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Forgotten History

Carry On films: The star who helped World War II prisoners escape​



Peter Butterworth and his son, Tyler.

Peter Butterworth and his son, Tyler, who knew nothing about his father's war history when he was younger


The Great Escape and The Wooden Horse are two classic British World War II escape films, but what is perhaps less well known is that one of the team involved in both of the escapes that inspired them would go on to become a star of the Carry On movies.

Now, 80 years on, Peter Butterworth's recently discovered German prison identity card is going on display as part of an exhibition telling the story of his life as a prisoner of war.

Butterworth served in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm during the war but was shot down in 1940, spending the rest of it as a prisoner of war.
Butterworth, who appeared in 16 Carry On films, helped hide the sand for the escape tunnels featured in the Great Escape and was on the organising committee for the tunnels featured in The Wooden Horse, but it has taken decades for the full story to emerge.

It was his wartime role - working alongside Carry On screenwriter Talbot Rothwell whose plane was also shot down - that helped birth the Carry On humour Butterworth later became famous for.


A cache of prisoner of war documents recently released from a German archive is now going on display at the National Archives in London, which adds new detail to the gradually unfolding story.

The documents arrived from Germany and have been catalogued by a team of volunteers.

For his son Tyler Butterworth, it has been a revelation.
"They keep declassifying things and more seems to bubble up. It's remarkable."

Peter Butterworth's ID card from Stalag Luft 3

Peter Butterworth was an officer and a code writer

In Carry on Camping, Peter Butterworth played the avaricious campsite owner, Josh Fiddler. In Carry On Up The Khyber, he was the libidinous preacher, Brother Belcher, and in Carry on Don't Lose Your Head, he was Citizen Bidet.

However, in Stalag Luft 3, he was an officer and code writer in MI9, the military intelligence agency responsible for organising escapes from prison camps. It was a mystery to even his own son until long after his death in 1979.

"He did suffer from what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He never said this to my sister and I, but my mother (the impressionist Janet Brown) told me about things that happened, especially right at the start of their marriage, after the war, where he'd suddenly leap out of bed at night and throw himself on the floor and start hiding. She had to barricade the bedroom door because the staircase was outside."

Peter Butterworth (standing at the back) with the theatre company at Stalag Luft 3


Peter Butterworth (standing at the back) with the theatre company at Stalag Luft 3

In the escape immortalised in the classic film The Great Escape, Butterworth helped hide the soil from the tunnels in the camp theatre. Inmates would be encouraged to smoke pipes near where the soil was stored to mask the smell.

In the Wooden Horse escape, in which a tunnel was dug underneath a vaulting horse, he was one of the organising committee. When the story was adapted in 1950 for the big screen, he auditioned for a role but was turned down for not looking sufficiently like a prisoner.

Carry On beginnings​

Alongside him in Stalag Luft 3 was another prisoner, Talbot Rothwell, who would go on to write many of the best Carry On films. He and Rothwell convinced the camp commandant to allow them to build a theatre, with the sounds from the performances helping drown out the noise of digging the tunnels.

"It's where the (Carry On) humour kind of had its start, in this place surrounded by watchtowers and guard dogs," Tyler Butterworth explains.
"They worked out what made guys laugh. And that was the funny thing, he played these bumbling characters, always getting things wrong.

And there's this complete flip side of this man that was totally focused writing code, working with his friends who were tunnelling on the other side of the compound."

However, all of this was never discussed within his family and it was only years later that the younger Butterworth began to understand some of his father's actions.

"He had all this going on in his mind in his life. My mother told me that when they first bought the house that we grew up in, dad would religiously put on a dressing gown and walk around the garden in the morning, every morning, because he could, because there (in the camp) he couldn't. And those are the sort of things he brought back. But I didn't know about this until after he was dead."

As the bewildered Brother Belcher in the shell-torn dining room scene in Carry On Up the Khyber proves, Peter Butterworth was a marvellous comic actor. However, given that he escaped from one camp near Frankfurt and helped two of the most celebrated escapes in World War Two, we should be perhaps remembering him for more than just Carry On.

The Great Escapes: Remarkable Second World War Captives is on at the National Archives in London from 2 February until 21 July.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68209738
 
The long arm of coincidence raises its head once more, At the end of last week I switched the television on and an episode of Last of the Summer Wine was either starting or ending and the name Tyler Butterworth appeared. I wondered whether he was related to Peter Butterworth and there he is in the photo with his father!
 
