Jeffrey Bernard documentary (Arena, BBC2, 1987)

BBC2, 23-01-1987: Originally a part of Night & Day, this extract was repeated after Bernard's death in 1997 as "A Day in the Life of Jeffrey Bernard": "Another chance to see the Arena programme from 1987 on Jeffrey Bernard , who died last month, which follows him through his regular Soho eating and drinking haunts, in the betting shop and struggling with his column for The Spectator."
Not my copyright, just sharing found ephemera.

[@illuminant1129]

A beautiful 25 minutes. And I have now watched it several times. Beyond the character of Jeff and his friends, the following stands out - in no particular order :- Not a mobile phone or tablet in sight and Jeff has to struggle with the landline. Everybody - in the pub', the restaurant and the betting shop, all merrily puffing away on their ciggies' The leisurely 'lunch' at Kettners with Alfredos opera renditions Those 80s cars on the streets of Soho Happy Days !

[@Hannahxx1971]

I know that he was an alcoholic and a failure by many people's standards but I can't help feeling sad that real characters like him and many others, who have a plethora of fantastic, hilarious stories to tell are all gone now and sadly, because of the way life has changed there will never be any of their ilk again....a bit like the old smoky pubs, gone forever. Cheers for the upload, could have listened to him all day 👍

[@henrytree]

Very well said, Hannah. It is all now a time to be brushed away because it does not suit today's mores. I am glad I lived in the days of Jeff Bernard et al and enjoyed life. (I also worked very hard in life in order to be able to play hard, before the po-faced descend upon me!

[@tjchesney4997]

You're right. We need more characters like him and Muriel

[@Hannahxx1971]

@@henrytree I apologise for not responding to your reply, YT... for whatever reason didn't alert me. I'm glad also that I lived during the time when we still had characters..people who, as you did, worked hard in order to do what the hell they wanted with their lives as long as it didn't hurt anyone. Everybody is so busy tiptoeing around society now in case they offend one and other, usually causing more harm and people now are looking to be offended over the slightest thing... the wrong accidental pronoun etc..

[@Hannahxx1971]

@@tjchesney4997 Sadly, I know these characters are a dying breed. We've entered a whole different era and I'm genuinely sorry for the generations that have gone after me. I try to talk about these days to my children to keep it going but it's too late.

[@tjchesney4997]

@@Hannahxx1971 Hey, tell them that you communicated with a guy that got hit by a car, on his way to the doctors. That's well within the spirit of Jeff x

[@revol148]

Can you imagine someone living a life like that today in London? A large central London flat, a life of heavy drinking in pubs (£6.75-9 a pint), heavy smoking (£16 for a pack of cigarettes) all on a journalists wage !

[@anniehaynes1561]

Saw Peter play Jeffrey 4 times. Pure genius - working on national newspapers in the 70s and 80s was my life...there was no other..you either lasted a couple of days or stayed forever..i LOVED it & miss i as...in the words of Peter O'Toole I totter into antiquity.👍😹

[@RataStuey]

Great to read your comment. Did you ever go to the colony room?

[@Olsen65]

There is something soothing in daytime drinking. Lacks the hopelessness of night time extravagances.

[@ruairimonophthalmos5458]

It definitely has a very different feel and buzz then 'regular' drinking during the night.

[@Tmuk2]

I always enjoy how dazzling the daylight is when you step outside after a couple of pints

[@HAPPYTHELEAF]

However, coming out into daytime blazing sun on the other hand after possibly 4 to 5 vodkas can be somewhat anticlimactic nó matter how dazzling....

[@Olsen65]

@@HAPPYTHELEAF Well put.

[@msidd6484]

Just finished watching the play on KZbin, with Peter O'Toole. For those of us not residing in England and not aware of the entertainment's cultural icons of the era and the country ( and not in that order), this served as providing some ome background on the play, if I may. Thank you for sharing.

[@boychildnew1]

Thanks from the people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland too! Who also dont reside in England and can never seen TV from the UK either. This is, of course, sarcasm.

[@edmundkockenlocker4672]

I recorded this on a VHS tape about twenty years ago and I used to watch it endlessly. It wasn't just Bernard himself that was fascinating, but all the other characters in the programme including Soho itself.

[@stevendouglas3860]

Loved Arena in the late 80s ,90s I always loved there documentaries.

