Dennis POTTER's "The Changing Forest" on BBC Radio (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Monday, June 09, 2014, 02:09 (3821 days ago) @ slowhands

This week my favourite radio station, BBC 4 Extra, will be serialising a reading of Dennis Potter's book "The Changing Forest", first published in 1962. Dennis describes a visit to his home area around Berry Hill, Coleford, while up at New College, Oxford in about 1957. As a fan of this book I look forward to these broadcasts, particularly the opening section describing his journey by Red & White double decker from Gloster, with a stop-over at Cinderford's "Telebar" cafe, home of the "Forest's first jukebox". This claim "tickles" me; I was born in '62 just yards below this Cafe and the adjacent Red & White bus garage where my dad worked briefly, and I'm a lifelong fan of 1950s rock & roll music and am the proud owner of a 1957 jukebox. As a huge fan of 50s music & culture and Dennis Potter's works, I think it's great that the only thing he could find appealing about my admittedly less-than-attractive home town was a loud coffeebar & some friendly locals, I was definitely born too late !. For anyone else with a penchant for those days, by happy coincidence yesterday Radio 4 Extra also aired an interesting documentary discussing the early careers of such as Tommy Steele and Terry Dene who are mentioned in Dennis' great book.

The reading will be serialised daily all this week, broadcast 2.15pm with a later repeat. All broadcasts will be available to "listen again" via the BBC iPlayer upto a week after first broadcast.

Listen here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00d6lc3

http://intranet.yorksj.ac.uk/potter/JG_changing_forest.htm

To listen-again to the music documentary which hopefully evokes some good memories for those who were lucky enough to be teenagers in the headly late 1950s, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zq9vm

------------------------------

I'm delighted to see Potter's documentary film "Between Two Rivers" has very recently been posted on Youtube. I wouldn't be surprised if it is removed from the site due to copyright laws, so please catch it while you can.
This documentary was made and narrated by Dennis in 1960, shortly after graduating to become a BBC journalist, quite possibly describing the same visit as the above book;
Returning to the Berry Hill roots of his childhood, Potter used interviews with locals (including his parents) to show changes in the working-class traditions of the Forest of Dean, where "the green forest has a deep black heart beneath its sudden hills, pushing up slag heaps and gray little villages clustering around the coal."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-18719146

http://deanweb.info/dennis%20potter.html

Once again a personal highlight is the scene in a Coleford Cafe complete with obligatory classic 50s jukebox, perhaps not as stylish as my US-built Rock-Ola, but it's probably far less temperamental too !!.
http://www.sungreen.co.uk/Coleford-Glos/Between_two_rivers.html
The Coleford jukebox was a BAL-AMi Model "J" first introduced in 1959, British-made from American roots via Ilford, Essex. Like mine it had a rotary carousel capable of holding one hundred 7"singles giving "200 plays", and valve amplifier and large speakers for a great depth of tone. Love it !
http://bal-ami.com/balhtml/modelj.shtml

Here's a short clip about the making of the coffee-bar scene, narrated by one of the local lads who appeared in the scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcG_0hfGmmM

Watch the film here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv-qUNhU9HI

UPDATE APRIL 2018 - Not unexpectedly and rather sadly Youtube have removed this film, I'll try and upload it again sometime.