Erinaceus said:
The long arm of coincidence raises its head once more, At the end of last week I switched the television on and an episode of Last of the Summer Wine was either starting or ending and the name Tyler Butterworth appeared. I wondered whether he was related to Peter Butterworth and there he is in the photo with his father!
Click to expand...

nice one!

I may be misreading the faces but that photo of the two of them is lovely?
 
Floyd1 said:

Carry On films: The star who helped World War II prisoners escape​



Peter Butterworth and his son, Tyler.

Peter Butterworth and his son, Tyler, who knew nothing about his father's war history when he was younger


The Great Escape and The Wooden Horse are two classic British World War II escape films, but what is perhaps less well known is that one of the team involved in both of the escapes that inspired them would go on to become a star of the Carry On movies.

Now, 80 years on, Peter Butterworth's recently discovered German prison identity card is going on display as part of an exhibition telling the story of his life as a prisoner of war.

Butterworth served in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm during the war but was shot down in 1940, spending the rest of it as a prisoner of war.
Butterworth, who appeared in 16 Carry On films, helped hide the sand for the escape tunnels featured in the Great Escape and was on the organising committee for the tunnels featured in The Wooden Horse, but it has taken decades for the full story to emerge.

It was his wartime role - working alongside Carry On screenwriter Talbot Rothwell whose plane was also shot down - that helped birth the Carry On humour Butterworth later became famous for.


A cache of prisoner of war documents recently released from a German archive is now going on display at the National Archives in London, which adds new detail to the gradually unfolding story.

The documents arrived from Germany and have been catalogued by a team of volunteers.

For his son Tyler Butterworth, it has been a revelation.
"They keep declassifying things and more seems to bubble up. It's remarkable."

Peter Butterworth's ID card from Stalag Luft 3's ID card from Stalag Luft 3

Peter Butterworth was an officer and a code writer

In Carry on Camping, Peter Butterworth played the avaricious campsite owner, Josh Fiddler. In Carry On Up The Khyber, he was the libidinous preacher, Brother Belcher, and in Carry on Don't Lose Your Head, he was Citizen Bidet.

However, in Stalag Luft 3, he was an officer and code writer in MI9, the military intelligence agency responsible for organising escapes from prison camps. It was a mystery to even his own son until long after his death in 1979.

"He did suffer from what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He never said this to my sister and I, but my mother (the impressionist Janet Brown) told me about things that happened, especially right at the start of their marriage, after the war, where he'd suddenly leap out of bed at night and throw himself on the floor and start hiding. She had to barricade the bedroom door because the staircase was outside."

Peter Butterworth (standing at the back) with the theatre company at Stalag Luft 3


Peter Butterworth (standing at the back) with the theatre company at Stalag Luft 3

In the escape immortalised in the classic film The Great Escape, Butterworth helped hide the soil from the tunnels in the camp theatre. Inmates would be encouraged to smoke pipes near where the soil was stored to mask the smell.

In the Wooden Horse escape, in which a tunnel was dug underneath a vaulting horse, he was one of the organising committee. When the story was adapted in 1950 for the big screen, he auditioned for a role but was turned down for not looking sufficiently like a prisoner.

Carry On beginnings​

Alongside him in Stalag Luft 3 was another prisoner, Talbot Rothwell, who would go on to write many of the best Carry On films. He and Rothwell convinced the camp commandant to allow them to build a theatre, with the sounds from the performances helping drown out the noise of digging the tunnels.

"It's where the (Carry On) humour kind of had its start, in this place surrounded by watchtowers and guard dogs," Tyler Butterworth explains.
"They worked out what made guys laugh. And that was the funny thing, he played these bumbling characters, always getting things wrong.

And there's this complete flip side of this man that was totally focused writing code, working with his friends who were tunnelling on the other side of the compound."

However, all of this was never discussed within his family and it was only years later that the younger Butterworth began to understand some of his father's actions.

"He had all this going on in his mind in his life. My mother told me that when they first bought the house that we grew up in, dad would religiously put on a dressing gown and walk around the garden in the morning, every morning, because he could, because there (in the camp) he couldn't. And those are the sort of things he brought back. But I didn't know about this until after he was dead."