[@c0okiesandmilk]

There's a there/their disease on this website i swear to god.

[@daikayll1897]

You've left out " they've" too.

[@bjorgvinpalsson196]

Sax Sax

[@johnosullivan9141]

@@c0okiesandmilk They're hopeless there with their spelling. Oh dear!

[@kevinwhelan9607]

Yes, what is there that is comparable to I today? I think we both know the answer to that.

[@Peterchrisp]

I've been hoping someone would upload thus for years. Many thanks!

[@plumduff3303]

Ahh memories of those days the Polar Bear pub and the Canton restaurant hazy nights with long gone friends

[@markhayward7400]

I bought Jeffrey Bernard a large vodka and soda in the Coach and Horses in Soho in 1992. As I handed him the drink, he said, "You've bought me a drink, now SOD OFF". I immediately did as I had been told ! 😂

[@tomhaskett5161]

Dennis Shaw at 18:52

[@peterlister9626]

I've watched this documentary several times, brilliant documentary!!!

[@rogerlegends166]

Just as well he didn't live long enough to see the soulless boredom of modern Soho

[@jamesmc1272]

This is such a gentle portrait of a life lived in the pub, But I cant stop coming back.

[@mac10watp31]

Great Scottish accent

[@kevinwhelan9607]

I saw him one morning in the Coach & Horses in November 1988; I was taking a break from my flyposting route (I was quite literally "Bill Posters"). He was sitting at the Cambridge Circus end of the bar. He looked like a bedraggled figure out of Titian. I was at the counter; it was impossible not to hear his remarks to the bartender. Then he noticed me. "There are too many fucking eavesdroppers in this pub!" he muttered, glancing at me. Like so many drunks- O'Toole, Harris et al- he was a tiresome bore, though as with every alcoholic I'm guessing he was a very lonely figure. His writing could be very good but his successor to Low Life, Jeremy Clarke, was a better writer and with a far wider range, and cleverer too.

[@henrytree]

A man after my own heart, as they used to say. And I bet Jeff was most disgusted that Princess Di had her most unfortunate accident on the same weekend that Jeff died. Knocked him right away out of the headlines, so it did, and his passing never got the coverage it should have had. RIP Jeffrey.

[@tjchesney4997]

Is that true?

[@Elitist20]

@@tjchesney4997 Jeff, Di, the conductor Sir Georg Solti and Mother Theresa - all in the same week.

[@steveellis9004]

Like the departure of Farrah Fawcett-Majors was overshadowed by the death of Michael Jackson on the same day.

[@weskitten]

What brilliant timing!

[@dougmilne8425]

Brilliant character. Thanks for the download.

[@TimelordUK]

Oh that theme tune!!

[@stevenmorley1639]

Iam glad I experienced the tail end of London , as I liked it as well 😀...

[@simonerusso6920]

Wen i was yuong i dident realise that i will miss them days love to see hold England they dont tell yuo that

[@LordVikingLive]

Even Lower Life: First I saw Peter O'Toole in the play and then this. What a lovely little gem this is. Jeffrey must have grown up in the same area that David Bowie did or something, because they have the same type of dialect and cadence. Wonderful to listen to. Seen this and the other documentary "Reach for the Ground" several times now. Great stuff. I miss smoking in pubs. I don't remember if I ever was in the Coach and Horses. So many pubs, drinks, people and years that my memory simply can't recall. They say that when you are on your deathbed your whole life flashes before your eyes, so I'll know then. Happy days. Cheers.

[@kathleenmckenzie9500]

What a poet and story teller for us folk.

[@geoffgeoffgeoff6149]

Had the immense privilege of seeing him being carried to the door by Norman and another to the restaurant upstairs for Sunday lunch at the Coach in June 1990, well in his cups as they used to say. It would have been about 2.20pm, closing time in those halcyon days before all day drinking (and all day bores). God I miss him.

[@liammarshall1759]

Was Jeff on crutches then before loosing his leg?

[@geoffgeoffgeoff6149]

@@liammarshall1759 Don't think he'd had an amputation at that point, though he was certainly legless

[@liammarshall1759]

@@geoffgeoffgeoff6149 Did you ever speak to Jeffrey?

[@geoffgeoffgeoff6149]

@@liammarshall1759 I bought him a drink via Norman, he raised his glass in appreciation and that was that, I didn't want to bother him.

