More than one motherly viewer who has seen her in TV plays has telephoned Ursula Howells to advise her how to get some happiness into her life. She has had to play so many neurotic, ill-treated women, that some viewers have convinced themselves that she must be unhappy in real life!

She is, however, happily married to an industrial consultant; and the only time she gets anywhere near “the mopes” is when his business takes him abroad and she is missing him.

Despite her run of tragic TV parts, she says she is very happily “at home” at Lime Grove. She has worked so much in TV that she finds the job like working among friends. Even the dingy rehearsal rooms she likes, as familiar places, full of the memories of other happy occasions in preparing previous plays.

It was the theatre, however, that gave Ursula her TV debut. That was when a West End theatre production of the play Frieda was taken to the Alexandra Palace studios. To this West End part Ursula had come by dint of hard work in the provinces.

At the time of evacuation in the last war, Herbert Howells, Ursula s famous composer father, decided his daughter had best move from London to Dundee. The girl, hardly out of her teens, began to get back-stage jobs at the local repertory theatre. A chance came for her to start playing parts.

Then the producer Anthony Hawtrey went to Dundee, promoted Ursula to leads, and took her with him when he took over the management of that “shop-window” theatre in London, the Embassy.

Soon Frieda followed, then other West End parts, good supporting roles in films, and a string of TV parts. She went with Patrick Barr and Peter Cushing to Germany with the TV play Portrait of Peko, which the BBC “exported” to the German Radio Show.

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Rare indeed is the artist who can stir the viewing public to enthusiasm by a first appearance. When Sally Barnes came to TV in one of Henry Hall’s Face the Music shows, there was no doubt of the impact she made. Here was good fun with a hint of that pathos which begets affection for a likeable waif. Sally Barnes went straight to the heart.

The BBC, rocking under criticism of its variety shows, leapt at Sally as though she were the answer to a prayer. They gave her a series.

But it was almost as though the pathetic character in her act had now got a hold on her work. That night she had been an undoubted and an all but unparalleled success; but her next TV appearances, having lost the freshness of novelty, seemed to have nothing fine or big enough with which to maintain her talent. Sally is enjoyable viewing at any time; but there is an uneasy feeling about that the fanfare came too soon.

This the twenty-seven-year-old Sally knows. She has been “in the business” since girlhood, and that is long enough to equip her to “take it.” Henry Hall had found her in a seaside show at Scarborough, in 1953. Prior to that she had spent nine years plodding round provincial music halls, and in seaside concert parties — in one of which she met her husband, Bobby Beaumont, an impressionist and straight actor.

Before her TV début, Henry Hall had offered her a contract in his touring stage show, and she had to decline this because she was expecting a baby. The tour was postponed for other reasons, and a month after baby Laura arrived Sally was able to go out with the show.

After her initial TV success her name crept up from the foot of the music-hall bills to the middle, and then to the top. This, TV did for Sally Barnes — and provided the privilege of appearing before the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, when they visited the Lime Grove studios.

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His is the radio voice which, when transferred to TV, revealed that it partnered an appearance quite able to match the handsomeness in the voice-box. For some time Donald Gray had been a frequent actor in radio plays. His broadcasts in this sphere were somewhat confined to villainy, because the BBC radio producers seemed to think the “deep-brown’’ voice more suited to that than to heroics.

Donald was in fact in the BBC Drama Repertory Company for three years. He then took the usual series of tests for TV announcing, followed by a trial on the screen as a guest announcer. He is now a regular relief announcer, whose early hesitancies have consolidated into a personable manner very human in appeal, and in nice contrast to the personality of McDonald Hobley.

He was born in South Africa, and began work there, not in the theatre but on an ostrich farm. His acting urge brought him to Britain, where there are more stage opportunities. He worked with a number of repertory theatres, and then got into films. The war interrupted this, and in 1944, in a fierce action during the advance on Falaise, he lost his left arm.

