Sad and shocking news in the paper this evening that The Bill's Reg Hollis tried to slit his wrists after being told his contract with the show would not be renewed.
Excuse the way my reporting of this seems to muddle the actor (Jeff Stewart) with the character but that is how the newspaper covered it too. And obviously the role was important to the man himself - he's been on the show since it started in 1984. That's an awful long time in one role and it is easy to see how it must be more than a job to him.
I've been made redundant once and whilst I was upset and worried about finding another job, I wasn't driven to such extremes. I quickly got myself some temping work, but I suppose that isn't an option for him (can he touch type?). Vacancies for people who've pretended to be a policeman for over 20 years are probably a bit thin on the ground, although I believe Heartbeat recently lost a policeman so there may be a position for him in 1960s Yorkshire town.
I hope Jeff feels better soon and if its any consolation The Bill has gone downhill anyway so he may be better off out of it.
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I was shocked when I read this, I love The Bill. It looks like there won't be many of the old cast left soon at this rate if they're being replaced with younger, more good-looking actors. Meadows and Stamp must be the 'oldest' characters now.
Re your songs of the week - have you ever read Death Discs by Alan Clayson? It might have some interesting ideas for songs, as it's an account of fatality in popular music, before obvious gloom and doom goth/death metal/Nick Cave stuff. I think there are some curious oddities from earlier decades, little nuggets of morbidity that presumably topped the charts once from 'normal' pop stars of all genres.
I didn't realise Stamp was still in it. I tried to watch a bit of one episode recently and found the writing really clunky. I used to love it though.
Thanks for the tip about that book - I vaguely remember hearing about this before but I've not read it. It on sale for about £1.50 off Amazon so I may invest.
I remember you writing about that, I think it was a particularly wordy and clunky storyline, as you said, but it's not always like that!
That book's good for ideas and references, for songs to seek out and listen to, but it's journalistic, not academic. I thought at the time he could have made better use of all his musical research, but maybe I was being a bit critical.
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