[@jeremyhaines4481]

Very interesting documentary

[@robertgregory6530]

Excellent. Sits well with Christopher Howse’s book Soho in the 80s - that I have just read.

[@henrytree]

Hmmm ... I spent a small fortune on Howse's book and regret every penny. It is a rehash, copy, plagiarism of many volumes that have gone before. Howse is a second-rate Soho habitee.

[@tomheslington2993]

@@henrytree I' very read most books on Soho, its pretty good.I wouldn't give it a kicking as you have done

[@henrytree]

@@tomheslington2993 Fair enough, Tom, but I have read so many books about Soho in a very long life that when a new one comes out I tend to buy it. It was very disappointing that there was absolutely nothing at all new in Howe's book. Just repetition, repetition and even more repetition of many stories told before by better story-tellers. Just my opinion, of course, and if you consider my comment was giving the book "a kicking", well, you don't know me.

[@philiphaigh5434]

Thank you very much ♥️

[@krishnamurtiism]

Wonderful, can’t wait to get down the Coach & Horses when lockdown is overrr

[@paulphilipempey1]

What a character! Thanks for the download.

[@comeonman5300]

A big, big thank you for uploading this. I had it recorded on VHS but it went missing in the mists of time. When it was broadcast in this form in 97 I hadn't even realised Jeff had died. He had faded away the week of Diana hysteria and as the internet was made of string in those days things could go under the radar

[@ppotter]

Glad you approve!

[@henrytree]

Exactly right, Comeon Man! I said to a friend on that horrid weekend, "Old Jeff will not be too pleased at the way he has been ignored this weekend!"

[@Pstephen]

Him, Diana, and Mother Theresa took up all of a double spread page of obits in the Guardian (full sized pages in those days as well). Barnard used to say something like that would happen to him.

[@comeonman8191]

@@Pstephen imagine The Guardian printing his obituary now.

[@weskitten]

NIght and Day by Cole Porter. What a song! I saw it performed live in 1999 by Dionne Warwick and of course, I thought of Frank who had died the previous year.

[@weskitten]

Here in Australia, I heard of Jeffrey during his lifetime, especially the kerfuffle when he 'ad 'is leg orf! What a character and what a devoted and inveterate drinker. He is not forgotten. I put him with the company of Charles Bukowski and Raymond Carver. Cripes, Jeffrey looked his age didn't he?!

[@wag1kids815]

It's still magic, a boozy lunch in soho...

[@ebneigh5191]

Dying or dead culture, sadly. Journalists and actors will now be found with abdominal rather than Scottish lager six packs, Pret lunches and bottles of water... what’s the ugliest part of their body? I think it’s their mind.

[@stevetayler8833]

Doing anything “naughty” is fantastic saves us from the monotony of day to day groundhog life.

[@mikedunkle6709]

love this mate. he is the american version of de Kooning, but instead of oil paint it was type-ink...

[@weskitten]

Gee, they were they days when people still smoked. Unbelievable by today's standards.

[@johnnowlan9963]

I drink during the day because I will not wake up in the morning with a hangover 🍺 cheers

[@thesunandthemoon9995]

This was great. Thanks for posting!

[@ppotter]

You're welcome.

[@IshmaelSkyes]

Oh, bloody hell, Baker...

[@johndaarteest]

"Would you care for a Jelly Baby?"

[@bootstrapperwilson7687]

"You have a woman's purse my lord..."

[@bartonbank2531]

Love the theme tune to arena , takes me straight back to my childhood

[@weskitten]

He seemed to have made drinking a career, I guess that's the point. What an interesting man.

[@weskitten]

Soho went quite pink I believe. Someone fill me in there.

[@scottmcfadyen8921]

Fascinating

[@simonerusso6920]

peter and Jeffrey bernard did they now each oder❤

[@matthewlacey5307]

Bought Jeffrey a fair few vodkas in the Coach. I was a student and loved discovering London. Soho was brilliantly seedy so british. Norman Balon was behind the bar at the Coach. Brilliant boozer. Had to play cool though had been fascinated reading all about the in my Dad's Spectator. I now subscribe to this won derful magazine.

[@RataStuey]

14:49 Richard Madeley on the table behind them!

