© Words Matteo Sedazzari

Like many of my generation, the BBC situation comedy Dad’s Army was prime time viewing during the mid-seventies.  A show about the British Home Guard, a collection of volunteers doing their best  at a British coastal town to prevent a Nazi invasion during wartime Britain. The volunteers were usually too old to join the army, hence the common nickname Dad’s Army.

©Words Matteo Sedazzari

Made in 1969, released in 1970, this film was written and directed by Basil Dearden (The Blue Lamp, Violent Playground, Victim) a seasoned and talented director, a great story teller of the screen with many of his features focusing on outsiders and people alienated by society, who began his career directing the great comic genius Will Hay. Anyone familiar with Will Hay, the British comedian of the 30’s and the 40’s, will recall that much of Hay’s comedy is him struggling in the world, whilst keeping a smile on his face.

© Words Matteo Sedazzari
The Perfect Friday (1971 Directed by Peter Hall, co-produced by Stanley Baker)

Friday is a nice day, the week draws to a close, and many of us plan a pursuit of happiness and excitement, away from the mundane routine of work. And that is certainly the case for Mr Graham (Stanley Baker), a deputy bank manager, in a pin striped suit and bowler hat, with a sergeant major type moustache working at a plush branch in London’s Hyde Park, single and on the surface dull and happy to oblige his employers and clients.  

© Words Matteo Sedazzari
Baker may have left Wales, but was proud of the country of his birth “I’m a Welshman and proud of it. But I’m no nationalist. I think the Welsh nationalists are foolish and misguided people.”   stated Baker in 1969, a comment that could have alienated him.  However in 1970, in his home town  Ferndale, Rhondda, Baker attended the unveiling of a plaque placed on the house in which he was born Albany Street.  It seemed that Ferndale offered solace to Baker, and kept him grounded, as he would return to visit old haunts and catch up with old friends, “Acting can be an artificial business, that’s why I go home when I can to the Rhonda Valley, I do it to be with my own people. They love in a real way, It’s a great leveller. 

© Words Matteo Sedazzari

It may be a romantic notion to say that Stanley Baker was a working class hero, however it is a label that certainly rings true of one of Britain’s finest actors, who died young at the age of 48, leaving behind a legacy in film, TV and the theatre.  Born to a mining family on 28th February 1928 in the Rhonda Valley where the main career choice was mining, and the only escape would either be boxing or football.  Rock & roll hadn’t hit the youth of Britain yet,