A Piece of Pastry

This is a slightly curious one. An article which wasn’t my idea and which it would almost certainly never have occurred to me to write, but which has ended up becoming one of the most-read pieces of work I have ever done.

 
A few weeks ago my colleague Emma, who among many other things produces the Secret Norfolk series of feature pieces and mini-documentaries for BBC Sounds, asked me if I might make her an item for that series about the actor and comedian Richard Hearne – a household name in Britain for many years in the mid-20^th century for his Mr Pastry character.
 
Emma had been speaking to Paul Dickson, who runs walking tours of Norwich city centre exploring its history and heritage, about some possible subjects he might be able to help with for Secret Norfolk episodes and he had suggested Hearne as an interesting candidate. Emma knows of my great interest in and work related to television history, and thought I’d be the perfect person to do such a piece.
 
I was aware of Hearne, and probably had been ever since I’d heard former Doctor Who producer Barry Letts tells his well-worn anecdote about sounding him out for the part of the Fourth Doctor in the 1993 Radio 2 documentary Doctor Who – 30 Years. I’d also researched some of his work, a little bit, as his early 1960s Saturday teatime sitcoms feature in my forthcoming book When Saturday Came about the history of the BBC Television’s children’s shows in that slot from 1950 to 1963.

 

But he’s not someone I would have necessarily gone out of my way to make a radio piece about or write an online feature on. However, I was more than happy to do so when Emma asked me if I’d fancy it. I was able to put together what turned out to be a nice little Secret Norfolk episode, talking to Paul Dickson out-and-about on the streets Norwich and using a bit of archive of Hearne speaking about his life and career on BBC Radio 4 in 1968.
 
I hadn’t initially thought there was any mileage in a tie-in News Online feature, for the simple reason that it wasn’t in any way, shape or form ‘news’. This wasn’t an event or a happening, it was simply interesting. However, the news editor had expressed an interest in an article and, while there was no ‘hook’ for it, after making the Sounds piece I decided I could probably do something as a light weekend feature.
 
This I duly did, and after going up last weekend it’s proved that there are actually a large number of people who remember and / or are interested in Mr Pastry, as it’s done great guns on the stats. Interestingly, over the course of the past week it’s pretty much doubled what it got on the first day, which is unusual and surprising and probably comes from it being shared on Facebook nostalgia groups and the like.
 
On the one hand, it’s slightly dispiriting to find that something I put together comparatively quickly can get a much larger readership than something I originated and very carefully researched and crafted over a long period of time. But on the other, it’s just nice to do something which interests people and which they want to read!
 
So, here’s to good old Mr Pastry.