As the bewildered Brother Belcher in the shell-torn dining room scene in Carry On Up the Khyber proves, Peter Butterworth was a marvellous comic actor. However, given that he escaped from one camp near Frankfurt and helped two of the most celebrated escapes in World War Two, we should be perhaps remembering him for more than just Carry On.

The Great Escapes: Remarkable Second World War Captives is on at the National Archives in London from 2 February until 21 July.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68209738
Click to expand...

Butterworth actually escaped from his camp via a tunnel and was at large for three days, before being captured by a member of the Hitler Youth. After that, he later told his son, he’d never work with children.

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/culture/17672079.peter-butterworth-carry-film-star-prisoner-war/

:rofl:

maximus otter
 
From a Bismarck biography. If you read to the end you'll see that essentially nothing is different from today. I find solace in that :)

THE stream of time flows inexorably along. By plunging my hand into it, I am merely doing my duty. I do not expect thereby to change its course.” This was the thought with which Bismarck began his career in the Prussian foreign service in 1851.1 Four decades later, his view was still the same. To his many visitors in Friedrichsruh he was fond of saying: “Man can neither create nor direct the stream of time. He can only travel upon it and steer with more or less skill and experience; he can suffer shipwreck and go aground and also arrive in safe harbors.”2 His political career was one of the most effective of all time. Yet he felt to the end comparatively helpless before the push of historical forces. Only by examining the character of those forces can one understand the course he steered and the destinations for which he aimed. What was the stream of time upon which Bismarck set sail?
In the early nineteenth century the currents of historical evolution in Europe were many and swift. The great cultural synthesis of the enlightenment was in rapid dissolution. Under the influence of economic change the traditional social order began to be replaced by new and antagonistic social classes. The clarity and unity of rationalist thought gave way to the murky depths and swirling eddies of romanticism. New centers of political and intellectual orientation appeared in liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, and, ultimately, socialism. Everywhere men grappled desperately for new principles in which to believe and new forms of organization with which to contain the growing complexities of modern life.
 
On 31st December 1899 the passenger steamer SS Warrimoo was quietly knifing its way through the waters of the mid-Pacific on its way from Vancouver to Australia. The navigator had just finished working out a star fix and brought Captain John DS. Phillips the result. The Warrimoo's position was LAT 0º 31' N and LONG 179 30' W. . "Know what this means?" First Mate Payton broke in, "We're only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line". Captain Phillips was prankish enough to take full advantage of the opportunity to achieve the navigational freak of a lifetime.
He called his navigators to the bridge to check & double check the ship's position. He changed course slightly so as to bear directly on his mark. Then he adjusted the engine speed.
The calm weather & clear night worked in his favor. At midnight the SS Warrimoo lay on the Equator at exactly the point where it crossed the International Date Line. The consequences of this bizarre position were many:

The forward part (bow) of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere & in the middle of summer.
The rear (stern) was in the Northern Hemisphere & in the middle of winter.
The date in the aft part of the ship was 31 December 1899.
In the bow (forward) part it was 1 January 1900.
This ship was therefore not only in:
Two different days,
Two different months,
Two different years,
Two different seasons
But in two different centuries - all at the same time.

(a great piece of maritime trivia, which the crew and passengers would never forget, even if the accuracy of navigational equipment at the time does make it slightly questionable).

warrimoo.png
 
Nothing really changes;

Protesters in Riverhead demand the enforcement of the speed limit through the village, 1920s.

After 1920 the number of motor vehicles steadily increased in Sevenoaks. Roads were numbered and the A21 through Riverhead and the town carried more passing traffic.

There were speed limits, charabancs restricted to 12 mph in built-up areas.

But a great deal of local traffic consisted of horse-drawn carts and wagons. It was an uncomfortable mix, and the people of Riverhead objected to their quiet village being disturbed by speeding motor cars. It was a political issue, and they acted.

Source; https://www.sevenoakshistory.org.uk/images/Books/SevenoaksAnHistoricalDictionary.pdf

svn.png
 
Tracking the old history of the potato blight.

North Carolina State University researchers used text analytics on both historic and modern writing to reveal more information about the effects and spread of the plant pathogen—now known as Phytophthora infestans—that caused the 1840s Irish potato famine and that continues to vex breeders of potatoes and tomatoes.

