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Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Entertainer and singer, best known for the theme song of the television series 'Dixon of Dark Green'.
Eight records
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
If I Had a Talking Picture of You
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
I'm Getting Sentimental Over You
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Or, Jack, would you call yourself a musical person?
Well, I think so. Uh Roy, I like music very much indeed and I was taught to play the piano when I was a small boy. Also I was taught to play the viola. We had an orchestra at home, you know, with my brothers and sisters. … seven or eight or nine piece. It depends which of our friends came in to help us.
Presenter asks
You didn't start in show business right away when you left school, did you, Jack? What did you do?
No, Roy, no, no. I I was very keen on motor cars when I was young, and uh when I left school I started work in a garage, sweeping up the floor at twopence an hour. … I [was] mad about cars, because I got on from the sweeping up the floor to pulling it to pieces and so on and so forth.
Presenter asks
How did the entertainment business become part of your life?
Well, Roy, I mean, I've been entertaining in public since I was nine years of age. … I was always torn between the two, torn between motor cars and torn between singing songs. In fact, I sold a lot of cars while telling funny stories.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
Or, Jack, would you call yourself a musical person?
Jack Warner
Well, I think so. Uh Roy, I like music very much indeed and
Jack Warner
I was taught to play the piano when I was a small boy. Also I was taught to play the viola. We had an orchestra at home, you know, with my brothers and sisters. Really? How big? Oh, well, you know, seven or eight or nine piece. It depends which of our friends came in to help us.
Presenter
Yeah. Where did you play?
Jack Warner
Oh, we played at concerts and dinners and things like that. Only semi professionally, of course, or rather as habitatists.
Presenter
There are
Jack Warner
What was the orchestra called? It was called uh E. W. Walters Bijou Orchestra.
Presenter
Yeah.
Jack Warner
Uh
Presenter
Of course Waters is your real name. Waters is my legal name, yes. And for anyone who doesn't know, Elsie and Doris are your sister. That is perfectly true, yes. You didn't start in show business right away when you left school, did you, Jack?
Jack Warner
No, Roy, no, no. I I was very keen on motor cars when I was young, and uh when I left school I started work in a garage, sweeping up the floor at twopence an hour.
Presenter
Yes.
Jack Warner
I was mad about cars, because I got on from the sweeping up the floor to pulling it to pieces and so on and so forth. And I always remember one thing sticks in my mind about this.
Presenter
Uh
Jack Warner
There was one old mechanic there, he was always fond of drinking cups of tea and he always used to come and stand by me and watch me work, was I you know, I loved the job and I used to work pretty fast and he came up to me one day and he said, You know,
Jack Warner
He says, You don't want to work as hard as that, mate. It won't get you anywhere. Let's have another cup of tea.
Presenter
Uh
Jack Warner
Yeah.
Presenter
How long did you stay in that garage, Jack?
Jack Warner
Well, actually, I was only there just over twelve months, because my English boss got interested in the manufacture of a car in Paris.
Jack Warner
And he wanted a young lad to go over there and learn about this new car and learn French and also uh teach the
Jack Warner
one of the directors English over there, you see, so I was very lucky in being chosen to
Jack Warner
go over there. And uh after some time of being in the works I I became an assistant tester.
Jack Warner
And from then on, as the years went by, I
Jack Warner
Well, I took up motor racing when I came back to England, which was very exciting.
Presenter
Mm-hmm. You did quite a lot of motor racing. You you were in a Monte Carlo rally on the market.
Jack Warner
I did a Monte Carlo rally, yes, only one. It was very, very enjoyable, very exciting. But I did most of my driving at Brooklyn's actually.
Presenter
When
Jack Warner
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah. The entertainment
Jack Warner
Business become part of your life? Well, Roy, I mean, I've been entertaining in public since I was nine years of age. Really?
Presenter
Yeah.
Jack Warner
Oh oh yes, absolutely, this is part time. And I was always torn between the two, torn between motor cars and torn between singing songs. In fact, I sold a lot of cars while telling funny stories.
Presenter
When did you decide to be a full-time professional entertainer?
Jack Warner
Well, I suppose it's all about nearly thirty years ago now. I teamed up with a friend of mine, Jeff Darnell, who strangely enough wrote the music of our theme song, Dixon of Dark Green.