When he afterwards starred with Linda Darnell in the film Saturday Island, the script was adapted to take account of his one-armed-ness. At Lime Grove they tell a human story of his announcing test. There were other candidates there, nervy in a suspense-taut studio. The studio manager, to put them at their ease, asked each in turn to relate some happening in his life. Simply and straightforwardly, without heroics or pathos, Donald told how he lost the arm. The tension in the studio vanished, leaving instead a sense of comradeship and inspiration which was helpful to all.

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When, after two studio tests, the BBC appointed Avis Scott a relief announcer, the success put her in a quandary. As an actress, she was due to play the feminine lead in the Norman Wooland TV serial, The Dancing Bear. As an actress, too, she had reaped some success on the London stage and in such films as Waterfront — appearing with Richard Burton and Robert Newton.

But she had asked for the TV announcing tests because stage and film work had lapsed so seriously that she had been earning her keep as a waitress. Miss Scott went into the TV studio as a relief announcer realizing that she would not be able to play in the TV serial, but hopeful that appearances on the screen would jog the memory of the film and theatre managements about her talents.

Her first spell of announcing duty did just this. She was offered two film parts. But again there was that twist of fate, for her success at announcing brought her a second announcing spell — and the dates of this clashed with the offered film work. So that she had to decline, too.

A great deal of publicity fell at Avis Scott’s feet as a result of her TV appearances. She was called “this wide-eyed zany” and “that delightful forgetter of lines.” Certainly her unorthodox announcing method introduced variety into this familiar field of TV action—and even opened up new possibilities. But, ideally. Miss Scott would rather work as an actress —in TV, on the films, and on the stage—and take a turn at relief announcing at Lime Grove only once or twice a year.

That might be the perfect life. So rarely is life perfect. And this she knows only too well.

Avis Scott is the daughter of a country rector, is thirty-one, and unmarried.

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IF you have ever seen a man in the depths of making a great decision, you will know why I wear a frown on this otherwise sunny morning, when I awake — at 7.0 — in the Polygon flat.

You see, before I leave for the studio, I must decide which bow tie to wear. You have seen a man deciding which bow tie to wear? Yes — but not from my collection. I have hundreds, and I mean hundreds.

“Pshaw! Bow ties! These hairdressers, they are all the same,” you exclaim. “Dilettante and effeminate…”

Well, I admit that in Deauville I have been seen wearing a white dinner jacket with a black shirt and white tie; and on TV you may have seen me sporting a white and black striped nylon blouse shirt.

It is the custom of the profession, and a mark of the man, just like Sir Winston’s big cigars and eccentric hats. Most women expect their hairdresser to be effeminate; to several of my most distinguished clients I am circumspect in not talking about the other aspects of my private life: my farm at Fifield, near Maidenhead, for example; or my racehorses; or the fact that I drive an overdrive American roadster.

These are rather masculine pursuits, aren’t they; out of character with the Raymond you know from my salons, or from TV?

Again, there are some women who never ask me about Jennifer, or our three children, because perhaps they feel that Mr. Teazy-Weazy should eternally be in a sphere of glamour — a connoisseur, and a gourmet.

Café society and a wife and three kids are not generally thought to “fit in.” But they do, my dear. They do.

7.10: I start to shave, bath and dress. On this part of my toilet I draw a veil. I have hated razors all my life. In fact I walked out of my father’s business in Shaftesbury Avenue when I was thirteen because he wanted me to learn shaving.

Today is transmission-day for me at Lime Grove, when I present some of my models for Richard Afton. So later on my own hair will be attended to by my personal barber.

7.40: I have no more than a Continental breakfast. (I was born in France and lived there until I was twelve.) Just itsy-bitsies of croissantes, butter, and coffee made my way.

7.55: The post has arrived. Business mail goes to my various salons, to my studio, or is handled by my faithful Miss Georgette (the one lovely from my salon you have not seen on TV and probably never will). She is my financial and business right-hand man; the company’s efficient secretary.

I run an international group of companies, with a yearly turnover of about half a million pounds [About £15 million now, allowing for inflation – Ed].

8.40: Grab my blue carnation for the day, and am off to what is probably the nearest I shall ever be to Heaven — my private studio high above Albemarle Street, giving me a bird’s-eye view of the West End.