The study examined keyword terms like "potato rot" and "potato disease" after digitizing historic farm reports, news accounts and U.S. Patent Office agricultural records from 1843 to 1845 to show how the pathogen first spread across the northeast United States before causing the devastating famine in Ireland in 1845. The study also used text analysis to track social media feeds for the modern-day spread of late blight.

Textual analysis holds promise as a useful tool to help researchers track and visualize both historic and current plant diseases, the researchers say.

"We went back to original descriptions of the potato disease outbreaks in the United States because they occurred between 1843 and 1845, before outbreaks occurred in Europe," says Jean Ristaino, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of a paper in Scientific Reports that describes the study.

"We searched those descriptions by keywords, and by doing that we were able to recreate the original outbreak maps using location coordinates mentioned in the documents. We were also trying to learn what people were thinking about the disease at the time and where it came from." ...

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-text-analytics-scientists-potato-blight.html



 
Why did the self-styled “Blind Traveller” go from celebrated author to threadbare old man living in poverty?

James Holman racked up more than a quarter of a million miles in his lifetime—further than anyone had ever traveled before. As Eitan Bar-Yosef points out, his exploits are the stuff that once filled the pages of boys’ annuals and penny magazines: a naval career that began when he was a child; fighting the slave trade in Africa (where the Holman River was named in his honor); being wrongly accused of spying in Siberia; and surviving a bout of malaria that killed all but eleven of his crew mates in Equatorial Guinea. He also penned five books, two of which were bestsellers.

Despite these dizzying achievements, Holman’s name has gradually disappeared from our collective consciousness. No publisher would accept his fourth book, which detailed his travels in the Middle East and Mediterranean. Nor would they accept his memoir. A brief sketch of his life in the Encyclopedia Britannica dwindled to a single paragraph in the 1910 edition. When another edition of the encyclopedia was printed in 1960, his name was missing altogether.

https://daily.jstor.org/james-holma...=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
 
uair01 said:
Why did the self-styled “Blind Traveller” go from celebrated author to threadbare old man living in poverty?

James Holman racked up more than a quarter of a million miles in his lifetime—further than anyone had ever traveled before. As Eitan Bar-Yosef points out, his exploits are the stuff that once filled the pages of boys’ annuals and penny magazines: a naval career that began when he was a child; fighting the slave trade in Africa (where the Holman River was named in his honor); being wrongly accused of spying in Siberia; and surviving a bout of malaria that killed all but eleven of his crew mates in Equatorial Guinea. He also penned five books, two of which were bestsellers.

Despite these dizzying achievements, Holman’s name has gradually disappeared from our collective consciousness. No publisher would accept his fourth book, which detailed his travels in the Middle East and Mediterranean. Nor would they accept his memoir. A brief sketch of his life in the Encyclopedia Britannica dwindled to a single paragraph in the 1910 edition. When another edition of the encyclopedia was printed in 1960, his name was missing altogether.

https://daily.jstor.org/james-holma...=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
Click to expand...
Sounds like a Film-maker could do well to follow his life and give the man proper credit!
 
They have `C` class roads on the Isle of Man but I dont know if they are labeled as such.
 
This is wonderful:

this 400-year old book should have changed mathematics Forever
This Is The Swiss clockmakerJost Bürgi arithmetic and geometric progression tables
the book contains an ingenious mathematical hack that Bürgi called red numbers
and the design of a powerful computing device that uses these red numbers

 
ramonmercado said:
After the movie, a court case.

A university academic has said he is likely to take legal action against the makers of a new film about Richard III, which he said was "littered with inaccuracies".

Richard Taylor was part of the University of Leicester team that found and identified the king 10 years ago. A character bearing his name features in the film The Lost King, starring Steve Coogan and Sally Hawkins.

But Mr Coogan has said: "The university are responsible for their own undoing." ...

But the university said claims its staff sidelined Ms Langley and took the credit for the find are "far removed" from the truth.

Mr Taylor, former deputy registrar at the university, told the BBC he had felt "absolutely shell-shocked" by the way he was portrayed.

He said: "I think the film is inaccurate, and I think the writers have been very reckless in how they've put it together. Anybody who knows me knows my integrity is important to me. There are lots of people I have to work with who don't know me - what are they to think, seeing a film like that?"

