Dr Who In An Exiting Adventure With The Smuggling Sailors

Dr Who In An Exiting Adventure With The Smuggling Sailors

The Complete And Utter History Of Dr WHO? (Part Twenty-Nine)

BENNY and POLTY's adventures in the parts of the Cornish men.

In 'The Smuggling Fellows' POLTY were mostly mistaken for a boy to demonstrate that in the olden days, rough seafaring men were not aware of Gender Issues, but more concerned with getting their hands on each other's baubles and the like.

DRWHOHO met a man in church who said a saucy limerick to him about a pirate's special friends that would allow him access to their secret treasure. What is amusing is that the man said it wrong in Episode One, which is why it took another three weeks to finish the story, when it were only planned as a two-parter originally, but what can you do?

There were much filming in Cornish places, though not a mention of cream teas or scones, which was perhaps an oversight and maybe were a sign that nobody working on the show had ever been West of Woking.

Although this story do not survive, there is the usual Curious telesnapes which give you some ideas and also some footage of the Behind The Scenes filming which show that the man playing Cheerybub the Pirate did all of his lines from behind a bush that he brung with him. Apparently, he regarded this as a Lucky Bush and it can be seen in most things he appears in but actors have all sorts of superstitions like that, I am told!

There were also a nautical man who went by the name of Captain Pyke. In his early pirate days, he would wave his arms around wildly when giving explanations and once he got his hand caught in some unruly rigging and it come to harm and had to be replaced. In the same way that Captain Hook had a hook, Captain Pyke had a special tool all his own and this idea of a man having metal parts would return in the very next story.

The name 'Captain Pyke' were also the inspiration for several characters in 'Dad's Armies' including Captain Square, obviously, and Talfryn Thomas who was tickled when he heard this, apparently.
There were a big fight at the end, but not enough stuntmen to do it as planned, so all the stunt artisans would keep swapping wigs and trousers and could often be seen wrestling enthuiastically with themselves behind gravestones, if you got close to the screen.

One good thing about having the film of the filming of the Behind The Scenes filming is that it shows the rarely-seen Whomocart which were a form of transport that William Hartley-Hare had had specially designed for him by a tipsy bloke he once met running a market stall in Blandford.

It were a rather low-slung affair that could zip under low barriers where a normal car would not be able to pass and were ideal for DRHO to get into special places he might otherwise be denied access.
Although it left the series when Mr Hartley-Hare did, he still used it to open fetes and garden parties when he could not be bothered to turn up himself.

Then DRWHOS found the treasure, but handed it over to the authorities for tax reasons and it got all cold in the TARDIST, possibly because they had left the sunroof up...

Next Episode:

"What do you mean?"

(By Andrew Trowbridge)