Tribute to Vincent Tilsley
Vincent Tilsley
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I’ve had the good fortune of meeting some amazing people in my life and high on the list is Vincent Tilsley, outstanding British playwright, author and Jungian therapist, to which I might also add, legendary alcoholic. His opus can be googled and seen on IMDB, and on a Facebook page maintained by his daughter, Joanna. See https://www.facebook.com/VincentFTilsley
Vincent was invited to the University of Western Australia by the Politics Department in 1974 as he had co-created a successful TV series, the Guardians, about a military takeover of Britain. He was notable for a long list of other successful TV productions ranging from adaptations of Dickens and Jane Austin, popular series such as The Prisoner, Z Cars, The Forsyte Saga and Dr Finley’s Case, and the epic Death of Adolph Hitler which at the time was one of the most expensive productions in British television. Vincent wrote over a hundred scripts, and was at one time Drama Script Supervisor for The BBC, as was Terence Rattigan. He received three Writers Guild of Great Britain awards one for outstanding services to the craft of writing, the highest honours indeed. Vincent was the real deal as an outstanding writer of note.
Vincent was invited to the University of Western Australia by the Politics Department in 1974 as he had co-created a successful TV series, the Guardians, about a military takeover of Britain. He was notable for a long list of other successful TV productions ranging from adaptations of Dickens and Jane Austin, popular series such as The Prisoner, Z Cars, The Forsyte Saga and Dr Finley’s Case, and the epic Death of Adolph Hitler which at the time was one of the most expensive productions in British television. Vincent wrote over a hundred scripts, and was at one time Drama Script Supervisor for The BBC, as was Terence Rattigan. He received three Writers Guild of Great Britain awards one for outstanding services to the craft of writing, the highest honours indeed. Vincent was the real deal as an outstanding writer of note.
The amazing thing about all this is that Vincent had a serious drinking problem. His second wife Gwen, a very sober secretary at the BBC who at most had a glass of wine with her dinner, once told me that he wrote a successful pilot in a drunken haze in about 36 hours. Some other program had failed and the BBC had the rights to The Adventures of a Little Black Bag by Scottish writer A.J Cronin. Quick action was needed for a new series. Vincent got together with a Scottish doctor, and over numerous drinks wrote the opening script for the very popular Dr Finlay’s Casebook. That was Vincent. He even regaled us with stories of his time out for treatment, and the therapy sessions he underwent for his drinking. It was straight out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His drinking certainly didn’t interfere with his writing: perhaps it assisted it.
Fast forward to 1974 and his new life as an academic at the University of Western Australia. He was in his early 40s, of a short build, had a neat beard and was distinguished looking, but as his face and ruddy cheeks showed all the ravages of a heavy drinker he came across as well into his 50s. Vincent was friendly and affable and quite able to turn on the charm. He always had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and he puffed away no matter where he was, which you could almost do in those days. But you couldn’t drink in the University Library coffee shop where he often joined us, but that didn’t stop Vincent who poured brandy into his glass of milk, his flask always handy.
In all the many occasions I met Vincent he was never drunk in the sense of being aggressive, unsteady on his feet or slurring his speech; he probably never suffered hangovers either. He was a habitual drinker and those omissions may have been the problem, a problem he fortunately totally overcame after he left Perth and returned to England. This is very remarkable indeed as I knew him in those final days when he was in the grip of the bottle, or flask as it were.
A group of us met him before his wife, Gwen, and 9-year-old son, Edward arrived to join him. The truth was that Perth, and I have always loved my boyhood home and sung its praises, is probably the most remote city on the planet with Adelaide the nearest large city, and that separated by a considerable desert. To have someone of Vincent's stature arrive on our doorstep was truly amazing and it got the media's attention. Even national magazines and TV programs had interviewed this odd but interesting new arrival. I must admit that I was a bit star struck, and not the only one, by this larger than life personality who was happy enough to hang out with students. He may have even preferred their company. He was approachable, affable, charming, readily accepted people, and was generous with his time. He was engaging and highly entertaining, but he was also self-destructive.
Vincent was an Oxford graduate, Trinity College, and sounded like one, although his family hailed from Lancashire, but as an actor and a scriptwriter, he could do any accent. He was a gentleman and a scholar, well-read and deeply acquainted with the classics. His father was Frank Tilsley, a popular writer in both pre and post-war Britain, and H G Wells, no less, was the godfather to Frank’s daughter and Vincent’s sister. I learned this on the Internet: Vincent was too modest to tell us of this amazing connection. His father Frank was also a broadcaster and both father and son collaborated together on a successful 1950s TV series, The Makepeace Story, directed by Tony Richardson with Paul Eddington of Yes Minister fame starring. A writing career was in the prodigal son Vincent’s blood; he at first wanted to be a director but due to barriers chose writing as an easier way into the BBC.
Tragically Frank Tilsley took his own life: who knows if this horrible legacy drove Vincent to the bottle.
Vincent Tilsley was eccentric as only the English can be: I recall a group of us walking down a windy St George’s Terrace one evening and him suddenly becoming a raging King Lear in the storm, bellowing loudly “Blow wind and crack thy cheeks.” That turned a few heads but didn’t in the least bother Vincent. A busy street was as good a location as any stage for this frustrated thespian to hold forth.
Vincent was an accomplished reconteur, and for years I have retold some of his anecdotes, for example:
I met a BBC producer who in his younger days had arranged a dinner meeting with the great Pablo Picasso. This producer told me that he arrived at this expensive restaurant early, looked at the prices and took a deep breath. Shortly after Picasso arrived with his entourage, all sweaty and dressed in tennis clothes. After an excellent dinner, the Maestro called the maitre d’ and asked for the bill. He went over it slowly, then picked up a menu, did a quick sketch on the back and handed it to the maitre d’ saying “keep the change”. When you can do that, Vincent remarked, you have it made. They say that a lot of the cheques Hemingway wrote were never cashed.