Jack Warner
I started doing a lot of cabaret with him, uh and uh
Jack Warner
After a while we parted quite amicably, and I and I went on my own.
Presenter
Well, you had started your career as a full-time entertainer. What was the first important job that came along, Jerry?
Jack Warner
Well, after the cabaret work I was talking about, I I went into the folder roles, you know, Rex Newman's folder rolls. Those people seem to have started from that.
Presenter
Yes, yes.
Presenter
Who was with you that year?
Jack Warner
Well that particular year I I had Arthur Askey and Nicky Murdoch and Walter Midgley, you know, the international techno it was a very smart people.
Presenter
Yeah.
Jack Warner
And then you did a lot of variety? I did quite a lot of variety, yes. And in fact, uh I had struggled to get to the top of the bill. And I got there the week the war broke out, so there were only about fifteen people in the theatre every night. That's my first week at the top of the bill. I asked them all to come and sit in the front row, you know.
Presenter
I offered
Presenter
Oh dear. And then of course the theatre's closed down for a bit. What do you do?
Jack Warner
End of Yeah.
Presenter
Uh
Jack Warner
Well then uh
Jack Warner
I I noted that the B B C were
Jack Warner
going to stop playing records and ask for live artists and I sent a wire to the booking manager and said any chance for me?
Jack Warner
And uh back came a reply, Can you do two broadcasts next week, which I was very thankful for.
Jack Warner
And uh that was really the start of the biggest thing that happened to me in those days, of Garrison Theatre.
Presenter
Ah yes.
Jack Warner
Yeah.
Presenter
My my b
Jack Warner
My my bike, little girl and the bunga-upper rat holes, and all that.
Presenter
Yes, the big radio success of the early war years. Then you took the show to the Palladium, I remember. Yes.
Jack Warner
Yes, we were there for three and a half months and then we
Presenter
Uh
Jack Warner
Yeah.
Presenter
I went on tour with it for two years.
Presenter
Then at the end of the war you began a brand new and quite sensational career in films. In fact, in one year you were voted the most popular film actor of that year.
Jack Warner
Yes, that was in 1950 actually.
Presenter
Which of those films do you like to remember, particularly?
Jack Warner
Well, I I I remember three very specially, because the first one was the captive hard.
Jack Warner
That was the first real picture I was in.
Presenter
Prisoner of war film.
Jack Warner
A prisoner of war film, yes.
Presenter
Prisoner.
Jack Warner
And and then uh of course holiday camp where I met Kathleen Harrison and
Jack Warner
The uh Huggett radio programs came from that. We did that radio program for nine years. And then of course the biggest thing was the blue lamp.
Presenter
Uh
Jack Warner
Yeah.
Presenter
A blue lamp which led to another big turning point in
Jack Warner
All right, that's right.
Presenter
What's right?
Jack Warner
It's an extraordinary thing, you know, Roy, the way things turn out.
Jack Warner
But uh quite a lot of people have tried to persuade me not to do that part in the Blue Lamb. They said it's only a small part and after seventeen minutes you're going to be shot and you disappear altogether. Well,
Jack Warner
I I'm not a prophet by any manner of means, but after I read that script I said, well I want to do this very much because I have a feeling that this this policeman, P C George Dixon, is going right to the end of this film and maybe a little further, I don't know, but honestly I didn't realise how prophetic those words were when I said them.
Jack Warner
And uh that's what's happened, you see.
Presenter
Yes, and indeed P C Dixon was shot and killed right earlier in the blue lap.
Jack Warner
He was it.
Presenter
Hmm.
Presenter
And after the film version there was a a stage version of the play.
Jack Warner
Yes, we had a there was stage version up in uh up in Blackwell. We were there for a season and we were at the Hippodrome for a while in London.
Presenter
Do we have
Jack Warner
And uh I didn't play the part of P C George Dixon, I played the part of an inspector. But uh I was very glad that the the public accepted it. I don't suppose that uh
Jack Warner
The managements would have liked me to have been knocked off about a quarter of an hour before the interval and not be seen anymore, so they made me an inspector.
Presenter
Or the interval will not be seen in.
Presenter
Who did play Dixon in in in the stage play? Hmm.
Jack Warner
Uh oh, dear old Gordon Harker. He was wonderful too. And when did the television series start? In July 1955. We're in our eighth year now. How many episodes does that mean? Well, it must be up around the oh over a hundred and seventy five.
