What made me a fan...

Thought i'd show you what of John made me a fan back in 1973 by way of a scrapbook page, i'm currently on a website called daisytrail.com and every week we do a challenge, this week was MOVIE STARS, so think you can all guess who i did, so here it is, hope you like it.

Squatters wreck £2m home of Inspector Morse

I know a lot of you are Morse fans and thought you might not have heard about this, so i thought i'd post it for you all to read.

By Tim Stewart
21.08.09
Squatters have turned Inspector Morse's once elegant home into an eyesore. Fans of the TV series will remember John Thaw's detective character pulling up in the drive of the large Victorian house in his vintage red Jaguar.

Although the ITV drama - filmed between 1987 and 2000 - was set in Oxford, the house is in Ealing. The property is part of the Castlehill Park Estate, home to Queen Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent.

Members of the Inspector Morse Appreciation Society regularly travel to see the house, which was once worth more than £2million. But they have been horrified to find it is now derelict with boarded-up windows and doors.

The squatters have stripped valuable fittings from the house and left its overgrown gardens strewn with junk furniture and rubbish. The Poles first moved into the property's garages - former stables - last September.

When the weather turned cold, they broke into the house through a back door and up to 15 were living there until they were evicted by owner, Newcastle Building Society, just over a month ago. The society has boarded up the windows and doors to prevent the squatters from returning. Nearby residents have branded the property an "eyesore" and demanded that the building society cleans up the site.

So far, it has failed to remove the rubbish, which includes tatty mattresses, suitcases and a barbecue set. Neighbour of 30 years Don Liyanage, 63, said: "It is such a shame to see a once fine property in such a state. I have seen Inspector Morse Appreciation Society members standing there dumbfounded that such a beautiful house from the show could be reduced to this. I used to enjoy watching the filming and John Thaw was a nice man.

"But now I have a total eyesore next to me. No one has ever paid attention to the elegance of the property and the squatters broke in through the back door and stripped it of piping, fireplaces and other valuable fittings.

"I have complained to Ealing council about the rubbish but they would not tell me who the owner was. I've had to use my own detective skills to even find out who owns Morse's house."
The building society says it plans to renovate the property and has hired renovation company The Haywoods Group with a view to renting it out as flats. A spokeswoman said: "The property was formally taken into possession by Newcastle Building Society during June. The Society will continue with its plans to refurbish the property and the planning permission is in place."

Been a while

Hello everyone
Sorry for not being around much lately, been in rather a lot of pain as the weather here in Manchester isn't tha!t warm for what is supposed to be summer, so i don't sit at my laptop that much.

I'm working (in my head) on projects for the the blog on John to add in hope they will be of interest to you as well as myself, and will when i get chance start putting these on here, they just need a bit more thought.

Also i'm open for any idea's you may have of what you'd like to see here, please email me and let me know and i'll see what i can do, as i have a huge collection on John and thousands of photos i've got enough stuff to keep this blog going for some time yet!
Take care everyone

News...

Inspector Lewis has been given the go ahead for a 4th series, even though ITV are still axing programmes. Filming in Oxford will start in July with 4 more stories.

John Thaw DVD news from UK releases

Here is some exciting news i've just found out, from my friend in the know, that the following two dvd's are being released next month here in the UK!

This is terrific news for me as my birthday falls right in the middle of the two dates, so i get double john...YIPPY!!

1st Plastic Man out 1st June 09 @ play.com for £8.99

(Now available for pre-order @ amazon for £9.49)

2nd The Capone Investments out 15th June 09 @ play.com for £9.99. (Now available for pre-order @ amazon for £11.49)

UK - Lewis new series

Hello everyone just to remind folk in the UK that Lewis series 3 starts Sunday 22nd March at 9pm. I can't wait, seen some clips and my beloved bridge is there, so really looking forward to watching the new series. Hope it gets good ratings so it continues, as it's a brill series and worth keeping.

