News

With 45 years of continuous operation the Probus Club of Basingstoke has just held its 44^th Annual General meeting.

It was formed in 1979 under the sponsorship of the Rotary Club of Basingstoke to provide fellowship for retired professional and businessmen. Today membership consists of men with a wide array of backgrounds from ex- military, legal, scientific, medical, civil engineering, insurance, local government, civil service, car dealerships, small business owners and managers with international experience.

The newly appointed president, Stephen Thair, is a retired solicitor and the vice president, John Swain, was a bank note design manager. Secretary Andrew Barton worked five years at the EC in Brussels followed by an international oil company, Treasurer, Dr Jeff Grover was a nuclear scientist, Publicity officer, Paul Flint had a design and printing business in Basingstoke, and Outings Organiser, Chris Perkins MVO, retired from the RAF with the rank of Squadron Leader.

The club’s officers are completed with Michael Luck as Programme Secretary (speaker finder) who was a consultant specialising in credit card payment systems and Dr Nick Waring, a retired GP, is the Welfare officer. Paul Miller will provide specialist support in some circumstances.

When the Equalities Act came into force, it gave protected interest groups freedom to choose their rules about membership. There were some Probus Clubs across the UK that decided to accept women members, however, this was not the case in Basingstoke. Although the decision reached was to remain purely as a club for retired men, this was assisted by having a well-established Ladies’ Probus club in Basingstoke, that also decided to remain true to their founders and not to admit men to their ranks.

That is not to say that the genders remain separate as most months there are occasions when they meet up or simply that the wives of members join their menfolk for meals and outings to interesting places.

The Probus Club of Basingstoke have their business meetings at the Test Valley Golf club followed by lunch. Their July meeting has as their speaker, member David Wickens, whose subject is ‘Lord’ George Sanger – who, in his day, was described as Britain’s greatest showman. August sees their annual Summer Pub lunch which includes their ladies, due to take place at the Bolton Arms in Old Basing.

Grouping together the visit to Winchester Theatre Royal and Winchester College ensured that we had good coverage in most of the local magazines. The Link (Oakley & surrounds) did not feature us and at the time of publishing this report I have not seen the June edition of the Loddon Valley Link (Sherfield) but they are reluctant to carry our reports.

You will see that the Kempshott Kourier, continuing to be two weeks late, is their May edition where they gave a good deal of space for the S.O.E. training at Beaulieu. Likewise, the CommunityAd magazine for Overton, Oakley & Kempshott being behind our schedule also gave good coverage to the Beaulieu report.

The annual Spring Ladies’ lunch was held at the Test Valley Golf club where together with their wives/lady friends the members enjoyed a splendid lunch. The president of the Basingstoke Ladies’ Probus club, Val McKenzie, was the guest of Honour and felt at home as several of the wives/partners are themselves members of Ladies’ Probus. This is their thirtieth year of continuous operation, and they meet monthly in the restaurant at BCOT.

A reciprocal arrangement will take place at the next meeting of the Ladies’ Probus club as the men’s president, Dr Jeff Grover, will attend as their guest of honour. This will be his final representation as president as his period of office concludes at the club’s 44^th AGM which takes place in June.

Sixteen members of the Probus Club of Basingstoke met up in Winchester for a busy full day’s excursion. The itinerary included a backstage visit to the Theatre Royal in the morning followed by a conducted tour of Winchester College after lunch.

We were hosted by two extremely knowledgeable guides and given an extensive insight into the theatre’s history whilst comfortably seated in the front stalls of the auditorium.

From its initial conversion from a Market Hotel in the 1850s, they appraised us of the many subsequent developments that took place, from the days of cine-variety, live theatre and through to modern day ‘live streaming’ technology of films or other national performances.

Afterwards we were split into two parties and given a tour that explored all levels of the theatre, from the stage, 400-seat auditorium and dressing rooms to climbing the ‘fly tower’ used to hang lighting, scenery and stage effects during a show.

As arranged we were then met after lunch by our experienced and professional guide at the Porter’s Lodge of Winchester College, the alma mater of Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. Founded in 1382 by the Bishop of Winchester, William of Wykeham, as a feeder school to New College, Oxford it set vigorous academic standards which are being upheld today. Previous pupils are known as “Old Wykehamists” and only in 2022 were girls admitted but then only in the sixth form.

