Sir David Jason - A Life of Laughter. Stafford Hildred
of round trips of 50 miles or more and all have memories of long, sun-filled idyllic days. Mike Weedon remembers, ‘We were three loners really, I suppose. We didn’t get into girls’ company much. We really liked our bikes.’
David was unquestionably the leader of the little gang and usually the inspiration of their escapades. Mike Weedon recalls fondly, ‘David organised so many pranks that it became commonplace for him to do it. If he didn’t lark about, then you knew he must be in a really bad mood. He would play around all the time. He was really a fairly good student but he never stood out.’
But baiting teachers with practical jokes and at all costs avoiding taking schoolwork too seriously did not endear the trio to the school authorities. Headmaster Hackett was concerned, as the boys approached 15, that their childish pranks could turn into more serious teenage trouble-making and wisely decided that perhaps they needed a more creative outlet for their energy and mischief. Recognising David’s considerable dramatic skill and potential ability to act more than the goat, he sent off the two young lads with another problem boy to Douglas Weatherhead, then the drama instructor for Middlesex who was running an evening drama group attached to the local amateur Incognito Theatre Group.
‘I’ve got three boys here and if they don’t find themselves something to do they’re going to get themselves into trouble,’ said the Headmaster to the amiable Mr Weatherhead, who was still a stalwart of the Incognitos some 35 years on, but sadly passed away in 1996. He welcomed the three nervous youngsters and introduced them to the Incognito Theatre, an old soda siphon factory converted by the enthusiastic amateurs with seats from a blitzed cinema, which remains their headquarters to this day.
Douglas Weatherhead recalls fondly, ‘Right from the start, I could see that David was quite obviously a winner. Mike Weedon was quite reasonable but David, you could see from the start, was simply exceptional. He picked up accents and intonations beautifully. He would have been a very good serious actor, but of course his lack of height went against him. In those days, you had to be the classic, tall and good-looking Laurence Olivier type to get anywhere. I can’t remember the third boy’s name but we lost him quite quickly. David and Mike, who were real pals, stayed.’
David recalls that his initial euphoria for acting with the Incognitos was not totally based upon dramatic ambition. ‘We went down there for the first time one Monday night because we were now inflamed with the success of Wayside War. And we found that there were 22 girls there and one bloke. We thought, ‘Yeah, we’ll have some of that.’ That was our first picture of the Incognitos. I think that is what coloured our enthusiasm really.
‘They had a proper senior amateur group and they also had this fabulous training group for young people as well. It was marvellous. They had their own little theatre. They trained lots of people to act. It was very good, it was a way of getting young people involved with the theatre. It was like a social group of course but there was also the chance to take parts in the senior group. They taught me so many of the skills of the theatre.
‘We used to go on Mondays and Wednesdays and it quickly became much more than a hobby for me. It gradually became more and more fascinating and more and more interesting. The more I found out about acting, the more interesting it became.
‘The more new doors I opened up, the more I realised there was to acting. It got steadily more difficult and because it got more difficult I always wanted more and more to get over the next hurdle, to learn the new technique or understand the next new idea. I wanted to succeed as an actor so much and I was desperate to improve my skills. But every level I reached seemed to open up new levels to aim at. The more deep and the more complex the whole business of acting became, the more involved I became. I was there for 10 years and in that time I went and acted with other amateur groups as well. As I was given more and more important roles to play, the challenge became greater.
‘I never found acting an easy thing to do. It was difficult, very difficult. But because it was so difficult, it became a question of developing dedication and application to try to keep improving and developing my skills. And I learned early on that the only person who can really do all that is yourself. I tried to learn and absorb from people who knew more than me, from teachers, directors, actors or anyone, and I tried to apply that knowledge in every way I could.’
Part of David’s initial audition for the Incognitos was to pretend to be much older, first 45 and then 85. Most youngsters of his age would scarcely have appreciated the difference and been inclined to bend every joint stiff to simulate either great age. But David, observers recall, was able effortlessly to suggest the difference between middle age and great age.
‘David was a natural,’ says Douglas Weatherhead. ‘He took to acting like a duck to water. Mike was a great friend of David’s and he was quite good but, of course, David was so much better that he always got the big parts while Mike was left with the small parts.
‘David was also a great joker. He had a marvellous sense of humour and used to tease Mike that he was forever trying to pad out his parts. On one occasion, when Mike was supposed to have suffered a small cut on his cheek in a Drayton and Hare farce, David joked that he would no doubt finish up as a number-one accident case.
‘David always kept us in fits of laughter. Whenever we took a break for coffee, he kept the whole thing going. I never did find out what sort of trouble the Headmaster thought he was heading for, but once he found an outlet in acting there was no sign of any trouble for him. That was it. He was wide-eyed with enthusiasm when he arrived.
‘I remember that, like most of the young lads at the time, he never had much money. And once we were rehearsing a play with David taking a leading role when one of our rather stuffier senior members remarked rather pointedly that David had still not stumped up his annual membership subscription. I think it was half a crown at the time. I was so indignant at this and so impressed by David’s talent that I said if the lad didn’t pay it, I would pay it myself. And I would have done. It would have been a very worthwhile investment, don’t you think?’
Despite their lack of academic dedication, both David and Mike Weedon became prefects in their final year at Northside. Their authority in handing out lines and detention to their juniors was hardly helped by their lack of inches. Both were just 5ft 4in tall when they left school.
‘We did shoot up a bit afterwards,’ says Mike, ‘and we both finished at 5ft 6in.’ The final act of leaving school was quite a traumatic experience for them. Mike remembers, ‘We had always been saying that we couldn’t wait to leave school, but on the last day I know we all really didn’t want to go. It was a very emotional experience for all of us. We all had to go up on stage in turn and there was this great big guy called John Smith who went up and just burst out crying he was so upset. There were tears streaming down his face and I know it affected us all. David was highly strung and a very sensitive young man. After all our big talk about the future, we were really surprised at how choked we all felt.’
The diminutive trio remained good friends long after they left school and, as soon as they were 16, they all exchanged their faithful pushbikes for much more exciting motorbikes, which instantly enlarged the scope of their adventures. David’s first motorbike was an aged 350cc BSA on which he lavished hours of tender loving care.
His mother was never too keen on her precious son’s new obsession, fearing the dangers of David revving around the country on the powerful machine. She was even less enthusiastic when he took the bike to pieces in her tiny hallway. Bitterly cold weather meant that this was the only place to service the bike, but Olwen gave David a fierce telling off every time a drop of oil found its way on to her carpet.
The motorbikes changed the lives of the youngsters. Their horizons were suddenly nationwide. All of a sudden, from being limited to within a few hours’ pedalling distance of their homes, they could now explore the whole country. First on the list was the Lake District.
With David leading the way on his powerful 350cc machine, Bodgy riding pillion and Mike following on his smaller 250cc bike, they set out to explore the beauties of the Lakes. Unfortunately, the bargain basement accommodation turned out to be not even worth the small sum they paid for it.
‘When we got