University degree for OFAH

We recently had Robert Lamb contact us regarding his university degree for OFAH. Yes can you beleive it! His study of Only Fools and Horses depicts geographies of the home. Here is a fascinating excerpt of the essay for our website fans to see. He’s condensed the essay to the section that specifically talks about OFAH and the conclusion (see below).

We should mention that Robert received an A grade for the OFAH essay! I hope you find the essay interesting and feel free to comment below.

1.0     Only Fools and Horses

Only Fools and Horses (referred to as Only Fools for brevity) was a BBC sitcom which ran for seven series between 1981 and 1991, with occasional Christmas Specials until 2003. It was written by John Sullivan (1946-2011). It centres around two Cockney brothers, Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter (played by David Jason) and Rodney Trotter (played by Nicholas Lyndhurst) and their attempts to become millionaires by means of fly-pitching (unlicensed market trading) on the black market, selling goods which are low-quality or illegal. They live in a council flat (number 368) on the twelfth floor of a 26-storey tower block called Nelson Mandela House in Peckham, South London (although the series was actually filmed in a tower block in Acton, west London and later another in Ashton Gate, Bristol) with their elderly grandfather (who is referred to as ‘Granddad’) played by Lennard Pearce (McCann, 2011; Marcus and Hulse, 2005). Del Boy and Rodney’s mother, Joan, died when Rodney was very young and their father, Reg, ran away shortly after his wife’s death, leaving Del Boy to act as Rodney’s surrogate father and the family patriarch. Granddad’s character was killed off at the beginning of the fourth series in 1985 due to Lennard Pearce’s death in 1984 and he was replaced by his brother (Del Boy and Rodney’s great uncle) Albert (played by Buster Merryfield) (McCann, 2011). The Trotters do eventually become millionaires, but lose their fortune before gaining some of it back. This essay will now delve into the geographies of home depicted by Nelson Mandela House, studying both its exterior and its interior.

1.1     Nelson Mandela House – Outside

Tony Snoaden, the then production designer of Only Fools, researched several high-rise housing estates across London, such as three more-or-less identical twenty-storey tower blocks near Kew Bridge in southwest London and another set of towerblocks off Bollo Bridge Road in North Acton, west London (McCann, 2011). The director, Ray Butt, said that these were perfect models for Nelson Mandela House and so, after studying the exteriors, they went inside one of the empty apartments and Snoaden made some notes (McCann, 2011). This tower block was the one showed in the final frame of the title sequence of the series (McCann, 2011). It was called Harlech Tower, a 13-storey, 36m high tower block in the South Acton Estate (the largest estate of the London Borough of Ealing), in Acton, West London, approved as part of Stage 15 of the development of the estate in 1968, at a time when public opinion started to turn away from council-estate modernism (McCann, 2011; Wikia, unknown; Montgomery, 2011). The final frame of the Only Fools title sequence, showing Harlech Tower as it appeared at the time of filming, is shown in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1: The final frame in the title sequence of Only Fools and Horses, showing Harlech Tower with the Trotters’ yellow Reliant Robin van parked outside.
Screenshot captured by the author from the Complete Series 1 DVD (BBCDVD 1035)

Sad news came for Only Fools fans in 2009, when it was announced by several sources that Harlech Tower was to be demolished in 2011 as part of a redevelopment of the entire South Acton estate (Chortle, 2009; The Sun, 2009; Bloomfield, 2009). As of March 2012, Ealing Council has demolished seven tower blocks, enabling the redevelopment of 346 homes built and managed by Catalyst Housing Group for rent and shared ownership, improved six blocks and developed the new Oaktree Community Centre (London Borough of Ealing, 2012).

4.2     Nelson Mandela House – Inside

When it came to creating the set for the Trotters’ flat, Snoaden paid close attention to John Sullivan’s script, such as this description from series 1 episode 1, Big Brother (broadcast 8th September 1981):

“The room should reflect their [the Trotters’] style of business. Nothing is permanent. The settee and two armchairs are from three separate suits as the other pieces were used as make-weights in various other swaps. There are three TV sets; one colour, one black and white, and one with its back off awaiting repair. There are a couple of stereo music centres standing one on top of the other. Various video games, talking chess games, etc, litter the room. Their [the Trotters’] phone is one of the ornate 1920s type with separate ear-piece on an alabaster base. The decor is clean but gaudy. Dozens of clashing patterns. It should look like the start of a bad trip.” (Sullivan, 1981; also quoted in McCann, 2011, p75).

