HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD(FORD)

Whilst the closure of BAE at Woodford could not be considered to be a good thing, there is some talk of one of the potential buyers for the site being a company who wish to use the hangars to make feature films…

Big Harry Hughes walked into the huge empty aircraft hangar and looked around him at all he surveyed.

“At last!” he thought “It’s all mine!” and he began to daydream of beautiful starlets hanging upon his every word. The glitz… the glamour… the girls! All of it would be his just as soon as they got the cameras rolling. “Hollywood” he scoffed, “What did they know?” Here, on the outskirts of a soggy town in northern England, this was where the story of film was about to truly begin.

“Do you hear that Mr. Cousins? Your ‘Story of Film’ is merely a prologue, nothing but a prequel. We’ve not even reached the opening credits yet, Meester Bond! Mwahahahahahahaha!!”

He looked about him. Nobody was around. He sneaked another look around, just to be quite sure, and then reached into the large bag that he was carrying and pulled out the huge megaphone that he’d paid an absolute fortune for whilst bidding at that memorabilia auction, and paused to savour a personal moment before he moved it into position just in front of his mouth.

Images of the old days of the silver screen flooded his mind. Marilyn Monroe standing over the grating; King Kong’s last mighty roar; Charles Foster Kane smashing his snow globe; Charlie Chaplin twitching his funny little moustache; Buster Keaton riding the General towards destruction; Bogart in a smoky corner of Rick’s bar; Cary Grant double-taking as he spots that leopard; Gloria Swanson’s last and greatest close-up; Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet; Bette Davis and Joan Crawford; Jimmy Cagney “Top of the World”; Judy Garland over the rainbow; Fred and Ginger putting on the Ritz; Gene Kelly; Harry Lime in a startling shaft of light; George lassos the moon…

They were all there, all watching him, waiting for him to stand on their giant shoulders and  continue their legacy.

He paused and tried to breathe, but the intoxicating brew of images overwhelmed him and he had to open his eyes, pause and steady himself for a moment and try to clear his head of all the magic, all the joy and all the brilliance.

“Lights! Camera… Wait for it… Action!” he bellowed to no-one in particular, his mind racing as all of his dreams and fantasies burst into life once more inside his head. “No, no, Brad, I’m sorry. Angelina really doesn’t want to talk to you today. No, she and Kirsten have really got to be on that plane with me tonight. Honestly Brad, you’re just going to have to let it go… No, I don’t care what George has to say, just… I’m hanging up the phone now Brad…”

“You all right, HH?”

The reedy voice of Cecil took him completely by surprise and he nearly jumped out of his skin in fright…

“Fine… I’m fine” he managed to stammer, before whispering a steely “What the hell are you doing here?” which echoed around the empty space and returned to his own ears like a bellow.

“Er, you asked me to meet you here…” Cecil ventured cautiously, “To sign the papers…?” He opened the briefcase that he was carrying and pulled out a whole sheaf of them and waved them half-heartedly in Harry’s direction.

Harry did try his very best to not appear to be flustered. That he failed spectacularly just proved to him that he was always likely to do better behind the cameras rather than in front of them. Then, he smiled a benevolent, million-dollar, cheese-eating grin towards Cecil.

“What do ya reckon then, big fella…?”

Cecil just looked puzzled. His five foot four inch tall frame had rarely been described as being “big” in his experience. A silence started to stretch between them that he realised had already long since ceased to be a mere pause and was starting to develop into something far more alarming.

“Erm…” he ventured hopefully, but Harry seemed grateful at having the troublesome moment punctuated by any sound at all and took the opportunity to leap back into the fray, wrapping his arm around the shoulders of the little man and giving him an enthusiastic shake.

“This is going to be HUGE, Cecil, old son. The biggest thing to hit the North West of England since some guys decided to kick a ball around one day and suddenly had the idea that they could possibly try to make a living at it!”

“I mean, Cecil, what’s Hollywood, or even Bollywood for that matter, got that we haven’t got right here in the heart of, well maybe not the heart but, but…”

“The liver…?” suggested Cecil…

“Whatever… No, Cecil, it’s the soul… The very soul of England! It’s right here, Cecil, right here! If we can persuade those Londoners that news broadcasting doesn’t have to be based anywhere near the heart of government or the centre of the entertainment industry, we can do anything we want! So I ask you again, what the hell has Hollywood got that we haven’t got right here?”

“Er… Sunshine…?”

“Bugger!”