In the decade up to the academic year 2022/23 they had impressive results in ‘A’ levels with 33% gaining a place at Oxford or Cambridge. There are over 300 staff with only 740 pupils.

The tour focussed on College’s historic architecture. With extensive grounds of over 250 acres there are 94 listed buildings with the first, the Chamber Court being completed in 1384. There are eleven boarding houses each with a housemaster who sometimes set their own entrance examinations. The guided tour included visiting the 1394 Gothic chapel, the College Hall refectory, the Cloisters and the 17^th century red brick Schoolroom.

The report about S.O.E. training at Beaulieu was well received in the local magazines with the Villager giving over a full page (which is why their cover is a separate illustration).

The CommunityAd magazine for Overton, Oakley & Kempshott always appears late in the month which is why their double page spread is about Gilbert & Sullivan, as is the perennially late Kempshott Kourier which also features Gilbert & Sullivan.

Visitors to the national Car Museum at Beaulieu, in the New Forest, may have spotted a building close to Palace House which is a museum about the training that took place in WW2 for the S.O.E. Inside is an exhibition about the Secret Army.

The Special Operations Executive was the subject of the latest talk at the Probus Club of Basingstoke by speaker Nick Saunders who is a part time archivist at the Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum in Winchester.

The S.O.E. was set up in 1940 on instructions of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, to “Set Europe ablaze” by conducting espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German occupied Europe and to aid local resistance movements.

It was not an easy formation as sections of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) refused to share facilities in signals training and other sections of the Military top brass also denied the use of their training places. While the S.O.E. had its headquarters in Baker Street, London, opposite the fictional address of Sherlock Holmes, all training took place around the country.

The organisation generated different unofficial names, The Baker Street Irregulars, Churchill’s Secret Army, Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare with the most apt, Stately ‘omes of England, as many country houses and private estates were requisitioned. Several such large properties existed around the Beaulieu estate and served as training bases specialising in the dark arts of guerrilla activities.

For security reasons nationalities were kept apart during their time in the S.O.E. to ensure that if captured they would not be able to disclose any knowledge of comparative secret operations in other countries. So effective was this compartmentalising of nationalities that in 1942 five governments in exile, who suggested setting up some form of training for agents to be dropped into occupied countries, were surprised to learn that the S.O.E. had been in operation for two years.

Silent killing, parachute skills, radios, Morse code and weapons training were the main courses. Burglary skills were taught as agents would need to access occupied buildings with tests being given of breaking into Palace House and stealing a bank cheque but without leaving any signs of entry.

Suitcase Radio and Secret Weapons for use by agents

It was imperative that their agents had a good knowledge of a particular country and that their language skills were sufficient to pass as a native. Although 13,000 agents underwent training, which included 3,000 at the Beaulieu Finishing School, there were many women who undertook the same training and had volunteered to assume roles in German occupied countries.

The Germans knew about what was happening at Beaulieu and named it The Gangster School. Among the 175 staff at Beaulieu were Guy Burgess and Kim Philby, who later, unearthed as Soviet spies, absconded to Russia. They taught mind games on how to undermine German morale.

The agents dropped into occupied countries should not be compared to the fictional BBC TV series ‘Allo ‘Allo! which was a wartime sitcom about the French Resistance with the farcical events set around a café, as many agents were captured, tortured and executed.

The results of our publicity in the April local magazines were reasonably well received but the Villager and the Loddon Valley Link failed to include our offering. The CommunityAd magazine for Overton, Oakley & Kempshott which is now monthly, gave us one and half pages.

The Kempshott Kourier shown is their March edition.

The speaker, Dr Stephen Goss, immersed the members of the Probus Club in his subject as he delved into the background of some of the famous and amusing operettas created by Gilbert and Sullivan in the nineteenth century.

Although one member, as a schoolboy, had taken part in a performance many members had not seen such performances on stage. And yet, most of these works are well known and it came easy to hear renditions of several of the popular songs.

Seeing the words on a large screen brought home the skill of the librettist. The audiences of the day were drawn towards the clever writing rather than the accompanying music of the more famous composer, Arthur Sullivan, that made the credits change to Gilbert and Sullivan.