Acting on this, Snoaden kept firmly in mind the knowledge that the Trotter family has no real taste, so he went for the most outlandish and distinctive décor that he and the BBC’s Props Manager, Chris Ferriday, could find (McCann, 2011). Snoaden covered the walls in beige wallpaper and carpeted the floor in what McCann (2011, p75) humorously describes as ‘a mixture of mud, sugar and honey’. He also knew that the flat was a masculine environment, so he filled the sitting room with a selection of unlikely objects, such as old car wheels, ice buckets, reproduction paintings, a Pirelli calendar (a calendar sporting scantily-clad famous actresses and female fashion models, used as advertisements for the Italian tyre company Pirelli), forgotten holiday souvenirs, a wrought-iron guitar, piles of yellowing newspapers and creased magazines, a few empty beer bottles and a wide variety of unsold, low-quality stock (McCann, 2011). Snoaden also realised that there had to be a large selection of tables, as the Trotters were the type who were prepared to sell everything, including the table at which they sat for their meals (McCann, 2011). Figure 2 below presents a panoramic screenshot from the beginning of Big Brother, showing some of these objects and the general décor of the sitting room:

Figure 2: The very first scene from Big Brother, where the camera pans across the room, showing some of the various objects mentioned in John Sullivan’s script. The paintings and the Pirelli calendar can be seen on the wall to the left above Rodney. On the wall between the two blue doors is the wrought-iron guitar. The large car wheel can be seen, with a small pile of newspapers above it. To the right of the brown chair can just be seen a box of goods. The two televisions can be seen (the television which is awaiting repair can be seen beneath the black-and-white television on the left). Sullivan’s description of the chairs being from three separate suites is also evident. A magazine, tomato ketchup and a large ashtray can be seen on the coffee table in front of the televisions.
Panorama created from screenshots from the Complete Series 1 DVD (BBCDVD 1035)

After filming five series between 1981 and 1988 at Harlech Tower, the production team of Only Fools realised that Acton was no longer a viable option for filming for various reasons (McCann, 2011). After considering a number of possibilities, Gareth Gwenlan (the then producer), Tony Dow (the then director) and John Sullivan went to Bristol for a reconnaissance, where they found an appropriate block of flats called Whitemead House (also constructed in the 1960s) on the Duckmoor Road Estate in the Ashton Gate area (McCann, 2011; Google 3D Warehouse, 2012). The new filming location gave rise to a new look for the interior of Nelson Mandela House. John Sullivan’s (less specific) description of the living room of the flat from the script of Yuppy Love (Series 6, Episode 1, broadcast 8th January 1989) now read:

“The Trotters’ new dining suite is a bamboo and wicker-work affair with floral design cushions on the chairs (the kind of thing you’d expect to find in a conservatory).” (Sullivan, 1989).

In 2011, as part of marking the 30th anniversary of the show, a council flat in Peckham itself was restored by Gold TV to how 368 Nelson Mandela House looked in the latter days of Only Fools (1989-2003) in order for members of the public to hire it for one night for £18, the price of a flat in 1981 (Cooper, 2011; Chortle, 2009). It is complete with what one of the flat creators, Mary Silk, terms in a video “palm tree wallpaper” (which is the original wallpaper used in the sitcom), bright red carpet (not the original carpet, but of a similar design), the cocktail bar, the “candlestick phone” (Price, 2011, no page number), original paintings and an inflatable sex doll, paying homage to the second episode of the sixth series, Danger UXD (broadcast on 15th January 1989), where Del Boy attempts to sell inflatable sex dolls with flammable propane canisters inside them, as well as original costumes, such as Del Boy’s flat cap and sheepskin coat (Cooper, 2011; BBC News, 2011; Price, 2011). The kitchen is kitted out with the original wallpaper which has prints of various foods and drinks on it, the kitchen units which feature in the programme, as well as bottles of “Peckham Spring” (tap water which Del Boy was marketing as spring water in the 1992 Christmas Day Special Mother Nature’s Son) and patterned plates (BBC News; 2011). Price (2011) reports that he found a leopard skin thong hanging on the bathroom door. Figures 3A and 3B below show two views of the interior of the restored flat, while Figure 3C shows the wallpaper used in the kitchen:

Figure 3A: The interior of the restored Peckham council flat in 2011. The wallpaper, glass table, two armchairs, carpet, cocktail bar, curtains and sex doll were all used originally in the show (Keogh, 2011). The red helmet on the shelf is another dodgy deal (‘horse riding helmets which have been sprayed red’) that Del Boy attempted to sell in the seventh series. The cardboard boxes stacked by the front door are for “Nomad cordless telephones”, which Del Boy attempts to sell in the sixth series.

Figure 3B: Another view of the restored council flat, showing a tea trolley which was used in the series with an ice bucket and various jugs and cups on it, as well as more boxes of goods behind the armchair. The two doors leading to the bedrooms and bathroom are missing, however.

Figure 3C: A screenshot of the wallpaper in the kitchen of the restored flat, taken from the video on BBC News.
Source: Cooper (2011); BBC News (2011)

Some Only Fools fans have even gone as far as to use clues from the seven series to create room plans of Nelson Mandela House. These are shown in Figures 4A and 4B below:

Figure 4A: An aerial view room plan submitted to the Only Fools and Horses Fan Site by an unknown user. The satellite dish on the balcony was obtained illegitimately by Del Boy when a friend of his stole it from the runway of Gatwick Airport.

Figure 4B: A plan submitted by user KirkStacey, showing the furniture layout of the flat from an oblique angle.
Source: Only Fools and Horses Fan Site (2010) www.ofah.net

The essay will now situate Only Fools within the geographies of home literature about the residential high-rise and the pressures of high-rise living before concluding.

