What makes a treasure? Is it rarity, sentimentality, beauty? Or is it being a thick rubber dolphin with a working blowhole?
When my editor asked me to track down people who owned television treasure, my first thought was to try Nathaniel Metcalfe, the comedian and broadcaster, now starring in James Acaster’s podcast Springleaf. If anyone knew about strange and esoteric cultural artefacts, it would be him. His reply was exactly as I’d suspected: “After [TV star] Peter Wyngarde died, his estate sold all of his stuff at auction during Covid. I bid on his own home VHS recording of his appearance on the Lenny Henry Show because I loved the idea of having something so obscure. But I was outbid when even that sailed past the £30 limit I had earmarked for it.” I was disappointed. Then came a follow-up: “Do you know Tom Neenan? He bought one of the old Spitting Image puppets in an auction. He couldn’t afford any of the famous ones so ended up with a latex puppet head of a dolphin that is now decomposing.”
My interest, as you can imagine, was piqued. Tom Neenan is a comedy writer, script editor, comedian and actor who actually worked on the current Spitting Image, as well as The Mash Report, Hypothetical, The Last Leg, Have I Got News for You and many radio comedies too, including The Now Show and The News Quiz. He’s a successful man. So why did he decide to invest in an animatronic dolphin? And is it really decomposing?
“It’s not in bad shape actually; it’s quite chunky,” Tom tells me. “Although it’s foam latex, so I do know that there will come a day when it is just dust. I’ve accepted that.” For Neenan, the idea of owning something that once played a role in a piece of comedy history is twinned with a love of puppetry. “It has a mechanism to make the eyes blink and it has a squirty thing that makes water come out of its blowhole. It’s a beautiful piece of work and machinery as well,” he says. “Obviously they’re grotesque but there is a beauty in their grotesqueness.” I tentatively suggest that his dolphin looks quite like Gregg Wallace. He doesn’t hang up.
So I venture another question; where does he keep it? “At the minute it’s in a glass case in a crawl space in my attic. I know it’s safe up there and it’s slightly temperature controlled. When I finally get a library in my house, it will have pride of place.” Is there any piece of television treasure he’s still holding out for? “There is a Spitting Image puppet of Jarvis Cocker from the 90s that’s really spindly and awesome. If that came up I’d consider selling a kidney or something to buy it,” says Neenan. “Oh and I’m building a Dalek at the minute. It’s based on the plans for the new series and it’s all built by me but I’m very jealous of people who have a screen-used Dalek.”
Ah yes, Daleks. Holy mackerel, there is a wealth of Doctor Who collectors, hunters and enthusiasts out there, meeting up in conference centres, museums and online message boards to compare their wares. It is on one such website that I first came across Chris Balcombe, a man who owned and restored an original 1960s Dalek.
“So many of us collect stuff we remember being affected by, terrified by, intrigued by,” says Balcombe. “I was probably first scared by the Daleks around 1965, when I would have been five.” I ask Chris to tell me the story of how he got his Dalek. “It’s quite a long story, I’m warning you,” he says, before explaining that he bought the rear-third of the extraterrestrial from the show’s producer John Nathan-Turner at a “Doctor Who Day,” then did “some research” to work out that it came from a front half currently being used as a “walk-in Dalek” at an exhibition in Llangollen. After some canny negotiations, he had a whole Dalek – even if it did mean him exchanging other collectibles including a giant fly used in a Jon Pertwee episode.
It is now on show at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. Why did he lend it out, I wonder? “A lot of stuff is in private collections and it’s never seen,” says Balcombe. “But I’ve always been very open. Also, it frees up some room in the garage.”
Sometimes, these treasures are almost lost altogether. A bottle of the famous Peckham Spring Water that featured in the 1992 Christmas special of Only Fools and Horses was recently sold at auction – after very nearly ending up in a tip. “Last year we sold a different bottle of Peckham Spring Water for £6,000, which was the only one David Jason ever signed,” says Andrew Stowe, associate director, auctioneer and valuer at Auctioneum. “That encouraged a gentleman who was a cameraman on the episode to come forward with his own bottle. He was having a bit of a clear-out, mentioned to his daughter that he was chucking the bottle away, and she told him it might be worth quite a lot of money!”
Stowe has also sold Compo’s costume from Last of the Summer Wine, the “Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies” painting from ’Allo ’Allo! and Ronnie Barker’s original script for the “four candles” sketch. “The original owner was clearing out a relative’s house and literally found it in a bedroom drawer,” says Stowe. “It was then taken on an episode of Antiques Roadshow and bought with a view to make a profit. They valued it for £1,000 to £2,000. We sold it for £28,000 in 2018.” Who bought it, I ask? “I’m not actually allowed to say much,” says Stowe, “because they were very famous.”
It may seem strange that in an era of archives, internet databases and online auctions, treasures can still get lost. But nosing around on the gloriously lo-fi website missing-episodes.com I realise just how many slices of television history have been wiped, erased, junked or simply taped over; and how many people dedicate significant time to finding them. People like Ray Langstone. “I’m a weed-smoking cripple,” laughs Langstone, who suffers from chronic sciatica. “I do it all in the warmest rooms in my unheated flat.”
Chris Balcombe’s Dalek (left). Photograph: Chris Balcombe
His first discovery was an episode of 60s/70s discussion show Late Night Line-Up, which he found in a university archive in Brighton. “I have no shyness whatsoever, which is a wonderful advantage for someone who’s Aspergic like myself. So I got in touch with [the show’s presenter] Joan Bakewell to tell her that it was sitting in the archive, even though the BBC didn’t have it. And that’s when I got the suspicion that I might be quite good at this.”
For years, Langstone didn’t have his own computer so was doing all this at his local library. “I’m dirt poor – my benefits don’t go far. But I used to work in telemarketing. So, when I saw something on a forum about an interview with someone who had a David Bowie tape, I called him and it turns out he was a cameraman called John Henshall. That’s how I discovered a videotape of David Bowie doing the Jean Genie. When I told the BBC about it, they were very excited.” Langstone has also found a lost episode of Orson Welles’ Around The World in the archive of the University of Wisconsin and the soundtrack to something called Pig Farming Today in the archive of The Museum of English Rural Life, in Reading. “They’re like Egyptian pots,” says Langstone. “Sometimes you find thimble-sized fragments, and sometimes you find the whole thing.”
Talking of hardware, Fil Baker – a drummer now living in Dorset – owns a paving slab originally used in the pilot of The Inbetweeners. “We got a note through the letterbox regarding using our house to shoot a pilot for something that had a working title of Baggy Trousers,” Baker tells me. “The chap who was behind it was the son of one of the teachers at my kids’ school. So they knew the area and wanted that kind of house. We jumped at the chance.” The crew took over for about a week, including filming a pivotal scene on the front drive. “One of the lads painted I Heart Carly D’Amato all over the entrance to our house,” laughs Baker. “They did scrub it all off afterwards, I should say. But on the path up to the front door there were some fairly large concrete slabs. An artist came along and made really quite convincing MDF replicas, which they laid over the existing ones and then wrote ‘I love Carly D’Amato’ all over them as well.” Magpies collect glittery things; Baker collects bits of wood and MDF. “They’re all stacked up in the garage,” Baker tells me. “They even moved house with us.” Does he get them out at Christmas to show his guests, I wonder? He laughs again. “Only when they’ve outstayed their welcome.”