Here I can work alone with my thoughts (and with my models, but they don’t disturb my thoughts), and this is where I create my new styles.

10.0: (“But isn’t Raymond going down to the salons in Grafton Street and Brompton Road?” you ask. “Isn’t he going to see to the coiffeur of some others on TV tonight?”)

Not today, my dear. About 4,500 women — many of them famous, all of them lovely by the time they leave — visit my salons every week. Of these, I can give my absolute personal attention to fewer than eighteen.

This is not to say the other 4,480 are neglected. Heavens, far from it. They pay me an average of six guineas [£6.30 in decimal, £180 after inflation], so you will easily see that if I neglected them I should soon be out of business. No. Everything that is done to them is under my supervision, and is styled according to the fashions I create and the rules I make.

11.0: Elevenses. Time for a brief chat with some of my executives, my loyal friends who manage my salons throughout the country. Today it is Mr. Tony, up from Bournemouth, and Mr. Gordon who calls in from the Grafton Street salon.

I know them all by their Christian names, just as they know me by my Christian name of Raymond. Yes, it is my real name. Very few know my full name, but if you are curious, you will find it at the foot of this column.

11.55: Renée Pezaro drops in to chat about the photos we must have taken of TV models. Everything I do is documented, and copyrighted. There is just as much danger of our hair styles being pirated as there would be of pirating a Hartnell or Dior design in the world of haute couture…

I’ll never forget the time during the war when one of the men I trained proved disloyal, set up in a salon on his own, pirated many of my styles, and then tried to employ my loyal staff. I could have taken legal action, of course, but instead we met in private one night and I gave him the thrashing of his life.

(Effeminate, huh…?) But enough of that.

Now we break for lunch. if you can call it a break. I eat little, and (today) fast.

1.20: My American roadster is waiting. Through the traffic to Lime Grove.

I make straight for the dressing-room, and the models are prepared. These lovely, lovely girls. Where do I pick them? Why, some are just the girls working in my salons: they need no introduction to TV celebrities who come for hair-styling.

2.30: Mr. Gordon is with me, and we have all our equipment. I go to the allotted corner of the studio and we rehearse the manner in which the different styles will be shown before the cameras. I decide how I am going to describe them.

4.0: Break for tea, but not for me. I am in the dressing-room again, busy fingers at work. Then the models go off to change, ready for the dress-rehearsal at…

5.0: They are wearing soignée, glamorous gowns, and although they are still capped with their hairnets and bits of cotton-wool, it is not difficult to visualise how lovely they will be on TV.

6.30: When most of the rest of the cast are sent off to have their pre-show supper in the canteen, all will be ready for my final run-through. I quiz from every angle, and sometimes the entire camera-angle on a presentation is changed right on the eve of transmission.

Well, I cannot help it. They call me difficult, temperamental, fussy, and other adjectives which the Editor would not like to print. None is true. I’m a perfectionist: (Not, of course, that everything is ever perfect).

8.0: Fifteen minutes to go. I bite my nails.

8.5: Why does that clock hand move so slowly? Anybody would think I was nervous. Nervous about TV? What an idiotic notion! Is that bow-tie straight? I light up a cigarette, one of my own special R brand now on the market. Well, it is better than biting my nails.

8.10: Not long now, thank heaven. Jeanne is biting her nails. Silly girl. I call to her to stop it.

8.15: The music strikes up my signature tune — Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair… We’ve started. This is divine. Everything is wonderful. Television, this heavenly medium!

9.0: Now we’re off the air again and a great wave of depression hits me. I feel flat, dejected. My gay spirits died when they “killed” the studio lights.

“Come and have a drink,” they call, but no: I’m driving.

9.5: Out in the car again, heading this time away from London, out to Fifield, to my beloved Tudor homestead called Deep Meadows, where Jennifer and our eldest daughter Cherry will be waiting.

Cherry is only nine, and of course she should be in bed, but — well, you know what daughters are. Amber, three, was in bed hours ago, and Scarlet, now nearly one year old, is a bundle of high spirits night and day.