Mr Taylor said the film-makers had not sought to speak to him at any point.

"The film is littered with inaccuracies," he said. "It makes up a scene where I mimic Richard III's disability, and have to be told by Philippa that it's wrong to equate physical characteristics with evilness. That is the most hurtful personally and the most damaging reputationally. It is not true; it did not take place. I'd hoped my concerns would have chimed with Steve Coogan, who had his privacy invaded by newspapers over phone hacking. To see him on the other side of the fence now, doing this to me is quite frustrating. I feel kind of powerless in the way Steve would have felt."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-62833429
Click to expand...

And the court case is on!

Steve Coogan is being sued for libel by a university official over how he was portrayed in a film about the discovery of Richard III's remains.

Richard Taylor, formerly deputy registrar of the University of Leicester, is bringing legal action against Coogan over his portrayal in the 2022 film The Lost King, which he claims was "devious" and "weasel-like".

The lawsuit is also against Coogan's production company Baby Cow and Pathe Productions.

At a hearing on Thursday, which Coogan did not attend, William Bennett KC said his client Mr Taylor was presented as being "dismissive, patronising and misogynistic" towards Ms Langley.

https://news.sky.com/story/steve-co...-portrayed-in-his-film-the-lost-king-13083825
 
Yithian said:
MIght have to give this one a watch.
Click to expand...

Some devices are used to advance the narrative, events which couldn't possibly have happened (eg child hiding in postbox to retrieve letter), but it's all in the spirit of turning a real event into true entertainment. It's unlikely though that there would have been a black circuit court judge back then.
 
uair01 said:
This is wonderful:

this 400-year old book should have changed mathematics Forever
This Is The Swiss clockmaker Jost Bürgi arithmetic and geometric progression tables
the book contains an ingenious mathematical hack that Bürgi called red numbers
and the design of a powerful computing device that uses these red numbers
Click to expand...

Don't think logarithms were thus described when I was at school!
As the video concedes at the end, while Bürgi may have computed his tables as early as 1600, he didn't publish them until 1620. This was six years after Napier's version and three years after Briggs' more convenient 'common' logarithms were first published.

oxo
 
hunck said:
Yeah, like those politically correct idiots at University College London & Natural History Museum who decided that Cheddar Man was likely dark skinned. What do they know eh?..


rexfeatures_9359945b-800x533.jpg
Click to expand...
Remarkably, DNA testing found a direct descendant of Cheddar Man, living just a mile away from where his prehistoric ancestor's remains were found.
Adrian Targett, a retired history teacher, has the same blue eyes as his ancestor, separated by 10,000 years, but a less swarthy complexion.

cheddar1.png
cheddar2.png


https://www.thearchaeologist.org/bl...-the-same-dna-with-english-teacher-of-history
 
Last edited:
ramonmercado said:
And the court case is on!

Steve Coogan is being sued for libel by a university official over how he was portrayed in a film about the discovery of Richard III's remains.

Richard Taylor, formerly deputy registrar of the University of Leicester, is bringing legal action against Coogan over his portrayal in the 2022 film The Lost King, which he claims was "devious" and "weasel-like".
(snip!)

https://news.sky.com/story/steve-co...-portrayed-in-his-film-the-lost-king-13083825
Click to expand...

I have seen the film 'The Lost King' and I think that the story is beefed up with stereotyping, possibly more for comic effect .Richard III supporters come over as cranky with the leading lady who located where the king was buried seeing visions of Richard III and having conversations with him. Yes the University officials do not come over well but I would hope whoever watches the film would realise that this is not a real documentary type account of what went on. Interesting to see the result of the case.
 
Two timely statues.

Anti-slavery campaigner and trade unionist honoured​

Mary Ann McCracken and Winifred Carney

Statues of Mary Ann McCracken (l) and Winifred Carney (r) will be unveiled later

Statues of two historic women activists will be unveiled at Belfast City Hall later to mark International Women's Day. Anti-slavery campaigner Mary Ann McCracken as well as suffragist and trade unionist Winifred Carney are set to be honoured with bronze statues. They are the first non-royal women to get statues in the grounds of Belfast City Hall.

A celebratory event will take place on Friday evening to celebrate both women's legacy. It will feature music, poetry, performances as well as a panel discussion.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9rvqp40qvlo
 
Floyd1 said:

Carry On films: The star who helped World War II prisoners escape​



Peter Butterworth and his son, Tyler.

