Terry Spencer - A life well lived

Terry Spencer the man behind the main photo on this blog passed away earlier this year. In reading his obituary here there can be no sadness as his life was quite incredible and he leaves behind some great photos of the 20th century , here's a couple of them




We're glad you came by.
18 March 1918 – 8 February 2009

...a little more on Malcolm

I watched If.... recently. Its lost none of its brilliance, and for a film made in 1968 still feels very fresh, and is as groundbreaking now as it was then. I only note it here as some scenes where shot in another of the villages within a stones throw from Borehamwood - Aldenham


While the film is set at Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire a number of scenes where shot at Aldenham School.
The school was founded in 1596 by Richard Platt, and throughout If.... we see this overbearing portrait of the man.

If Mcdowell didn't quite make it all the way to the Wood for If.... , his next picture The Raging Moon would bring him to Elstree Studios in 1970 prior to his shooting of A Clockwork Orange.


I have never seen the film, but it was directed by Brian Forbes and also starred his wife Nanette Newman. Forbes had recently been appointed as managing director of the studio, and one could say responsible for the wealth of talent coming into the studios in 1970/71 including those mentioned before . He also wrote the screenplay for A Raging Moon just for good measure.

Here's a lovely picture of the two of them - they've been married for 54 years.

Canterbury Tales

This is Canterbury House my first stop after arriving in the world, i lived at no.77 for just a few months before moving on to a more cultured semi detached existence. There are no photographs of my time here but once again i can rely on my cinematic neighbors to fill in the blank spaces in my photo album.


well, O my brothers, its october 1970, and borehamwood being what it is " a chill winter bastard though dry". Upstairs at no.100 in Canterbury House Alex de Large has moved in - well horrorshow like! Great bolshy yarblockos indeed ! I can't imagine that my old flat ever looked like this, but i'm sure the layout is the same, and the colour and the light of 70's Borehamwood seems just right.


I never liked the movie, and have never been a Huge Stanley Kubrick fan, but recently re-watched it ( it being A Clockwork Orange if you haven't figured it out by now ) and saw it as more the black comedy it was supposed to be. I still dont know why it is quoted as Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, the film apparently had no working script and was filmed directly from the book, working day to day. A huge amount owes to the production design of John Barry for the look of the film, the great soundtrack by Wendy Carlos, and of course the excellent Malcolm McDowell. Some credit to I should add Lindsay Anderson and the character of Mick Travis in his groundbreaking film If.... played brilliantly by McDowell which led to his casting of Alex by Kubrick
There is of course no doubting Kubrick as a great director, and that the film is massively influential, but still it rubs me up the wrong way


The Korova Milk bar was one of the few sets built for the movie, and was built at Hawks Films then location at the corner of Bullhead Road, which is almost directly inbetween the old MGM studios which had recently closed, and EMI Studios. Bullhead Road is one of a few very steap hills in the town and as a kid used to enjoy riding my chopper down at great death defying speeds.


The Durango-95 purred away real horrorshow - a nice, warm, vibraty feeling all through your guttiwuts. Soon, it was trees and dark, my brothers, with real country dark. The area around Shenley Village to you and me, a village just north of Borehamwood.


Shenley was again the location for the murder of the cat lady with this rather large phallus. It is in fact a work by the artist Herman Makkink and not a movie prop.


It was called The Rocking Machine and first appeared in Dropout a 1970 film by the legendary Tinto Brass which starred Vanessa Redgrave.
The House - Shenley Lodge is now an all girls school called Manor lodge. Take a moment to watch the video on their website for a view of the house and grounds. I dont know that much about the buildings history as to when it was built, but it would seem that at the time Kubrick was shooting it was a health farm owned by the WWII double agent Eddie Chapman aka Agent ZigZag.


Here's the rascal standing outside the lodge he purchased with money given to him by both the MI5 and the Germans. You could not make this stuff up if you tried...

Aubery Morris pulls off a great cameo appearance as Dr Deltoid before taking a short walk down Shenley Road to play another Dr in a future post. On a final note the first edition of A Clockwork Orange in the U.S.A. had the last chapter missing. This was a decision of the American publisher and in no way endorsed by Anthony Burgess, he apparently was not too pleased that it was left out of the movie to. So with the image of alex taking a pee in my bathroom i give you the last paragraph.


But where I itty now, O my brothers, is all on my oddy knocky, where you can not go. Tomorrow is all like sweet flowers and the turning vonny earth and the stars and old luna up there and your old droog alex all on his oddy knocky seeking like a mate. And all that cal. A terrible grahzny vonny world, really, O my brothers. And so farewell from your little droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lipmusic brrrrrr. And they can kiss my sherries. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little alex that was. Amen. And all that cal.