James Nason remembers the exciting prospect of going prop-hunting with his father who was employed by British Pathé's TV commercial team in the 1960s
Prop-hunting in the 60s occasioned some exciting moments for a young boy, says James Nason
In the 1960s, my father, George ‘Bill’ Nason, worked in London as a properties-buyer for Associated British Pathé at 103-109 Wardour Street, where they specialised in making TV commercials.
I used to watch the filming from the studio’s lighting gallery and I remember commercials for Toffee Crisp and Fanta. For a Sugar Puffs ad, two bears were housed in one of the dressing rooms, where they smeared soap over all the mirrors.
Having designed the set, the art director, Peter Moll, would hand my father a list of the props needed. He would set off in his Vauxhall estate wagon and call on prop-hire companies to place orders.
After my mother died in 1962, my father had no choice during my school holidays but to take me on his errands. Regular places of call included Louis Koch in Cleveland Street and Old Times Furniture Hire in Putney for antique furniture; Oscar Woollens in Hampstead and Roy Moore at Isleworth for modern furniture; Stroud’s at Stoke Newington for trees and plants; and Studio and Television Hire in John Islip Street for everything else.
Traffic wardens were a menace. So my father would leave me in the car where my job was to avoid fines by saying, ‘Dad’s just gone to the toilet and will be back in a minute.’
The rear door of the estate wagon would open like the jaws of a python to receive the smaller items which we would transport back to Wardour Street.
My favourite port of call was Bapty & Co at 9 Macklin Street in Covent Garden – the leading supplier of weaponry for films. As a nine-year-old, I was fascinated by guns and knives. Dad allowed me to come into the store, where I could stare at the suits of armour, crossbows, machine-guns, rifles, swords, revolvers, bayonets and hand grenades.
On one visit to Bapty in 1964, I noticed an Arab gentleman in a Western suit examining a revolver, which had a grip with a mother-of-pearl inlay. Our eyes met and this gentleman gave me a very friendly smile.
While going down the stairs back out into Macklin Street, I asked my father who that nice man was.
‘That, my dear Jimmy, was King Hussein of Jordan.’
