From research notes for a book to be called 'A Century of Slapstick'


1911


- That's him, see, the one on the left. With the cap on, smiling. Looks like the sun's in his eyes. Well, it's sunny out there all the time, isn't it? Now the chap to his right they tell me is Mack Sennett - you know, did all those Keystone Cops films. Uncle Jack was one of them Keystone Cops at first. A lot were - before they made names for theirselves.

- What year was this taken, Mr Winsdale?

- It's written on the back, look. 1911.

- Oh, yes. "Hollywood, 1911."

- Year I was born.

- Really? And how old would your uncle have been then?

- I remember him, mind. He came back when I was thirteen. And he died a couple of years before the war. Now he was six years older than my mother, I know that. And she was born in 1891. So that makes him ...

- ... About 26 in the photograph.

- He'd been doing the halls for ... ooh, a good many years before he went off over to America. Worked with a troupe of acrobats called The Devil-May-Cares. Uncle Jack was no more than a lad then and they did this tumbling act round the music halls. How he learnt to fall, see. Cos the film people they couldn't believe it the falls he used to do. Fall off a two-storey house he could and not hurt hisself.

- So he was your mother's brother?

- Sorry, you'll have to ... deaf in this ear.

- WAS HE YOUR MOTHER'S BROTHER?

- My mother's family were all music-hall people, yes. But he thought he'd try his luck in America. Hadn't a farthing when he set out but it didn't take him long to do well. He had a talent. Wait a minute. I can show you his old films, if you like.

- Please do.

- Someone put all of his bits onto one tape for me. Here it is. Oh, ta. Would you mind? Can't work these contraptions. Telly on? Good - oh yes - now he's one of the Keystone Cops here, but I'm blowed if I can work out which one.

- The one falling out of the wagon - er - NOW, perhaps?

- They must have been tough nuts, musn't they? Imagine being dragged along like that. They must have been black and blue all over by the finish. Oh, we've jumped. Yes, now this is from one of the films where he had a proper part. That's him in the bathing suit.

- The stripey one?

- See he wasn't a big chap. Very lean, he was. All muscle. He's on the diving board, see. Now watch - lovely swallow dive he does. There he goes. And instead of water - splat - they've filled the pool with black oil.

- Eurgh.

- Comes up to the surface, spits a mouthful of it out and just grins.

- Was it real oil, do you know?

- He had a cheeky grin, didn't he? Oh ha ha. Now these still make me laugh.

- The custard pie fights?

- Chaos. Look at all that lovely chaos. There must be what - a couple a dozen chaps or more in there all chucking those flans about. It must have been fun now and then, eh? Mind, I can remember him saying it was a right bugger to clean off afterwards. They used to fill them pies with flour and water paste. Well, you can't get that off, can you? That's the stuff we used to make do for glue at school. Sticky.

- Did he talk much about what it was like making those films?

- Oh look - here he comes now at the top of the stairs. The head waiter, come to stop the fight. Watch. Bloke next to him's got a ruddy great pie. Splat. Straight in Uncle Jack's face. He slips and bump bump bump. Straight down the stairs on his backside. Must a hurt sometimes, mustn't it? Forward roll on the landing, look, and ...

- Ha. Slides along a table ...

- ... dives right the way down the table and ends up slam bang in the cake.

- ... And into a giant cream - ha. Brilliant stunt.

- He'd do anything, mind. Anything they wanted him to. No matter if he got knocked about a bit or however messy he got and getting messy can't have been pleasant day in day out now can it but he never grumbled he said and that's why he got the work, see?

- Did he used to talk to you about it much?

- Oh, I used to see him, yes. Cos when he came back he took a job in the tobacconist's near the tram depot. Use to see him regular. Oh now look. This is the one astonishes me. I know it's him doing it, cos that's him there in the middle ...

- In the prison uniform?

- ... trying to escape. Trapped in a laundry he is. No, what I can't believe is that anybody'd do it. Must a been horrible.

- Did he tell you it was?

- Takes off his clothes, look, so no-one twigs he's a prisoner.

- Funny long underwear.

- And in come the police after him. So he hides hisself up inside the ... the - er ...

- Looks like a sort of a huge cylinder, a type of washing machine. Would have been a very advanced piece of machinery for the time.

- ... And one of the policemen accidentally shuts the door and starts it off.

- And he's being turned round and round inside.

- Gallons of soapsuds pouring all over him. And he's in there for minutes turning somersaults and getting thrown here there and everywhere.

- It's certainly not faked, is it?

- Funny, he never spoke much about the film business but one time round the tea-table I remember him saying how he did some sketch once inside a barrel filled with soap and how it made his eyes sting like billy-o. And me mother says well why d'you do it then Jacks and he says twenty dollars. Suppose that was good money back then. They don't show him getting out, notice? Must a been nasty. Reckon he earned his money.

- So why did he come back to England?

- How high do you suppose that ladder is off the ground? It's another film now.

- Which one, Mr Winsdale? The one across the top supported by the other two? Nine feet?

- You just watch. He's a decorator in this one, in his overalls. And he's having a row with the foreman. There's a chase, look. And wait ... still think this is clever - Uncle Jack's up on the top ladder. He trips, rolls and whump. Falls right down into that tub of whitewash. And the tub's only this big. Drop of ten feet or more. Just imagine.

- Would it have been real whitewash, do you think?

- Course he wasn't always lucky.

- No?

- Not that one just now, but one time he was doing a fall and it didn't go right and he broke his ribs. Punctured a lung. Put an end to things. He was never really right after that. He stayed on doing jobs behind the scenes for a while but it didn't work out so he came back and started in the tobacconist's beside the tram depot.

- How terrible. I don't mean terrible to work in a tobacconist's. I mean terrible that he suffered serious injury being a clown, through trying to make other people laugh.

- Mind you, it saved him. He'd have been called up in the Great War if it hadn't been for that. Now this is the one still tickles me. See - he's one of the billboard men and the paste goes blinkin everywhere. Down inside their trousers. All over his moustache, look. They used the real stuff in them days, you know.



[ Transcript of a taped interview with Gerald Winsdale (1911 - 2002), then 91, made three months before he died, talking about his uncle, Jackie Jinks (born John Dipley), silent film comedian & stuntman (1885 - 1937). ]