10.50: Now, alone, Jennifer and I talk about the exciting events of another TV day. Jennifer worked in my salon until we were married in 1943. Today there is only one thing we quarrel about. She likes me to do her hair, and — honestly — I am really too busy!

What do we talk about now, at the close of this exciting day? Television? No — that would be “shop talk.” This is Escape. We’re talking about my racehorse ‘Raymond’s Folly,’ for which I have high hopes; about the dairy farm and the new sterilising equipment we’re working; about school for Cherry, and when Scarlet will say her first word. Even a teeny-weeny, teazy-weazy word.

Raymond Peter Bessone.

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To find an answer I went to see Italian-born Nino Domenico at his Venetian style restaurant in South Kensington—a corner of London much in favour as a residence among television personalities.

Recently Nino — as he is known to all his customers — demonstrated with Philip Harben in his programme Man In The Kitchen the French dish Supréme de Volaille sous Cloche.

“I would never have expected the things which have happened to me since I appeared on TV,” he told me with amazed gestures. “It makes you think about ‘the power of television.'”

The story began when Doreen Stephens, the head of Lime Grove’s women’s programmes, and a regular patron of Mr. Domenico’s restaurant, said to him: “You must demonstrate your wonderful Supréme de Volaille sous Cloche on television.”

Miss Stephens suggested the idea to Philip Harben and producer S. E. Reynolds. As it happened Harben was looking for someone able to demonstrate this rare dish.

Studio feast

“Mr. Harben told me to bring everything I should need to prepare the dish — except the kitchen stove,” said Nino.

“I took a very thick cooking pan with me,” he went on. “I heated it fiercely just before the programme. Of course it retained the heat. When I came to show the dish I was able to do some of my cooking without fire. I hope viewers were amazed!”

“At the end of the programme,” I asked, “what happened to the food you had cooked?”

“Ah!” said Nino, “I wondered about that, too! Now I know. The visitors present in the studio, the technicians, they eat it all up!”

The dish Sous Cloche (for short), as viewers will remember, is a method of cooking breast of chicken with cream and brandy inside a large glass bell which retains the aroma of the food until served.

Connoisseurs sometimes asked for the dish in Mr. Domenico’s restaurant — but the demand was small. Few restaurants ever served it. After the TV show it went on Mr. Domenico’s menu with a footnote: “As demonstrated on television by Mr. Nino.”

“Although the name of my business was never mentioned during the programme,” Nino said excitedly, “people began to pour in asking for Sous Cloche. So many came I needed to buy more glass bells used in cooking the dish. But then… ! No cloches. All the firms had sold out!

Rivals wanted to know!

“Then all day the telephone started ringing. Other restaurateurs were on the line — in fine old tempers,” chuckled Nino. “They were being asked by their customers to serve Sous Cloche but didn’t know how to do it. They wanted me to tell them!”

Rivals clamouring for his help! It proves that if you are in the catering business you just can’t afford to miss a Philip Harben programme.

Lime Grove folk are no strangers to Nino. Norman Wisdom, Howard Marion Crawford, Jon Pertwee, Semprini, Ronnie Hanbury, BBC scriptwriter of Ray’s A Laugh and other shows, and of course television’s leading gourmet, Gilbert Harding, are patrons of the restaurant.

Gilbert Harding has a special table, tucked round a corner where he is out of view — but not too much so. He likes to see a red ashtray on the table, and he drinks a special type of mineral water, San Pelligrino. It has a punch like Don Cockell.

Before departing I suggested: “If people are still pouring into the restaurant to sample Sous Cloche (which you sell at 8s. [40p in decimal, £11.50 now allowing for inflation – Ed] a portion) your TV spot must have proved very profitable.”

“No, no, no,” Nino groaned, “I never want to see another Sous Cloche. I only wish people would stop coming in and asking for it. Why? It is too costly to make. I lose on each one. It is only for goodwill that I serve them. For each dish I must have the breast of a chicken. The rest of the chicken is left over. I have so many legs of chicken I don’t know what to do with them!”

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