Charles Kearney

From an E-mail to Declan McCafferty circa 2005

Myself and Mr K shared a mutual friend. I engaged in brief email discussion. Here's a great email from him from 2005. Btw, the mention of John Young at the start is due to me showing a picture of Young, in error, to said mutual friend. Du-uh. Anyway, here it is......................................

"Who will rid me of this troublesome Movie? Declan, the pictures you enclosed are of an Acator called John Young, now sadly deceased, whose main claim to fame was that he appeared on stage, on more than a few occasions, in company with yours truly! His lesser claims to fame, in that direction, were, that he was a favourite with the 'Monty Python' team and appeared in at least two of their Movies to my certain knowledge! Far down the line from from these achievements, is the fact that he was Father to Paul Young, the Acator and presenter of many 'Angling' programmes, and was Husband to an Agent of mine called 'Freddie' Young. To this we must add that he was lovely Gentleman, good actor, with the driest and wickedest sense of humour that he only let you in on when you had known him a long time! That said, he was no Butcher! I say this with some certainty as I, Charles P Kearney, of that Ilk, was that very character!!! 'The salmon of knowledge' might well have given away the fact that John was indeed 'The Fishmonger!' And this sobriquet, 'Salmon of Knowledge', to this day, has been passed on to a mutual friend of myself and Frank's!

I hold an ambivalent attitude towards 'The Wicker Man' as I had been told I would have quite a decent role, and, indeed, I did have a substantial 'dialogue' scene with Mr. Woodward in the Butcher's Shop, which, alas, like so many of my best performances, both before, and since, ended on the Cutting-Room FLOOR!!! When I took my now Wife, and her friend, to the Cinema, to see it for my, and their, first time, the only reaction I received was, " Is that it?' Forbye these, unfortunate, circumstances, the money was shite but the company were imbibers of gigantic appetite, and trenchers of no mean proportion in the field of 'Scoffing'! The Beer in the Pub was the real thing and attested to the inexperience of the Director, in the making of feature films, and of the propensities of Scottish Actors, particularly en masse! Make-up had to be regularly re-applied as the ravages of the 'drink' reddened the faces of the actor chappies made them all look like Tomatoes!

I wont bore you with further detail, except to say that one night I got Royally pissed with the Location Accountant, in the course of which he let slip that the Film had no chance of ever being anything more than a 'B' Movie and was being made to lose so much money that the company would be able to excuse the shutting-down of the Studios, and attendant Land, and selling it on for development! Whether this was the meandering's of a man in his 'cups', I leave up to yourselves, but the first part of his prediction most certainly proved true, however in my callous youth, I never took the trouble to find out if the second half proved as accurate. Perhaps, Declan, as an aficionado of this Film, you might be able to inform my higgorance as to the real end of story?

Best Wishes and Salutations

ChasP."