Peter Butterworth and his son, Tyler, who knew nothing about his father's war history when he was younger


The Great Escape and The Wooden Horse are two classic British World War II escape films, but what is perhaps less well known is that one of the team involved in both of the escapes that inspired them would go on to become a star of the Carry On movies.

Now, 80 years on, Peter Butterworth's recently discovered German prison identity card is going on display as part of an exhibition telling the story of his life as a prisoner of war.

Butterworth served in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm during the war but was shot down in 1940, spending the rest of it as a prisoner of war.
Butterworth, who appeared in 16 Carry On films, helped hide the sand for the escape tunnels featured in the Great Escape and was on the organising committee for the tunnels featured in The Wooden Horse, but it has taken decades for the full story to emerge.

It was his wartime role - working alongside Carry On screenwriter Talbot Rothwell whose plane was also shot down - that helped birth the Carry On humour Butterworth later became famous for.


A cache of prisoner of war documents recently released from a German archive is now going on display at the National Archives in London, which adds new detail to the gradually unfolding story.

The documents arrived from Germany and have been catalogued by a team of volunteers.

For his son Tyler Butterworth, it has been a revelation.
"They keep declassifying things and more seems to bubble up. It's remarkable."

Peter Butterworth's ID card from Stalag Luft 3's ID card from Stalag Luft 3

Peter Butterworth was an officer and a code writer

In Carry on Camping, Peter Butterworth played the avaricious campsite owner, Josh Fiddler. In Carry On Up The Khyber, he was the libidinous preacher, Brother Belcher, and in Carry on Don't Lose Your Head, he was Citizen Bidet.

However, in Stalag Luft 3, he was an officer and code writer in MI9, the military intelligence agency responsible for organising escapes from prison camps. It was a mystery to even his own son until long after his death in 1979.

"He did suffer from what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He never said this to my sister and I, but my mother (the impressionist Janet Brown) told me about things that happened, especially right at the start of their marriage, after the war, where he'd suddenly leap out of bed at night and throw himself on the floor and start hiding. She had to barricade the bedroom door because the staircase was outside."

Peter Butterworth (standing at the back) with the theatre company at Stalag Luft 3


Peter Butterworth (standing at the back) with the theatre company at Stalag Luft 3

In the escape immortalised in the classic film The Great Escape, Butterworth helped hide the soil from the tunnels in the camp theatre. Inmates would be encouraged to smoke pipes near where the soil was stored to mask the smell.

In the Wooden Horse escape, in which a tunnel was dug underneath a vaulting horse, he was one of the organising committee. When the story was adapted in 1950 for the big screen, he auditioned for a role but was turned down for not looking sufficiently like a prisoner.

Carry On beginnings​

Alongside him in Stalag Luft 3 was another prisoner, Talbot Rothwell, who would go on to write many of the best Carry On films. He and Rothwell convinced the camp commandant to allow them to build a theatre, with the sounds from the performances helping drown out the noise of digging the tunnels.

"It's where the (Carry On) humour kind of had its start, in this place surrounded by watchtowers and guard dogs," Tyler Butterworth explains.
"They worked out what made guys laugh. And that was the funny thing, he played these bumbling characters, always getting things wrong.

And there's this complete flip side of this man that was totally focused writing code, working with his friends who were tunnelling on the other side of the compound."

However, all of this was never discussed within his family and it was only years later that the younger Butterworth began to understand some of his father's actions.

"He had all this going on in his mind in his life. My mother told me that when they first bought the house that we grew up in, dad would religiously put on a dressing gown and walk around the garden in the morning, every morning, because he could, because there (in the camp) he couldn't. And those are the sort of things he brought back. But I didn't know about this until after he was dead."

As the bewildered Brother Belcher in the shell-torn dining room scene in Carry On Up the Khyber proves, Peter Butterworth was a marvellous comic actor. However, given that he escaped from one camp near Frankfurt and helped two of the most celebrated escapes in World War Two, we should be perhaps remembering him for more than just Carry On.

The Great Escapes: Remarkable Second World War Captives is on at the National Archives in London from 2 February until 21 July.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68209738
Click to expand...
Fabulous. And from (or lived in) Ulverston, like Stan Laurel.
 
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