Journey Into Space

Letters Page 3

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Kenneth Gatland - Scientific Advisor

During the 1980's I was a colleague of the late Ken Gatland, credited as scientific advisor of the 3rd series. As the original broadcasts were a few years before my time, it's thanks to Ken that I got to hear about 'Journey Into Space' and have been hooked on it ever since.

Discussions in the office with Ken about the possibility of life on Mars were fascinating and it's so good to see a web-site dedicated to 'Journey Into Space'! The present Mars probes are all very well, but somehow it's just not quite so interesting...

Geoff Burt

Alan Tilvern

Just discovered your excellent website, bringing back memories of my early teenage years waiting patiently each week for the next enthralling episode!

According to "The Times" Alan Tilvern, who provided voices for several back-up characters in "World In Peril," passed away on December 17, 2003, at the age of 85. He and David Jacobs used to frighten the living daylights out of me with missing crewmen in allegedly empty freighters, or lost colleagues wandering about in strange places on the planet's surface!

Alan Moore

BBC Shop Dematerialisation

Hello, I hope you are right about spring 2004 for the "Journey into Space" CD set because I contacted the BBC again about the entry on their Shop website. I got an email back stating that the entry was an error and that the set would not be available for at least eighteen months!

That's about the third different date we have been given. I wonder are we really contacting the BBC or could it be James Edward Whittaker up to his old tricks?

Michael Foley

Editing the tapes up in space, you mean? Let's hope not.

BBC Shop Materialisation

I visited the BBC Shop website today looking for the CD boxset of Journey Into Space.

The BBC informed me that it would not be available until the middle of next year and yet the date of issue is now shown as 3rd December 2003. The odd thing is that the item is marked "Temporarily out of stock"- in one week? Have all you lot bought them all?

Michael Foley

The CD box set was last reported as due out in Spring 2004.

Cast Details

Delighted to find the website. Last time I looked on the Net, I found something quite different, the novelisations I think. I have the four BBC tapes, and I am coming to the end of an on-off re-run of the three serials which has taken me most of this year. I have just read that Chilton did not want Kossoff back, which agrees with my feeling that he is definitely now writing for Alfie Bass (I am on the last stretch of The World In Peril). Lemmy's aggrieved "Wellll ..." when he gets (more and more) ticked off by Jet is on its way to becoming a catchphrase. It is natural they should start getting on each other's nerves, but preferably not on the listeners'. Lemmy at this point could turn into the rather kickable "Bootsie" that Alfie Bass first played in The Army Game.

Has anyone an exact record of who played what? You inevitably get to know David Jacobs' voice pretty well, and you can hear him doing amazing doubles. In the interview issued with The Return To Mars he remembers playing Whitaker - but I cannot make that voice out to be his, even if he consistently has dialogue with himself. Is he perhaps thinking of all the Whitaker-ed types he eventually played? John Cazabon (whose voice I ought to know but never do) is not billed in the Radio Times that early in The Red Planet. So surely Whitaker is Anthony Marriott (who I think was the collaborator in writing No Sex Please, We're British who died without ever knowing what a success they had)?

Radio Times is vague as to casting, and even the BBC's "Programmes-as-Broadcast", which is supposedly a complete record for contractual purposes, only has a block of names for JIS. Presumably Chilton looked round the studio on the Sunday morning (was it?) and handed out the week's parts. Someone must have the details!

Roger Sansom

The full cast details will be added to this site in due course. As for Anthony Marriott, he played the original Whitaker. He was a playwright as well as an actor. He played some 'other voices' for Harry Alan Tower's in programmes such as The Black Museum.

Happy days... before Surround Sound

Hi all you JIS fans,

I have many happy memories of being terrified by the sound of Whitaker's voice as it bounced about in my head during the night in a darkened bedroom. I was very fortunate to take up the hobby of astronomy in the mid 50s, so when I looked at the planet Mars I got an extra kick you might say.

I have been in contact with Charles Chilton and he is a very cool person for his age. I have some very early recordings of the JIS tapes with all the original sounds that were so important to the enjoyment of the action and used to echo round the room long before Surround Sound.

I am based here in manchester and if anybody would like to meet for a monthly event I can arrange a perfect venue, and if the support was there I could try and get Charles Chilton to attend.

I can be contacted on e-mail, .

Tony Cross
2 Hogwarth Walk
Cheetham
Manchester
M8 0LG

Mistakes Spotted

As someone who has never forgotten the delicious mixture of security and fear engendered by listening as a child to Journey into Space by firelight in the early 50s, many thanks for a great site, Control.

I'm afraid that the child did grow up, though, to become something of a tiresome stickler for detail, so will you permit me just two little gripes?

1) In the '50 Years, 50 Amazing Facts' section (item 2) you don't mention what was probably Alfie Bass's most famous subsequent role as far as the great British public was concerned: that of Private 'Excused Boots' Bisley (Bootsie) in the Granada comedy series The Army Game (1957-61) and Bootsie and Snudge (1960-62).

2) I feel sure that Lemmy would not have been happy about that curiously feminine-looking spelling 'Lemmuelle' (Blimey, Doc!) which you quote. Wasn't his full name Lemuel? (Proverbs 31:1-9). Samuel -> Sammy; Lemuel -> Lemmy.

Kevin Flynn

Greetings from Down Under

G'day to all you JIS fans, and greetings from Down Under

Yes, there are plenty of us JIS fans still alive and kicking. I listened to the original broadcasts in England before I emmigrated to Aussie.

Along with all of the other accolades for this series is that it created radio history and almost certainly created a whole generation of Science Fiction fans. I know that between episodes of JIS I read all of the SF books I could find in the local library.

I still read SF and would listen to JIS if it were repeated here.

A great site and good luck to you all.

Eric
Adelaide