Arthur Seymour Sullivan had been brought up in a musical household where his father was a band master and as a child Arthur was a chorister in the Chapel Royal. He attended the Royal Academy of Music and following three years at the Leipzig Conservatory, he initially struggled to make a living as a conductor, organist, teacher and choir master. He wrote serious music including for royal occasions and became well known as England’s most promising composer.

William Schwenck Gilbert had a variety of jobs most of which needed a good level of expertise in the English language. He had been a civil servant, a barrister, a comic journalist and became a captain in the militia. He drew on the experiences from these occupations writing four plays a year for ten years.

It was interesting to discover the witty commentary on contemporary society, with a look at the stories behind some of most famous pieces of music. WS Gilbert developed the ‘topsy-turvy’ words that become so familiar, and Arthur Sullivan was able to compose music that suited each situation.

They wrote fourteen comic operas between 1871 – 1896 with the most popular being HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. They were hugely successful with HMS Pinafore having an initial run of 571 performances and within a year was on the stage in USA and across the world.

The thinly veiled satire of some of the plots was uncovered to the enjoyment of the audience, along with the unmasking of characters which were deliberate parodies of specific Victorian politicians and notables. Gilbert’s political satire often provoked fun at the wealthy and powerful whom Sullivan sought out for friendship and patronage.

Richard D’Oyly Carte brought Gilbert and Sullivan together and nurtured their collaboration. He built the Savoy Theatre in 1881 to present their joint works which became known as the Savoy Operas and was the first public building in the world to be lit by electricity. The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company was formed just to promote these operettas and performed over 35,000 Gilbert and Sullivan’s creations, only closing in1982.

Gilbert and Sullivan had the attention of Victorian society with the wit and satire appealing to popular audiences but was forecast to be transitory. Today, 140 years later they are still enjoyed throughout the English speaking world.

A good result with all seven local magazines carrying our report. The Kempshott Kourier, late again, is their February edition showing the cricket report while the others are about the visit of the Mayor and Mayoress and the talk about the BBC which even achieved coverage in the Basingstoke Gazette.

Guests of Honour at the latest Probus Club meeting at the Test Valley Golf Club were the Mayor and Mayoress of Basingstoke & Deane, Cllr David and Amanda Leeks. The club made a donation to the mayor’s charity appeal.

Before lunch they enjoyed a trip down memory lane as they were entertained by the speaker Jenny Mallin. She gave an insight into how the BBC Television Centre was designed and what TV production life was in the seventies. This was through her experiences gained over seven years working at the BBC Television Centre at White City in Wood Lane.

The name White City came from the 120 white painted buildings and 20 pavilions specially constructed for the Franco British exhibition of 1908 on a site of 140 acres near Shepherds Bush in West London. It was attended by over 8 million visitors. The White City stadium was a last minute addition for use at the 1908 Olympics where for the first time gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded. The stadium was demolished in 1985. Over the years the site was used for other exhibitions and redeveloped for other uses including the building of the BBC Television Centre.

Known as the ‘Donut’ because of the circular central core it was the most technically advanced and fully embracing television production centre with eight studios, full props and wardrobe departments and was the best in the world. The attention to detail in programme making was paramount.

Despite such comprehensive supporting facilities, there was an increasing requirement for some programmes that needed an audience, so the nearby Shepherds Bush Green Empire was used. Eventually the BBC purchased it, becoming then known as the BBC Television Theatre. Programmes broadcast from here included the Billy Cotton Band Show, What’s My Line, Juke Box Jury, Crackerjack, the Black & White Minstrels, That’s Life and the Generation Game among many others.

Jenny recalled her time on the Generation Game as a Contestant Researcher and Games Deviser to three years on Mastermind with Magnus Magnusson and a myriad of disc jockeys on Top of the Pops and whether songs were sung live or mimed.

How news programmes were put together with breaking news events that demanded being featured with split seconds decisions on what to drop from the programme. News film taking up to an hour to process even after arriving at the BBC and then the introduction of ENG, electronic news gathering, with the use of camcorder type recordings taken by outside reporters.

Memories were stirred as Probus members enjoyed this nostalgic view of a simpler life when the only decision to be made about what to watch on the “telly” was whether your choice was on the BBC or on ITV.