The following article was unearthed by Member Ian Van Ryne and distributed as a scan. It was published in a Christmas edition of Focus, the ALD (Association of Lighting Designers) Newsletter, circa 2005. Our thanks to Jim Laws for tracking down the original softcopy.

Shadows of the Evening Steal Across the Sky

Mervyn Gould

“Yes, I’ve been around a bit,” said the faded old pro, hitching the bar stool closer to the bar, settling in the corner. “In fact, I nearly made it. For a time I was nearly up there with your Roger Friths, your Francis Reids, and your Jim Lawses. Before your time, of course, before you were born, in fact.” The eager young student interjected a question. “Of course, a pint, though, not a half.”

“More than thirty-five years ago, now. In one week I had my lighting at both dates in a city, No. 1 tour date and major rep. – I thought they’d beat a path to my door. Still here, waiting, dear boy.” The student asked another question.

“Well, we didn’t have all these courses and qualifications then. We just did it. No ‘hashes’ – real Pattern numbers. Of course, we weren’t an Industry then, we were just in ‘the Business’. I didn’t actually carry stuff from the railway station, but all the rest, lad. Hand-fed carbon arc limes, resistance dimmers on shafts, using a foot, both arms, and nose if necessary, lad. Counting to 5, or 7, or whatever the fade was. All good stuff, you know, with F.o.H. lanterns in metal housings so that bits wouldn’t drop onto the stalls, and some places even had the new Strand stuff with pre-focus lamps in. None of this multi-lantern complexity we used to read about in Fred. Bentham’s editions of Tabs, though, for us.”

“By the way, I’m ready for another. Yes a great thirst, dear heart. Well, it was the heat, you know, standing in a badly-ventilated lime box with two d.c. arcs going, using last week’s box-office card for a fade or strobe effect. Or on the board with 70-odd resistances therming away behind the metal front. Scratching around for odd scraps of gel. – and back then some theatres still had a box of real gelatine colour sheet. Digging around in the LX store to find a rusty old tin box still with a lens to rig as a special for the walk-down. Having the manager on the house ’phone about the Maximum Demand Meter at a Full-Up Finish. Changing the gas mantles on the secondary lighting. And twice nightly, sometimes. It drove you to it, really it did. And it was useful to fill the liquid dimmers when they boiled nearly dry.”

“Weekly rep. took it out of you (only once did I do twice-nightly), but then so did touring. What a way to earn a living. All those hours on the A1 in the scenery wagon because the trains wouldn’t get you to the next date in time for the get-in. Doing the get-out up the ramp at Aberdeen H.M.’s in a snow-storm. The cloth battens bouncing over the icy cobbles after coming down the cloth chute at Leeds Grand. Arguing the contra. At least the pro. pubs had lock-ins in the afternoons, so you were all right when there wasn’t a matinée. Whilst Stage Management were re-setting or propping, LX would be replacing the body fluids.”

“Summer seasons were your holiday, if you fixed for good digs. Get the four programmes on and you were away. No matinées, if you were lucky. Except Butlins, of course, where it was a sod getting lamps and spares, and you were forced to maintain the Hawaiian Bar Mount Vesusvius LX with fork lightning and water ripple effect. All that water around certainly made you wary of the lash-up behind the set.”

“Well, how kind, certainly another one.”

“I think it was panto that was your mainstay. A solid three or even four months work, then. At places like Nottingham, Birmingham, and Sunderland we ran till the end of February or into March. A bugger at the beginning, with two shows a day and three on Saturday, and on Christmas Day as well in Scotland, but after the New Year pro party with other companies, when old enmities flared and new alliances were made, you settled in to find a shop for your spring tour and summer season. Bit short-handed on matinées, of course, when your local firemen or dockers or ambulancemen were on shift, so no limes, and LX even had to muck in with the hairy lads of the stage department, but, like all pros., you gritted your teeth, swore lustily, and said to yourself it was all part of the glamorous side of show-biz. “

“Another? I don’t mind if I do.”

“Well, once it all died – by 1980 it was virtually all gone, the bottom had dropped out of it – what could one do? I’m empty, dear heart, isn’t it time you got your wallet out?  I thought, be clever about this, and went on to tell youngsters about the all the skills one needs to get a show in, up and on – tipping the resident staff, arguing with the M.D., thumping the mercury arc rectifier to get the striker to bounce, twitching relay contacts on motor-driven dimmer banks, trimming your arc gap, throwing and tying-off a cleat line, putting PAR38s in your battens – then along came steel-framed sets, par-cans and moving lights, and knocked the bottom out of the business. Not to mention Health & Safety fussing around. Tour dates rebuilding with the lottery, not the same world.”

He settled more comfortably in the corner; a snore came. The student crept away, possibly gladder in the heart, but certainly lighter in the wallet, as the late Tony Mulvihill once said of the subject.

The rest is silence….                                                                                                                                           ENDS 922 words.