Last week we ran a missive from Mrs Karen Holmes, of Shipley, who is researching information about the old Egypt Chapel in Thornton.
Specifically, Mrs Holmes was interested in a BBC play that was shot there in the 1960s, titled Bruno. She also had heard something about firemen who were asked to train their hoses over the Walls of Jericho, as they were known, which ran along the chapel grounds.
Remember When? has since been contacted by Mr Russell Crowther, who not only recalls the play being filmed, but was one of the two firemen in question!
Mr Crowther, now 72, lives near Woodside, in Bradford, and served as a firefighter for 27 years, mainly operating out of the old Nelson Street station.
But that day in the 1960s sticks in his mind, because he was never asked to do a job as unusual before or afterwards. He remembers: “I turned up for work and I was just told that me and another man had to go down to the Egypt Chapel, and that we’d be there all day. We didn’t have a clue what it was about.”
The two firemen were instructed to take an old Green Goddess fire engine, presumably so the job didn’t tie up one of the regular day-to-day appliances which would be needed for emergency work.
When they arrived, they realised they were going to play an important role in a television production – playing their hoses over the Walls of Jericho to simulate rainfall on the other side for the purposes of the cameras!
Mr Crowther says: “There was this director there and he was wearing a cravat and was very enthusiastic. He would say to us, ‘Come along, duckies’!”
So for the day, Mr Crowther and his mate had to pump sprays of water over the walls, while the director ordered take after take for the play.
Sadly, Mr Crowther never saw the play when it was broadcast on TV, and can’t place the exact date of filming, though he thinks it must have been some time after 1964.
But he said: “We were treated like lords on the set. We got these amazing meals in a mobile restaurant that was on site. I’ve never seen anything like it – there were people jumping around, getting very excited. I can remember it as though it was yesterday.”
Mr Crowther recalls that the play was about a vicar trying to save a run-down church. A cursory internet search reveals no further information about Bruno, indicating it has been lost in the mists of television history. If anyone can shed any further light on the production to complement Mr Crowther’s wonderful recollections, we’d love to hear from you here at Remember When?
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