Roy Parkinson was a film director. That is, he directed films - or, at least, he directed parts of films. While the real director was handling the likes of, say, John Mills and Anthony Quinn, Parky would be somewhere out in the boonies directing stock shots for use as fill-ins or directing minor players in scenes that would be inserted to ensure the audiences didn't lose their sense of continuity. If that sounds dismissive, it is not intended to. Second directors were, and probably still are, vital to the complex process of assembling footage to keep the whole production within budget and on schedule. Parky was a good second director and much in demand and, if you were quick, you would see his name in the credits.
My Friend Harry first met Roy Parkinson when Roy was allocated the spare bed in Harry’s room at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps officers' mess, Cumballa Hill, Bombay. Harry was there on attachment from the Royal Armoured Corps; Parky was there as an RAOC Captain. Dapper, black-haired, quick of movement and overflowing with amiability, Roy at once led Harry to the bar and a firm friendship was swiftly established.
Roy, though, had a problem. Because he was medically graded on enlistment as category B, he could not join a fighting regiment. He was thereupon shovelled into the RAOC and floundered amid the unbelievable mass of paper which that Corps required to keep it going. In consequence, he soldiered on mostly in charge of regimental matters and, from time to time, blossomed out as an adjutant.
Then, with the war in Europe heading for its climax, he was issued with tropical kit, given the customary eight inoculations and vaccinations and posted off to Bombay - to be told on arrival that he was in charge of all documentation relating to the control and shipment of armoured vehicles, the RAOC having taken over such matters from the Royal Army Service Corps. So, as announced in the previous paragraph, Parky had a problem. The nearest he had ever been to an armoured vehicle was on a tram. “How," he wailed over his third gin, “am I going to account for things like tanks and armoured cars when I can’t tell one from the other and wouldn’t know a Sherman if I fell over one?"
“Your worries are over, Parky,” Harry assured him. “I shall be your mentor. My job here is to sort out armoured vehicles when they are unloaded from the ships at the docks; to assemble them by make, mark, type and category and to arrange for their transport to places like Burma and Calcutta-and even Poona. You shall come with me to see how a mere Lieutenant like me can deal with a situation of such magnitude."
The next day, Parky joined Harry in the passenger seat of the utility car which Harry drove to the dock each morning and, thereafter, to the huge vehicle park at Sewri on the outskirts of Bombay. The route took them through the swarming back streets, along the infamous Grant Road red light quarter where the hapless girls faced the oglers from behind iron bars - and past Bombay’s extraordinary film studio.
This, naturally, had Parky dithering with excitement. “A film studio!” he exclaimed. “Here, in all this squalor." Harry had an idea. “Why not," he suggested, “get one of your Pinewood or Elstree contacts to send a letter requesting the privilege of a courtesy visit?"
Thus it was, in the course of time, that Roy and Harry spent an afternoon in the open-air studio. It was as unlike the general concept of a film studio as it could possibly be. More like a throwback to the off-the-cuff days of Mack Sennett and the Keystone Kops. Hundreds and hundreds of people were milling about and, in the manner of a Stock Exchange, shouting and screaming and gesticulating at each other. Dogs roamed about looking for morsels to eat. There was the odd cow, that privileged creature in India, wandering among the throng. Crows croaked, dust hung in the air and all was bedlam and chaos - until a trumpet sounded. Then, in the instant, silence and stillness. Someone, somewhere, was about to shoot a scene. Klieg lights would outdo the sun, the thin voice of the director would be heard through his megaphone and the scene would be shot. If it went well, out would go the lights and the trumpet would sound and the whole frenzied gathering would once more come to clamorous life. Before they left, the wondering visitors were given tea in the studio’s little cinema and two or three recent documentaries made on that very spot were put on for their interest. Roy and Harry were dumbfounded. They were of an excellence unsurpassed anywhere. Roy was open-mouthed. “Bloody marvellous," he exclaimed. “Bloody marvellous.”
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Time passed and Roy was posted once again, this time to what was Ceylon and to what was Colombo and the Headquarters of South East Asia Command. And because he was now installed at HQ he became a Staff Officer and because he was in charge of a department, he was promoted to Major.
His first letter to Harry, back in Bombay, bubbled over with incredulity. “They put me in charge of armoured vehicle docs and I didn’t know a Churchill from an airship," he wrote. “Thanks to you I managed to flannel my way through all that. Now they’ve put me in charge of Headquarters (Stats) and I can't even add up my change." Stats was Army ‘shorthand’ for statistics and it covered a daunting range of matters.
Still, Roy managed to keep his head above water and, like Harry, later, to enjoy the luxury and sophistication of life at the top. His last letter to Harry revealed the whole of the Indian Army in all its bland idiocy.
“I was told,” he wrote, “that Delhi was sending us its Reduction Committee. That’s a gang of top brass dedicated to cutting down staff and reducing costs. Well, they descended upon Colombo and, in due course, turned their eagle eyes upon HQ (Stats). They spent two days studying our operation, examined all our records, scrutinised all the documentation and personnel files and departed in the staff car, pennants flying.
“Last week I received their report and recommendations. It ran: We are of opinion that this department is an essential part of the HQ establishment. Nevertheless, we consider that the work could equally efficiently be carried out with a staff of seven.'
Roy added:
“That was wonderful. We’d never had more than five!”
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