Vincent adapted Jane Austin’s Emma for the BBC in which a scene required Emma to be flirting with Mr Knightly as she delicately ate from a basket of strawberries whilst stroking a cat. This was in the days when television was shot live so if a set fell down then that’s what went to air. Finding a cat and strawberries wasn’t easy but when the owner of the cat, spellbound with all the activity around her in the studio, accidentally released the cat the startled cat got onto the basket and pissed on the strawberries. Vincent said that he didn’t particularly like the actress but was impressed that the scene went ahead and she ate the strawberries.
And so on.
A close friend, Heath, received funding to film a short video on an institution where she had worked for a few years as a young psychologist. Vincent came along and helped move the lights and do other chores, smoking happily away as he did so. Here was this man who had been one of the busiest men in British television, without comment or complaint, doing time as a gopher! He also came along to a teaching practice session and spoke to some classes about writing for television. He had their full attention from start to finish.
I was a frequent visitor to the Tilsley home and got to know his wife, Gwen, and son Edward quite well. I taught Gwen to drive and Edward would sit in the back of the car during the driving lessons, all of us without seatbelts fastened which they rarely had in those days anyway. Today they would lock you up if a learner driver wasn't wearing a seatbelt, much less is you had a young passenger in the car.
I was a frequent visitor to the Tilsley home and got to know his wife, Gwen, and son Edward quite well. I taught Gwen to drive and Edward would sit in the back of the car during the driving lessons, all of us without seatbelts fastened which they rarely had in those days anyway. Today they would lock you up if a learner driver wasn't wearing a seatbelt, much less is you had a young passenger in the car.
Father and son would pass the time in various ways. Often Vincent would start a story and then pause and prompt Edward to take the plot forward. How bizarre when his application to get Edward into a local primary school required he demonstrate that Edward had the right reading levels. Edward was only 9 but probably had a reading age of a high school leaver 9 years his senior.
I never saw Vincent at work but got the feeling he wouldn't be tethered to his typewriter but would prowl around puffing away, setting a scene, and giving his actors, or characters voice, or the necessary lines that he would act out. In essence, dialogue is at the centre of a scriptwriter's craft. On many occasions, I witnessed this process in the stories he told.
I never saw Vincent at work but got the feeling he wouldn't be tethered to his typewriter but would prowl around puffing away, setting a scene, and giving his actors, or characters voice, or the necessary lines that he would act out. In essence, dialogue is at the centre of a scriptwriter's craft. On many occasions, I witnessed this process in the stories he told.
Vincent loved cricket and could go on about it for hours, and I’m sure he did when attending cricket matches at Lords. He had many friends in the arts and could casually mention meeting Larry Olivier on a beach one day: believe me, he wasn’t name dropping. He was a close friend of Australian actor Ed Devereaux, famous for his role in the classic Skippy series, and for playing Martin Bormann in the Death of Adolph Hitler. He was also close to Johnny Speight who wrote the Alf Garnett series.
An amazing collection of people gathered around Vincent in his Perth house in Dalkeith and included a law professor who had been on the board of the ABC, and who had written a well-reviewed book on police killings in Australia. There were others I won’t go into but who were both amazing and sometimes weird. He was a honeypot to which all sorts of people flocked including cranks and conspiracy theorists.
In addition to people herding around him many Perth A-listers invited him to parties and other events, especially those where there was a lot of booze flowing. Vincent went on his merry way and I heard about him running off with someone’s wife by which time Gwen had had enough and his marriage ended abruptly. I had moved to a teaching job in Canberra at this stage and got all this second hand, but it was hard to exaggerate Vincent’s life and behavior.
He was invited to give a presentation at the Festival of Perth in January 1975, and Vincent obtained a copy of The Death of Adolph Hitler as part of his session. I believe Thomas Keneally was to join him in this presentation. Next, I heard that Vincent had packed up and returned to England, ending the chapter of his life in Australia. Many of my friends of the time were psychologists and psychology students and I remember one describing Vincent as “an intellectual giant but an emotional cripple”.
That said I had an enormous respect for this complex and kind man who had an enormous presence wherever he went. I regard him as the most intelligent person I have had the good fortune to meet, and acknowledge his vast contribution to the arts and writing. He was a great man with a deep artistic temperament who turned around his life: who survived alcoholism and his demons and helped others do the same.
Whenever I returned to Perth in the 1970s I visited Gwen and Edward but we never spoke about Vincent. I took Edward out from time to time and remember taking him to see Jaws, a film he chose but had seen before. He couldn’t resist telling me when there was going to be another shark attack. After a few years Gwen and Edward returned to England. Sadly I lost contact with them and hope they’re alive and well. It's hard to imagine young Edward now in his early 50s.
I last met Vincent in Brighton England where we met for a short time. The last words I recall is when he excused himself politely from our meeting in a café, were: “I have to go now as there are people who need me.” I knew instantly that Vincent has turned his life around and was engaged in turning other lives around. This new Vincent retrained as a psychotherapist I read online and spent many years assisting other deal with their demons.
Because of his smoking and drinking, I doubted he would live to be 60 but he died at the grand age of 82, almost 40 years after his time in Perth Western Australia. I feel greatly privileged that our paths crossed at such a critical stage of his life when he transformed himself beyond recognition. He was a wonderful man and a great inspiration to many.
Because of his smoking and drinking, I doubted he would live to be 60 but he died at the grand age of 82, almost 40 years after his time in Perth Western Australia. I feel greatly privileged that our paths crossed at such a critical stage of his life when he transformed himself beyond recognition. He was a wonderful man and a great inspiration to many.
Vale Vincent Tilsley.
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