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ATTENTION PLEASE!

Following the long service of our chairman, John Repsch, he has decided to take a break and pass the chair to somebody else.

We need your help!
We need a new chairperson to help steer the Society towards its main goal, to keep The Goon Show fresh and alive in people’s minds and habits and to spread the word to the world.
We need to keep the pressure on the BBC to broadcast shows, appeal to the public for more lost audio treasures, perhaps encourage theatre groups to perform scripts of shows the BBC no longer holds recordings of, and to help build our archive of everything Goon.
In addition, we need to keep membership growing, and to find a long-term solution regarding our archive.

If you are attracted by this role, please let the Secretary know. Alternatively, if you’d be interested in the secretary role, get in touch anyway. A reshuffle of roles could well be possible [Contact Form]
Please briefly outline your history with the Society and The Goon Show, and your ideas to ensure the GSPS thrives and fulfils its central aim to: ‘… perpetuate enjoyment of The Goon Show among its members and the wider public, by increasing their knowledge and awareness of The Goon Show, including its pleasures and its place in entertainment history.’

It’s your society, so why not become part of the team that runs it?

Please…
and thank you.

Regards, Richard Usher
Secretary (Acting Chairperson), GSPS

This year’s GSPS annual meeting will be held on Saturday, 14th September at
AVENUE HOUSE at STEPHENS HOUSE & GARDENS
17 EAST END ROAD, FINCHLEY,
LONDON N3 3QE

PROGRAMME*
• 10am – Arrivals with Tea & Coffee
Introduction by Richard and summary of AGM Voting and Minutes Discussion
• 11am – The Big Goon Quiz with Prizes including the new Goon Show News book!
• 12.30 – LUNCH BREAK…round the back for the old brandy!
• 1.30pm – Presentation with Gary Brannan from the University of York Borthwick Institute of Archives
• 2.30pm – Goon Show Script Read (just for fun folks!)
• 3.30pm – Screening of Spike’s Holiday Home Movie followed by various Goon related bits & pieces
• 4.30pm – Farewells and Custard Pie Throwing
*Subject to change and the whims and wishes of…well, everyone!

CAFE ON-SITE for coffee, tea and lunches.
BY BUS
Buses 13, 125, 143, 460 and 326 stop nearby.
BY UNDERGROUND
Nearest underground station: Finchley Central on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line. On leaving the station walk up to Regents Park Road, turn left and, at the a504 junction, turn left again into East End Road. The house is on the left.

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The September edition of Goon Show News is being pushed through letterboxes. It’s a hefty 40 pages, and it left a dent when it hit my floor.

Among the articles, there’s:
an appreciation of Telegoons’ puppeteer Ann Perrin who passed away in May,
exciting news about preservation of the GSPS’ archives,
an origin story about Minnie Bannister,
the story of Spike Milligan growing up (as told in the 1969 Judy for Girls annual!)
and lots more interesting history.

The newsletter is published quarterly and sent to all of our members. If you’re not getting it, why not join the GSPS. You won’t be disappointed.

Sad news has reached us at the GSPS of the passing of Ann Perrin on 24th May this year.

Many members will be aware of Ann’s involvement with the Goons as one of the puppeteers who made the Telegoons films.
Others will remember Ann’s attendance at several GSPS London meetings, usually accompanied by her Eccles puppet. Or her story, as part of Telegoons issues of our newsletters. Indeed, she had been due to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Telegoons at our meeting last September, only to be thwarted by a rail strike.

Our condolences go to Robin and all the family.

Take a look at Anne’s websites – blog – puppethouse – YouTube – to get a flavour of her puppetry, poetry and much more

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Anne’s funeral will be at 1pm on Monday 17th June 2024 at the Downs Crematorium in Brighton, followed by a celebration of her amazing life at The Downs Hotel in Woodingdean.

A date has been set for The Annual Gathering!
14th September, 2024
Gather at 10.00am and enjoy the meeting until about 5.00pm.

As a trial this year, there’s a slight change in procedure.
It’s not being called the AGM any more, which means that the annual casting of votes and hunt for persons to take up committee positions is being taken online and will take place prior to the September meeting. The results will probably still be announced at the meeting and formally minuted.
If you don’t think we have your email address, please send it in.

