The GSPS was formed in 1972, just after The Last Goon Show Of All was recorded at the BBC. Mike Coveney and some of the other founder members were in that exalted audience, and afterwards (in a pub across the road) they vowed that “this shouldn’t be the End …”
And so the GSPS was born. Fifty years later, we’re celebrating having been around for fifty years.
We’ve issued a special Anniversary issue of our newsletter. It looks at that “Last Goon Show Of All”, as well as delving into the newsletter archives and featuring members memories from the last 50 years of the GSPS.
Here’s an article to kick off the Anniversary year. Mark Cousins wrote about his time in the GSPS for Newsletter no.175, the March issue.
The GSPS 50th anniversary year commences…
The case for the defence, or
I was a teenage Goon zombie
It was April, 1972, when Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan stepped into The Camden Theatre to record what would be their last outing as The Goons. Originally called The Goons Benefit Night but later dubbed more appropriately The Last Goon Show Of All, the result was broadcast in November 1972 to a waiting world of Goonatics such as myself. I, like so many others, had applied for one of the few hundred tickets but was unsuccessful. Happily, Princess Anne, Prince Philip and other members of the Royal Family were more fortunate. (Years later when asked, I always told everyone that Princess Anne got my ticket. It can now be exclusively revealed that actually, it was Prince Philip.)
Then in October 1972, with the Goons once more in the ascendant thanks to The Last Goon Show Of All and the BBC’s 50th anniversary, Woburn Press saw an opportunity to publish a clutch of the show’s original scripts. But there were simply not enough Goon Shows to be had. Parlophone had released a few edited LPs and the BBC scarcely if ever repeated the original shows.
So, around the same time as this, two likely Charlies decided that all this needed some kind of preservation. Having dismissed aspic and formaldehyde, they settled on forming what became The Goon Show Preservation Society, cleverly referred to as the GSPS. It was a masterstroke. Linton Culver became the President while Mike Coveney was dubbed the Chairman and the die was cast.
The first GSPS Newsletter appeared in November 1972, cleverly followed by No 2 in September 1973. Would these two masterminds stop at nothing? The annual subscription was 25p. It was a clever ploy to create addicts and it was working. By September 1973, there were almost 500 members.
Later more Goon Show scripts were published by Woburn Press in a volume cunningly titled More Goon Show Scripts, this time with reference to help with the list of all the show titles from The Goon Show Preservation Society together with an address. I suspect that a lot of like-minded fools such as myself saw this and wrote away for details. This was all too good to be true and on the announcement of a gathering in London I went along with a friend to see what the fuss was all about. It was then and there that I met other idiots with the same affliction as my own, including the late great George W Brown and Bob ‘The Man In The White Suit’ Bray to mention only a few, which kindled a lifelong addiction. The damage had been done.
The 7th edition of the newsletter, in October 1974, announced an orgy which was cleverly disguised as a London Meeting. The announcement read, ‘We need the assistance of one or two ladies [it was the 70s] to make coffee, hand round light refreshments…’ The temptation became too great. The next thing I knew I was attending this evening of debauchery known as The London Reunion Meeting, a large gathering at Napier Hall in Victoria with the promise of The Running Jumping Standing Still film, the rarely screened Super Secret Service and a 45-minute talk by Goon Show producer John Browell. By now it was too late. I was hooked. My life would never be the same again.
There followed regular meetings in London to which I felt compelled to go to after work and meet a host of shady characters with the unlikely names of Bill Nunn, Adrian Briggs and John Repsch, to mention only a few. I was beyond saving. Then, not long afterwards, someone came up with the bright idea of going on a march between the BBC and Trafalgar Square with the idea of drawing attention to the lack of broadcast shows. Sucked into a frenzy of all things ‘Goon’, I joined the fray with fellow reprobates including Tina Hammond, Tony Broughton, Bill Nunn, Adrian Briggs, George Brown, Bob Bray and someone who claimed to be John Repsch.
Sensing kindred spirits, I tried to help their poor Goon-starved lives by starting something which I called ‘Goonews’. Weeks turned into years and years turned into decades. My addiction kept on growing. Before I knew where I was, I was volunteering to set up the first GSPS all singing and dancing tape library under the pseudonym of ‘Spools’ in the hope that I could hide my shame behind this mask. I dubbed it SPLAT! (Spools Library of Audio Tapes). By now it was too late. All was lost. Since those heady days, due to a pain in the back of my neck, I haven’t looked back. What’s your excuse?
An old wrinkled member (Prisoner number 31765X, HMS Broadmoor – basement)
All the best, Mark Cousins
The Goon Show Preservation Society 