Presenter
That's a lot of screen time.
Presenter
Do you find you're so identified with the part now that people really do believe that you're a policeman?
Jack Warner
Oh, yes. You'll be surprised. I mean, George Dixon's pushed Jack Warner right off a map.
Jack Warner
I was out filming the other day and a man stopped in his car and asked me the way to a certain place. Fortunately I knew where he wanted to go, but I'm quite certain he'll never know that he wasn't talking to a real copper.
Presenter
A rewarding thing about the party is that you can give some good advice, especially to children, that is taken notice of.
Jack Warner
Well, these little things that I say at the end of each episode, you know, it's extraordinary if I do
Jack Warner
Uh at some time or other I don't always say the same thing about crossing the road and so on, but if I do say certain things that have sort of sunk in
Jack Warner
If I don't say them the following week, I get letters from the kiddies saying, Please will you say that again, as my brother Willie didn't hear it, and he takes more notice of you than he does of his father, that when it becomes a responsibility, you know.
Presenter
Is it there?
Presenter
A Dixon of Dot Green is is pretty well a full-time job. You don't get time to do much else.
Jack Warner
No, no, no.
Presenter
No, we woke from Monday morning. Total.
Jack Warner
Yeah.
Presenter
Uh
Jack Warner
Uh
Presenter
Saturday Yeah. No other time.
Presenter
Have you any particular ambition in show business, so far unfulfilled?
Jack Warner
Well
Jack Warner
I would like very much to
Jack Warner
Do some more variety.
Jack Warner
which I feel sure will come back not perhaps quite so much but it will be back because it's nothing like a live show but I would really like to have the thing turn full circle and be back in a West End play on the in the real theatre, you know? Yes. That's what I'd like to do more than anything.
Presenter asks
Which of those films do you like to remember, particularly?
Well, I I I remember three very specially, because the first one was the captive hard [The Captive Heart]. That was the first real picture I was in. … And then of course the biggest thing was the blue lamp [The Blue Lamp]. … quite a lot of people have tried to persuade me not to do that part in the Blue Lamb [Blue Lamp]. They said it's only a small part and after seventeen minutes you're going to be shot and you disappear altogether. … I said, well I want to do this very much because I have a feeling that this this policeman, P C George Dixon, is going right to the end of this film and maybe a little further, I don't know, but honestly I didn't realise how prophetic those words were when I said them.
Presenter asks
Do you find you're so identified with [the part of Dixon] now that people really do believe that you're a policeman?
Oh, yes. You'll be surprised. I mean, George Dixon's pushed Jack Warner right off a map. … I was out filming the other day and a man stopped in his car and asked me the way to a certain place. Fortunately I knew where he wanted to go, but I'm quite certain he'll never know that he wasn't talking to a real copper.
Presenter asks
Have you any particular ambition in show business, so far unfulfilled?
Well … I would like very much to do some more variety … but I would really like to have the thing turn full circle and be back in a West End play on the in the real theatre, you know? … That's what I'd like to do more than anything.
“I was mad about cars, because I got on from the sweeping up the floor to pulling it to pieces and so on and so forth. And I always remember one thing sticks in my mind about this. … There was one old mechanic there, he was always fond of drinking cups of tea and he always used to come and stand by me and watch me work, was I you know, I loved the job and I used to work pretty fast and he came up to me one day and he said, You know, He says, You don't want to work as hard as that, mate. It won't get you anywhere. Let's have another cup of tea.”
“I was always torn between the two, torn between motor cars and torn between singing songs. In fact, I sold a lot of cars while telling funny stories.”
“And I had struggled to get to the top of the bill. And I got there the week the war broke out, so there were only about fifteen people in the theatre every night. That's my first week at the top of the bill. I asked them all to come and sit in the front row, you know.”
“I said, well I want to do this very much because I have a feeling that this this policeman, P C George Dixon, is going right to the end of this film and maybe a little further, I don't know, but honestly I didn't realise how prophetic those words were when I said them.”
“Oh, yes. You'll be surprised. I mean, George Dixon's pushed Jack Warner right off a map.”
“If I don't say them the following week, I get letters from the kiddies saying, Please will you say that again, as my brother Willie didn't hear it, and he takes more notice of you than he does of his father, that when it becomes a responsibility, you know.”