The venue is the same as the last couple of years, Stephens House and Gardens, Finchley, where you can sit and have a chat with a bronze Spike Milligan and share his bench. We shall also ask whether his daughters might be available to show you around ‘The Lodge’ and Spike’s archives rescued from his offices in Bayswater.

Speakers etc to be announced in September issue.

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Saturday 14th September 2024, 10:00am to 5:00pm
in the Stephens Room at Stephens House and Gardens,
Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley, London N3 3QE

Lunch is available to buy at Inky’s Stables Café on the premises.

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June has arrived and, right on time, the June issue of the GSPS newsletter is arriving in our members’ letterboxes, mailboxes and wherever else they like to keep it.

It’s a bumper 40 page issue with articles on the Windmill Theatre, the Goonist Movement, Wallace Greenslade, various bits of news, and a super new strip cartoon – The Adventures of Seagoon! – by Hunt Emerson and Ian Fraser.

The newsletter is published quarterly and sent to all of our members. If you’re not getting it, why not join the GSPS. You won’t be disappointed.

Our own Neddie Seagoon returns to the airwaves this month in a newly rediscovered and restored recording. It’s an episode of Hancock’s Half Hour which was originally broadcast on the BBC Light Programme on 10^th May 1955.

The history is that, as the second series was about to begin, Tony Hancock fled to Italy while suffering “nervous exhaustion”. The producer, Dennis Main Wilson (of Goon Show series 1 and 2 fame) turned to Harry Secombe to fill in for Hancock, a stint which lasted for three episodes. Hancock came back before the show was renamed ‘Secombe’s Half Hour’ and in the fourth episode ‘A Visit to Swansea‘ Hancock goes to Swansea to thank Harry for filling in. This is the episode which has been rediscovered.

Sadly, no original recordings exist of the other three episodes which starred Harry Secombe. However, they were remade in 2017 for the Missing Hancock’s series, with Andy Secombe playing the part of his dad.
Those 2017 recordings are available to listen to here on BBC Sounds.

The recovered and restored ‘A Visit to Swansea‘ will make its debut on BBC Radio 4 Extra at 6.15pm on Sunday 12^th May, introduced by our friends from the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society. It’s part of five hours of programming on that evening to celebrate the centenary of Tony Hancock’s birth.
Link to the newly restored show on BBC Sounds

March 10^th this year marked the centenary of the birth of the Goon Show’s musical maestro, Angela Morley, born as Wally Stott in 1924.

In the latest issue of Goon Show News, we ran a tribute to mark the occasion.

BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast the documentary Musical Variations: The Life of Angela Morley of 15^th March as a tribute. It’s available to stream from BBC Sounds using this link.

more on Wally Stott / Angela Morley

Since early in the days of the GSPS we’ve been aware that there was the Goonist Movement, a Goon Show fan club in the 1950s. However, apart from getting a glimpse of one newsletter years ago, no one had ever tracked down any information. And yes, we did try using Google….

In a last ditch effort, a GSPS investigation team placed notices in the GSPS newsletter and this website last year, asking if anyone had information. The response was very slow to begin with, but eventually tip-offs flooded in at a rate of one.

Fortunately, that one turned out to be a good one. A gentleman named Ian Gilbert said he thought there might be some material buried in family keepsakes which he’d inherited from older relatives. That material turned out to be a full set of the Movement’s newsletters. Ian was good enough to allow our chief investigator, Chris Smith, to make scanned copies of them.

It turns out that this fan club was formed in January 1956 by a lady called Rayna Allen and friends. They had some success and were in contact with the Goons. Monthly newsletters were distributed and there was some access to tickets for show recordings. Sadly, running the club through the communications technology of the 1950s appears to have become too much, and it came to an end by the end of that year.

Scanned copies of the Goonist Movement newsletters are being added to the GSPS Digital Archive and the full story will appear in the next issue of Goon Show News. We’re greatly obliged to Ian Gilbert for his help in filling this blank in the history of The Goon Show.