Last night i watched "And the moonbeams kissed the sea", which is my all time favourite episode so far, and it's not because I'm in it either, ha-ha!!

But i think the character of Philip is a lot like me, and so it makes me feel at home watching it, and I'm glad that Lewis and Hathaway treat him well.

Life goes on for a wife less ordinary

Just found this article and thought you might want to read it, sadly i can't tape the programme as my tv isn't working and i don't get my sick money till next Thursday and by then it will have come and gone. Enjoy!

By Ian Wylie
March 12, 2009
Sheila Hancock realised that her husband John Thaw would not survive. “I knew he was going to die,” she reflects.

The couple discovered he had cancer some nine months before she was, sadly, proved correct. “John did his usual – he was going to be all right – and he was, up until about three days before he died he was absolutely amazing.

“Bereavement is a process that everybody in their life will go through and until you’ve done it you don’t know how mad you go.
“There comes a time after about three months when people say, ‘How are you?’ And if you keep saying, ‘I feel awful,’ then they get bored with it and are thinking, ‘Oh, shut up.’” Actress, campaigner and writer Sheila, 76, wrote best-selling book The Two Of Us about her relationship with the Manchester-born star of Inspector Morse, The Sweeney and many other productions.

One of Britain’s favourite actors, he died in February 2002 at the age of 60. Burnage-raised John and Sheila were married for 30 years.

She talks about their time together as the latest subject for Piers Morgan’s Life Stories (ITV1, Sunday, 10pm), a series which has attracted a peak audience of over five million viewers.

Former newspaper editor Piers asks: “You must miss him dreadfully?” Sheila replies: “I don’t miss him dreadfully, no, it’s six years now.

“I had this terrible seizure in Venice. We’d been to Venice many times and we’d never seen the real bronze horses, just the replicas.

“I used to try and drag him up the stairs to see the real horses but he said, ‘No, let’s have a coffee in the square.’ And this time on my own I saw them and I was gutted that he was never going to see them. So I had a bit of a do then. But on the whole, no. I’ve made a good life for myself. I’m very lucky.”

Asked how volatile their relationship was, she replies: “Very. John was an alcoholic; I’ve made no secret of that.”

Sheila believes he was probably an alcoholic when they first met. “I think so but it hadn’t really done him a lot of harm. He was a drinker. My first husband was a drinker, my father was a drinker. I like drinkers, I really do.

“But there is a fine line between being a fun drinker and being a boorish alcoholic.” She adds: “But I like tempestuous, you see.”

Sheila also talks about her own personal battle with cancer, when she coped without relying on John. “I cope very well on my own – when I got cancer I was devastated, but I though, ‘I’m going to fight this bloody thing.’ John could have supported me more but it wouldn’t have made any difference. I still had to do it on my own.”

She met John when they were cast together in stage comedy So What About Love? At first, she tried to get him thrown off the show. “I did, I’m afraid. He was very poor in it at rehearsal, he really was. He hadn’t done a lot of comedy.”

Sheila recalls the first meeting. “I was wearing – John often reminded me of this, and I wouldn’t wear it now – a full length red fox fur coat with a mini skirt. I came into the theatre and I said, ‘I’m so sorry, darling,’ and put down these bags. I looked across and there was this creature sneering towards me.

“I thought, ‘Right!’ So I went over and said, ‘So you’re John Thaw?’ And he didn’t even answer, he was so rude. All leather jacket and stubble. He just ignored me.

“We rehearsed for a week and he was absolutely awful, so I had a quiet talk and said, ‘Can we replace him?’ And they said, ‘No, there’s nobody available.’”

This fourth show in the six-part series also features filmed contributions from friends and family, including her daughters Joanna and Melanie Thaw.

“When I see what good mothers my own children are I feel really ashamed – they spend time with their kids. I was here, there and everywhere. I neglected them badly and when I was married to John it was a really obsessive marriage and they kind of came second a lot of the time.

"So I wasn’t a great mother but I’m glad I’ve got them now, I really am.”