LONG time Prestwood resident- the late Earl Atlee- is recalled in a new book about theatreland and the 1950s underworld in London’s Soho.

In his book Love, Life and Moving Pictures recalling life as a teenage actor, Terence Sharkey remembers train journeys from his home in Great Missenden to London with the then former Prime Minister.

Terence was appearing in the first British production of the musical The King and I at Drury Lane and nightly shared a carriage with Clement Atlee, Prime Minister from 1946 to 51 and by 1954 Leader of the Opposition.

History books said he was a shy, retiring man but Terence remembers differently.

He said: "I first met him when he questioned me about why a 15-year-old was alone on the 11pm from Baker Street every night.

"I told him that I was in the musical and he was very polite and each night would ask about the play and the audience. Although I knew he’d lately been the Prime Minister I’m afraid at 15 you don’t see history sitting opposite you in the train.

"This 70-year-old gentleman was a lawyer, First World War soldier injured in Mesopotamia, survivor of Gallipoli and the Western Front, latterly the statesman who had introduced the vast post-war nationalisation schemes of the railways and mines and the gas and electricity utilities, he’d founded the national health service, overseen the independence of India, the end of Britain’s role in Palestine and thwarted the Russian blockade of Berlin.

"Did I ever once ask him about these things as the steam train rattled westward? Never. Always he would lean back, puff thoughtfully at his pipe and ask about my day and listen politely as I recounted my personal events. Somebody fluffed a line…. An audience member dropped a teacup in the matinée…. The trumpeter couldn’t play for laughing. What tales I could have heard if I had asked."

Terence remembers a Great Missenden now much changed. "In 1954 the tiny village had only one taxi. Those mid 50s must have been safer times. No one worried about the great man’s security. Nightly the big pre-war Wolseley would pull out with as many as half a dozen passengers crowded in the back. By general consent the elder statesman would be dropped first, then again by consent, the youngest passenger - me."

Labour had been defeated in the general election of 1951 and four years later he resigned as leader and accepted a peerage. He continued to live in his 18th century Cherry Tree Cottage. He died in 1967.

Terence went on to film-making at Pinewood Studios and in Africa and his tales of the locations and Pinewood in its heyday, with as many as 20 features shooting on the stages at Iver, paint a lost-time when film making was soon to change.

The grand technicolor foreign spectaculars were being replaced by black and white social dramas, Carry Ons and Norman Wisdom, all cheaper to make and delighting the public. That, as they say, is show business.

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