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By Dave Worrall
Last Friday (April 24th) saw scriptwriter Jimmy
Perry as the guest speaker at The Lunch Club, a monthly networking club for
people who work in the media industry. Perry, now a spritely 87, is the 'other
half' of writing team Jimmy Perry and David Croft, who have written some of the
most successful BBC comedy shows in the history of British television, including
Dad's Army, It Ain't Half Hot Mom and
Hi-De-Hi!
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Perry started his career as a bit-part actor before
turning to writing, and was awarded an OBE in 1978 for his services to the TV
industry. Many of the sitcoms Perry co-wrote with Croft drew heavily on his
personal experience: at 17 he joined the Watford Home Guard (Dad's
Army); two years later he was called up into the regular forces, and was
sent to Burma with the Royal Artillery, where he joined the Royal Artillery
Concert Party (It Ain't Half Hot, Mum). Demobbed and back in the UK, he
trained as an actor at RADA, spending his holidays working as a Redcoat in
Butlin's Holiday Camps (Hi-de-Hi). His grandfather had worked as a
butler, and Jimmy heard many anecdotes about life "below stairs", which served
as a basis for You Rang, M'Lord?
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The club gathers at Hush, a restaurant in the
centre of London, for a networking lunch once a month,and members enjoy a drink
and chat during a 3-hour period, which always includes a speaker. Past guests
have included Sir Roger Moore, Ray Harryhausen, Ronald Neame, Ken Annakin,
Richard Keil, Guy Hamilton and Jack Cardiff, to name but a few. The
lunch club was established in 1994, by producer Martin Cahill, as a non-profit
making, and politically neutral, networking society and has grown to become the
film, tv and media industry's premiere café du commerce. The lunch club also hosts three or four
networking evenings each year, such as Question Time, The Film World Meets The
Book World, Quiz Night and An Evening With ... many of which are free or
subsidised to members. Membership is inexpensive and open to all in the media
business. The club can be contacted via their web site www.lunch-club.org.uk (Photo: Sylvan Whittingham Mason/
www.sylvanmason.com)
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