today.
If you haven’t done so already, give the fantastic King of Blackadder on Twitter a follow!
https://twitter.com/pitchblacksteed?s=09
Then take a look at this also fantastic Blackadder fan group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1507847676134507/?ref=share
For more on Bulgaria https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgaria
For more on the 1961 film of Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterious_Island_(1961_film)
For more on the 2001 film The Mummy Returns https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mummy_Returns
For more on Brendan Fraser https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Fraser
For more on the 1947 film Sinbad the Sailor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinbad_the_Sailor_(1947_film)
For more on the 1958 film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7th_Voyage_of_Sinbad
For more on the 1973 film The Golden Voyage of Sinbad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Voyage_of_Sinbad
For more on the 1977 film Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinbad_and_the_Eye_of_the_Tiger
For more on Ray Harryhausen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Harryhausen
For more on Caroline Munro https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Munro
For more on the 1981 film The Clash of the Titans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_the_Titans_(1981_film)
For more on Sir Richard Francis Burton https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton
For more on Burgh Castle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgh_Castle_(Roman_fortification)
For more on Edward I https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_I_of_England
For more on The Tower of London https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_London
History Hunger with Pitt the Younger 