Museum opens with return of a local hero

“Some scholars may find local history dull, but there was nothing serious or stuffy about Saturday’s opening of the Watford Museum – Terry Scott saw to that!

“Terry, of course, is Watford’s own contribution to Britain’s top line comics. He was born in Tucker Street, not a stone’s throw from Benskin’s brewery and the mansion which now houses the museum in Lower High Street.

“It was, therefore, approriate that he should be invited to perform the official opening ceremony.

“But from the moment the ex-Watford Grammar School pupil set foot, once again, on his native town’s soil he kept those around him in fits of laughter.

“As he stepped from the Mayoral car into the W.H. Smith section of the High Street precinct to join the vintage vehicle cavalcade to the museum, Terry was in top form, chatting with the Saturday shopping crowd and signing autographs.

“Looking around with a puzzled expression he asked shoppers: ‘Where is this? Whereabouts are we?’ And when told he was standing in the original market place he quipped: ‘You haven’t half buggered it about, haven’t you?’

“The Mayor and Mayoress, Councillor and Mrs Ray Reynolds, sat on the Benskin brewery horse-drawn dray waiting for Terry to join them. But the comedian, with his mind more on fun than civic protocol, shouted up: ‘Excuse me just a minute, Mr Mayor, while I tell them this one.’ He then proceeed to amuse the crowd with a shaggy dog story.

“He performed the official opening ceremony inside the mansion by unveiling a plaque. He did this at the end of a speech which would be better described as first-class comedy entertainment.

“If there was one serious thread running through his speech it was that he was proud to have come from Watford and still had a soft spot for the town.

“Terry recalled two lessons he had from the well-known Watford drama teacher Miss Rose Lloyd-King and how he studied stage technique from the ‘gods’ at the Palace Theatre in the days when it was under Arnold Bell’s direction.

“He spoke, too, of his schooldays in Watford, including his earliest stage successes in school productions of Henry VIII and Macbeth.

“Guests at the ceremony included former Mayors, aldermen and officers of the borough of varying political persuasions, and there was an obvious undertone of regret that Tory members of the present council had followed the lead of the Town’s MP, Mr Tristam Garel-Jones, in boycotting the event as a protest against the cost of acquiring and running the museum.”

But it wasn’t all smiles and larks at the opening of Watford Museum, though. Apart from the boycott, there were others disappointed the official opening took place behind closed doors.

One man at the time said: “The public did not get a look in. As far as most of us are concerned, the museum has never been formally opened.”

The man said he was so angry, he didn’t go back in the afternoon when the public were finally let in.

According to the Watford Observer of March 20, 1981: “The man said that in 1922 when Watford received its charter, a platform was set up at Haydon Road, the borough boundary. Everybody could see what happened on that historic occasion. But the museum opening, another historic event, was something the public could not share in.

“He and others had wanted to take photographs for their family albums.

“One elderly couple, he said, felt particularly let down. They had travelled from North Watford to ‘see Benskin’s live again’. Both had worked for the brewery.

“He said: ‘It all took place behind closed doors. It would have cost less than 50p for a bit of pink ribbon across the entrance.’”

Owen John “Terry” Scott was born on May 4, 1927, and died, aged 67, on July 26, 1994.

He is perhaps best remembered for starring alongside June Whitfield in several series of the comedy Happy Ever After and its successor, Terry and June. To me, however, he achieved legendary status for his role as the voice of Penfold the hamster to David Jason’s Danger Mouse. He also appeared in several Carry On films.

Not surprisingly as a local lad, the Watford Observer kept a close eye on his career and the first time his picture appeared in the paper, as far as I can ascertain, was 65 years ago this week when, as a 21-year-old, he was pictured listening to himself appearing on BBC’s Music Hall show, accompanied by his then fiancee and his mother (below).

Terry Scott, of Watford, one of the BBC’s newest comedian discoveries, with a year’s contract, was heard in the Saturday night programme Music Hall. On Saturday night, the “Observer” cameraman took this picture of Terry listening at his Tucker Street home to the recorded programme with his mother, and fiancee, Thelma Howard, of Harebreaks, Watford.

[From the Watford Observer of March 18, 1949]

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