We start with the TV heaven that was Mr Pastry. Who remembers Mr Pastry?
One of my earliest television memories was of Richard Hearne as Mr Pastry - which might not mean a lot to many reading this.
The fact was Mr Pastry was hilariously funny (well he was to a very young child anyway) - a slapstick clown in the real pantomime tradition who became nationally and internationally known.
The big thing for me was Mr Pastry came from Norwich and seemed to be on television all the time. Sadly, I can't remember much about the programmes but I do remember his pin striped suit, bowler hat, walrus moustache and crazy demeanour, borne out of the fact that he came from a family of actors and circus acrobats.
It seemed strange that this man should come from the same City as myself. I always get this feeling of wonderment when this happens - after all famous people come from Manchester or Liverpool or London or Birmingham and not from good old Norwich. Well Richard Hearne did come from Norwich and he's still a local celebrity, despite the fact he's been dead for 30 years, He was the first television star in the accepted sense of the word and the first to have his own show which involved slapstick adventures.
He also became popular in America - appearing regularly in the top-rated Ed Sullivan Show. According to the internet he was offered the part of Dr Who when Jon Pertwee left but wanted to play the time Lord as Mr Pastry - that would have been something - custard pies and Daleks.
Richard, like all good Norwich people, was a tireless worker for charity and was awarded the OBE and sounds like an all-round good chap and a good memory to have. There’s a You Tube clip where he’s quite a young man and is filmed putting on all the Mr Pastry stuff that made him look much older.
I tried to find the house in which he was born only to find that the street has been knocked down to make way for the area around Norwich Forum which is slap bang in the middle of the city.
Now to the final TV Heaven and Hell (for now anyway) and this is definitely hell - a show that scared me witless. Step forward Quatermass and the Pit.
This is one of those programmes that takes on great significance on a personal level. I should imagine that if I revisited this drama I would find it very tame indeed, but at the end of 1958 it was scary to an impressionable six year old.
All I remember about the programme was a pit, monsters and being scared. This programme gave me nightmares and I have no wish to repeat them by re-viewing it. It's probably safe enough after over 60 years - but I'm just not prepared to take that risk. So if you want to know more about this you'll have to do your own research. Just leave me alone to crawl back behind my frightened person stone.
Looking back, I have no idea why I was allowed to watch this programme. Reminiscing about it did lead me to think about the times in my early years when I was scared - times like every night when I went upstairs to bed and thought that Indians with bows and arrows were following me. Or worse were waiting for me in the bathroom. Or times like when I had to be taken out of Norwich Hippodrome because I was scared by entertainer Cyril Fletcher. It was apparently his strange piercing eyes that upset me, although it's difficult to know how I could get close enough to actually see them. But there it is, I started screaming and had to be taken out and it was years before I could watch Fletcher on television. As for the Hippodrome (in the words of Joni Mitchell) .... well they paved paradise and put up a parking lot (i.e they pulled it down and replaced it with a car park). I have blogged about the hippodrome before and I’m sure I will blog about it again