BEING AYLMER FOLIOT AT BLAKESLEY HALL, BIRMINGHAM & BEING FEATURED BY RADIO WM IN 1985...

 As Aylmer Foliot @ Blakesley Hall, Birmingham…

In the mid-1980s I was asked to play the role of the historical character Aylmer Foliot, one of the 17th century owners of Birmingham’s Blakesley Hall. I would simply wear my Sir Thomas Holte costume but be Aylmer… 

Ridiculously, I had never visited Blakesley Hall prior to teaching for the Schools Liaison Department of Birmingham Museums, despite having once taught at Blakesley Hall Primary School!

The Swan Shopping Centre…

One appearance as Aylmer was to be just up the road from Blakesley Hall at the Swan Shopping Centre, Yardley, sited just off the main A45 Coventry Road. Art teacher Wendy Roberts, in role as Foliot’s wife was to accompany me to a shop, hired for the day by Radio West Midlands, which would basically be a jolly for the locals to take part in. We would be interviewed and of course those present would find out more about their locality’s fine Blakesley Hall.

Clearly, Blakesley Hall was a gem in the Yardley area, along with the parish church and so Wendy, who was teaching at the Hall as well as in the city centre’s Art Gallery, was invited along to add a touch of colour and history to the live broadcast. I was invited too because Gyn Freeman, Stuart Roper and her Radio WM team had met me at Aston Hall and knew that I would likely bring some humour to the experience…

It turned out to be a bizarre morning because our cameo appearance was rather short, being interviewed before and after the 11am news bulletin. According to Stuart, the folks in the crowded shop were totally ‘stunned’  by our arrival in costume accompanied by a fanfare and of course we milked their awe… 

WENDY ROBERTS AND MYSELF...

Invited onto a stage, I turned Stuart as if he was a servant: “Wouldst thou help me?” He grumbled but obliged…

I then suggested that my wife Barbara was suffering with back pain but Stuart commented that she was likely suffering more with being my wife… I responded with, “I am not a cruel man but thy hand is in danger…” This referred of course to the bloody hand on the Holte family crest, which the Radio WM team had seen on their visit to Aston Hall.

Stuart continued to harass me with comments about our horses being in the car-park but I continually and patiently corrected his error, mentioning that surely he meant in the ‘stables’… I was then asked to ‘broadcast’ a message to my workers back at Blakesley Hall and spoke into what was referred to as a ‘microphone’. Gingerly I suggested that despite the rain, I fully expected my servants to be going about their business as usual, or there would be no extra food provided for them during Whitsuntide…

I made some comment about usually gathering news through gossip or reading from a scroll, or even via a town crier’s bellowing voice, but not through the strange things spread across Gyn’s and Stuart's heads. After the news had finished, about which of course I just had to ask where the sound had been coming from, I was interviewed live about what I had made of what I had heard. Put on the spot, fortunately I was able to comment upon one item about teachers wanting more pay, suggesting in role that all teachers deserved paying very well.  

Stuart said the pay-rise would be for teachers’ beer money but I instantly retorted, indignantly: “Schoolteachers, Sir, do not drink beer…” He then asked me, “What time’s the horse?” I replied, “Ah, there’s no answer to that…”

Blakesley Hall visit…

The second appearance I made as Aylmer was at Blakesley Hall itself, when Gyn Freeman’s team covered one of Wendy’s teaching sessions as Barbara Foliot. I was to be used in a continuity role, being interviewed whilst the visiting children were involved in several activities with Wendy, such as pomander and carrot preserve making.

GYN FREEMAN INTERVIEWS WENDY, FAR RIGHT, AS I LOOK ON, FAR LEFT...

This worked well because clearly the WM team would have struggled to fill those changeover segments, so I was asked a variety of questions about living in the Hall. However, I had another agenda, for I knew that one member of the WM team often liked a tot of alcohol in the mornings, having detected it on his breath at Aston Hall the previous December…

When asked about the Hall, I reported that certainly the beams were weakening a little within the house and work was needed to correct the problem but then I sent Stuart out to look after the horses, for he seemed to have ‘no shining of the eyes’ and appeared to be suffering from ‘a lack of sleep’.

I OFFER GYN A REMEDY TO CURE STUART'S WIND...

One of the children, playing the part of Richard Smalbroke was asked by Wendy to choose a girl to be his wife during a brief session in which a family tree was being discussed but Richard (the boy’s real name, actually) didn’t like any of his classmates and so I suggested that he chose a girl for her wealth, although the one he finally picked was because he considered her ‘ferocious’… 

Later Gyn asked me whether I knew a cure for Stuart’s lack of sleep and I came up with the boiling of bruised dill seeds, mixing them with wine and sniffing the concoction. Also I advised perhaps drinking the juice of pounded lettuce leaves for use as a sedative…

For his headaches I reckoned that coarse brown paper with vinegar placed upon the forehead would bring some relief but that only brought cheeky comments from Gyn and Stuart about Barbara having 12 children already and that I regularly offered the remedy for a headache to her before bedtime… Hmm… I ignored that one… 

WATCHING THE ACTIVITIES...

I also suggested a remedy for wind, should Stuart need the lavatory chute… I listed certain spices to be mixed in a pestle and mortar which would cure his problem and offer a pleasant odour too, at which point the conversation became quite hilarious. 

It was all live on the radio, which I still have the recording of… 

A beauty mask for Gyn was then suggested to ward off spots and freckles, which consisted of meal of oats boiled with vinegar and I told her it was actually made in Yardley… “Do you think I need one?” she asked, indignantly. “Not at present, m’lady…” I carefully replied. 

We chatted about the Yardley market and I told Gyn that I didn’t usually buy commodities there personally but often attended to ascertain the local gossip and word of threats to the locality, for in Birmingham recently anti-Royalists had apparently been selling muskets and swords to Parliamentarians. 

Those were troubled times…

NOTE MY BLACK EYE...

Conclusion…

It was a worthwhile morning for Radio WM for sure and Wendy Roberts did a fine job of teaching/presenting for the children from Blackwood School in Streetly, as well as having to be interviewed at the same time…

Yeah, we teachers deserved our beer money in the SLD team…

A while before the day of recording, a set of images was taken of Wendy and me in costume at Blakesley Hall and remarkably, one was chosen to feature in the Radio Times…

FROM THE RADIO TIMES, 1985...

You can even make out a soccer related black eye if you check out my face carefully…

It was a strange moment to turn a page and see oneself in such a well known magazine, albeit dressed in a Sir Thomas Holte costume… 

THE LISTING...

Both the Swan Shopping Centre appearance and the Blakesley Hall feature offered much publicity for Birmingham’s Museums but it was great exposure for the Schools Liaison Department in particular although Jean Evans, the Head of our group was clearly less than impressed by the frivolous comments made by the Radio WM team during the recordings…

I loved it though…

NEXT: being Petros, the Ancient Greek athlete…