Box People and Places
Latest Issue 35 Spring 2022 
  • This Issue
    • Gertie Butt
    • Fogleigh Residents
    • Murray & Baldwin
    • Guides 1920s and 30s
    • Noble Family
    • Stewart Family
    • Tunnel Inn
    • Anketell Family
    • Box Tollhouse
    • Institute at Box Hill
    • Memories of Nurse Chalinor
    • Gonks Recalled
    • National Service 1950s
    • Box Quarry Crane
    • More Operative Masons
  • Inter War
    • Postwar Hopes
    • Haunted by War
    • Improving Life
    • Timeline
  • Previous
    • Issue 34 - Fogleigh House
    • Issue 33 - KIngsdown Post Office
    • Issue 32 - Chapel Lane
    • Issue 31 - Saxon Box
    • Issue 30 - Georgian Rudloe
    • Issues 20-29 >
      • Issue 29 - Darkest Hour
      • Issue 28 - VE Day
      • Issue 27 - Northey
      • Issue 26 - Heritage Trail
      • Issue 25 - Slave Owners
      • Issue 24 - Highwaymen
      • Issue 23 - Georgian
      • Issue 22 - War Memorial
      • Issue 21 - Childhood 1949-59
      • Issue 20 - Box Home Guard
    • Issues 10-19 >
      • Issue 19 - Outbreak WW2
      • Issue 18 - Building Bargates
      • Issue 17 - Railway Changes
      • Issue 16 - Quarries
      • Issue 15 - Rail & Quarry
      • Issue 14 - Civil War
      • Issue 13: Box Revels
      • Issue 12 - Where You Live
      • Issue 11 - Tudor & Stuart
      • Issue 10 - End of Era 1912
    • Issues 1-9 >
      • Issue 9 - Health & Leisure
      • Issue 8 - Farming & Rural
      • Issue 7 - Manufacturing
      • Issue 6 - Celebrations
      • Issue 5 - Victorian Centre
      • Issue 4 - Slump after WW1
      • Issue 3 - Great War 1914-18
      • Issue 2 - 1950s & 1960s
      • Issue 1 - 1920s
    • Index By Author
    • Partner Sites & Book Reviews
    • Currency Converter
  • People
  • Places
  • General
  • Series
    • Northeys
    • Box School Series
    • Box Farms
    • Box Library Project
    • NATS Trails
    • Prehistory
    • Roman
    • Early Medieval >
      • Vikings in Box
      • Box Before Normans
      • Common Field Farming
      • Conclusion
      • Wessex Under Attack
      • Boundaries of Box
      • Routes in Box
      • Late Saxon Locations
      • Society in Anglo-Saxon Box
      • Christianity in Box
      • Why Box is in Wiltshire?
      • Anglo-Saxon Evidence
      • Art and Craft
      • Why Speak English?
      • Box after AD 350
      • Britain in Late Antiquity
    • Feudal
    • Late Medieval
    • Tudor & Stuart
    • Georgian
    • Rail & Quarry
    • Late Victorian
    • Great War
    • WW2 Index
    • Modern
  • Contact
    • Blog
    • Q&A
More Have a Go, Box
Les Dancey
March 2021
 
The article on Wilfred Pickles brought back memories of that night to me. Along with the other lads of the village, I listened to the show outside unable to get a ticket. 

​The show was produced by Barney Colahan, another Yorkshire man, who was famous for later producing The Good Old Days musical hall theatre programme on the BBC. Barney personally used to hand out the prizes for the winning contestants to the shout of Give him/ her the money Barney! from the audience, which we could hear outside. 
Picture
Report of the Event
Readers have brought my attention to a newspaper report of the show in the Bingham Hall recorded on 28 September 1949:[1]  
Arrangements for the event were made locally by the Box Parish Council under the responsibility of RJ Dyer, parish clerk, at the request of the BBC. Mr Dyer submitted arrangements to the General Purposes of the parish council led by chairman James Browning. The council submitted 24 names of local people for the BBC to select six contestants to be interviewed by Wilfred Pickles and to try to fool him with questions on stage.
 
The first candidate was Darcy Beer from Colerne, who told the legend of the Colerne donkey and asked, Ever seen a dead donkey? He was followed by 14-year-old Shirley Watts from Boxfields, who wanted to be a hospital almoner; then 74-year-old Otto Butler, who foxed Wilfred Pickles with the question, To what depth would you dig a new garden? Mrs Constance Chambers, housewife, followed; then the rector of Ditteridge, Rev E Mighell Cox, the embodiment of the sporting parson of a century ago. The interviews were concluded by Mrs Merrett of Boxfields, a parish councillor, who gave some sound common sense and led the audience in singing old-time songs. The jackpot amounted to 37s.5d and was won easily.
 
The hall could only accommodate 250 people who were drawn by lot and was recorded for broadcasting later in 1949. Its essence was informality with mistakes and confusion often occurring, such as the moment when Violet Carson improvised the music for Come into the Garden Maud to get interviewees off the stage.
Reference
​
[1] The Wiltshire Times, 1 October 1949