4.3     Only Fools and Home

Llewellyn (2004) picks up on some of the themes that run throughout Only Fools, such as the kitchen being too small and families having to eat in the living room in his case study of Kensal House in Ladbroke Grove, northwest London, where he reports that 80% of residents are ‘enthusiastic’ about the kitchen arrangement. None of the Trotters complain about the kitchen being too small or how the living room should be kept for ‘best’ in Only Fools, so they would fit this category (Llewellyn, 2004). The Trotters’ class aspirations are also clear in Only Fools through the “kitchen-living room split”, which is an important sign of an aspiration to ‘taste’ and “middle-class respectability” (Llewellyn, 2004, p240). However, a common theme throughout the sitcom (especially in the 1992 Christmas Day Special Mother Nature’s Son when Raquel, Del Boy’s partner, forces Del Boy to divest of some of his unsold black market merchandise) is the lack of space in the flat, also mentioned by Llewellyn (2004). Another running theme in the sitcom mentioned by Llewellyn (2004) is the colour of the interior. It can be seen from Figure 2 that the interior from 1981-1988 was “brown and cream” (Llewellyn, 2004, p243) as one of the residents Llewellyn (2004) interviewed, Arthur, terms it. Therefore, Tony Snoaden and Chris Ferriday, by using this wallpaper on the Only Fools set, tried to subtly create the working-class status (Llewellyn, 2004).

Only Fools has a strong link to Thompson’s (1993) review of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, a 1970s British sitcom starring James Bolam and Rodney Bewes. Bob (Bewes) moves on to the Elm Lodge Housing Estate and waxes lyrical about its benefits, while Terry (Bolam) looks forward to a “modern kitchen, a lovely view and an inside toilet”, in his new high-rise flat (Thompson, 1993). However, high-rise flats are plagued with problems such as failing lifts and children running riot in unfamiliar concrete surroundings (Thompson, 1993). The former theme particularly runs throughout Only Fools, often with Del Boy complaining about the lifts not working and in one episode, Homesick (broadcast 10th November 1983), failed lifts and climbing twelve flights of stairs take their toll on Granddad’s legs (Only Fools and Horses Fan Site, 2009; McCann, 2011). It is, however, revealed that it was Del Boy that tampered with the lifts in the first place, exploiting the fact that high-rise lifts are often unreliable, just so the Trotters could go and live in a stylish bungalow that a visit to a doctor for Granddad recommended. Del Boy also pulls off a similar trick in the 1996 Christmas Special Time On Our Hands (broadcast 29th December 1996) so he can get Rodney to open up about his emotions following his wife Cassandra’s miscarriage. This also delays a delivery of a large dining suite for when Raquel’s parents come to dinner at the flat and the deliverymen complain about climbing the twelve flights of stairs. The problem of unreliable lifts in high-rise estates is mentioned by Melhuish (2005) in her study of the Brunswick Centre in Central London, where “fear in the blocks crystallizes around the vertical mechanism of the lift, often judged unreliable in itself” (Melhuish, 2005, p22). Only Fools, therefore, like Likely Lads, really emphasises the pressures and problems associated with high-rise living.

5.0     Conclusion

Although the British sitcom has declined significantly in the 21st century, it is still the subject of many a conversation. People often remember certain anecdotes or jokes and share them with each other, whether it be at home, in the workplace or whilst travelling. Only Fools is certainly no exception to this. It is also a good example of several aspects of geographies of home, particularly that of the residential high-rise. The demolition of Harlech Tower, the high-rise used to film the Trotters’ flat, Nelson Mandela House, between 1981 and 1988, proves Jacobs’ (2006) points that the idea of the high-rise being a marker of modernity and difference did not fare too well in the UK, in the light of local authorities not knowing what to do with high-rise stock when it is deemed redundant and, in an increasingly market-oriented logic of decisions revolving around high-rise stock, demolition being the best solution.

It is evident that the production team of Only Fools carried out some considerable geographical research when finding the most suitable high-rise to use for the filming of Nelson Mandela House and for creating the set of the flat. The flat is portrayed as a very masculine, working-class space, particularly in light of the props and the “brown and cream” décor (the so-called sign of a working class home) that were used (Llewellyn, 2004, p243). The 2011 recreation of Nelson Mandela House in a Peckham council flat enabled the public to physically see some of the props that were used in the Nelson Mandela House set between 1989 and 2003, as well as revel in the life that would have been in Nelson Mandela House in that period. Some Only Fools fans have even gone as far as to create floor plans of Nelson Mandela House (a very important artefact of the geographies of home), using clues from the show. Finally, the link between Only Fools and another sitcom, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, is made, where Terry (played by James Bolam) dreams of the benefits of high-rise living but has to contend with unreliable lifts and boisterous children, the former being a common complaint and the (at first supposed) subject of one episode of Only Fools, as well as a link with Melhuish’s (2005) study of the Brunswick Centre in Central London. It can be concluded, therefore, that Only Fools is a fine example of geographies of home at their most advanced.

Bibliography

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