[@jamesmalone1680]

Short but very sweet

[@AndrewBrownM7BUK]

Life has become so sterile now that all the genuine fun has been lost. Young people think they’re having a good time, but they’re not. They’ll grow old too, maybe too old for anyone to care about, and end up being spoon fed and having their bottoms wiped. I’d sooner have lived Bernard’s life. Short, sweet and lots of fun.

[@tancreddehauteville764]

Life was much more interesting in London back in the '50s and '60s. It was REAL LIFE! Now all people do is run around like automatons, stare at their bloody smart phones all day and worry about how badly their pension fund is performing. Everything is politically correct, you aren't allowed to 'stare' at a pretty woman on the tube train or you might be arrested!! Back then it was normal to stare at each other all the time. People enjoyed their lives even if they were poor. Now, you are not meant to enjoy life; if you are you must be breaking the law or doing something dreadfully immoral. Bernard ruined his life with drink and smoke, and that was his fault, but at least he was honest to himself and didn't pretend to be a saint. Many others lived the bohemian life without ruining their health, it wasn't obligatory.

[@radicalcartoons2766]

I think he was the inspiration for Private Eye's "Lunchtime O'Booze"!

[@FtungusAmungus]

For some alcohol is absolutely a muse. Sadly, it's a muse that demands a very high fee.

[@zamiadams4343]

Jeffrey's Scottish accent is spot on, i'm a Glaswegian and it was great.

[@radicalcartoons2766]

Saw the tv play with Peter O'Toole, then saw the play live at Bath Theatre Royal, with gorgeous Tom Conti. It was when people were getting snobby about smoking, and of course the entire play is about smoking! The suditorium was full of smoke. I remember the Theatre auudience "tut-tutting" ! The stage, prisons and hospices were the only exemptions to the smoking ban!

[@ppotter]

Reminds me of when I saw the Marigold Hotel play recently, and one of the cast (for no real reason) lit up... and it was such a thing to hear the intake of collective breath. That single puff could he smelt right up in the gods where I was. Quite bizarre how things have changed.

[@Pstephen]

The Night half of these two parts was the crime writer Celia Fremlin

[@rotonda4068]

Who's the chap in Kettner's in the Burberry scarf? It can't be Frank Norman, as identified by the BBC Arena blog, as he died in 1980.

[@liammarshall1759]

Frank Blake

[@judithbateson6353]

Many thanks for loading this. Are all the great characters now dead? How sad.

[@bohomaturebabe]

One of Jeffrey's greatest mate Keither Waterhouse, very sad loss. I used to love reading his column in SAGA mag up until the end.

[@henrytree]

Most of them gone, alas, though a very few still hobble around on walking sticks etc, or failing that, live in tiny wee hovels and remember when life was fun. (As I do, and am glad to discover videos like this which bring back some happy memories.) For any naysayers: It wasn't always "bad" or "wrong" to earn some money and then do exactly what you wanted to do with it.

[@henrytree]

@@bohomaturebabe A great writer and I have most of his books. (Which will likely end up on a tip when I eventually go 'cos most people these days have never heard of Mr Waterhouse.)

[@bohomaturebabe]

@@henrytree I was reading my then husband's Daily Mirror way back when, and the only intelligencia it contained was the column by Keith Waterhouse. I said 'Who IS this man...?!!!

[@donreed]

The BBC in 1987 knew that JB would die in "1997"?

[@liammarshall1759]

They re broadcasted it after jeffrey died

[@donreed]

@@liammarshall1759 Not according to ppotter's incoherent commentary, above, they did not (although they may well have done so).

[@drparnassus2867]

@@donreed In 2000 when Gielgud died the BBC repeated a 1994 documentary broadcast for his 90th birthday, with a brief new intro. Looks like they did the same here.

[@eppiehemsley6556]

Isn't that Prince Charles at 13:29?

[@ppotter]

Tom "Doctor Who" Baker you mean?

[@eppiehemsley6556]

Who's impersonating whom, Potty?

[@neilmccormick2064]

Is the Coach and Horses still a going concern ? I think I read something last year about it closing down .

[@sixteenstringjack]

still there

[@liammcooper]

fantastic

[@henrycastle1]

Too see him, himself

[@wink759]

The Medusa Touch x

[@adrianc1264]

*cough* 1997 *cough*

[@ppotter]

Have a drink of water.

[@jonsmum5552]

I remember an alcoholic telling me after visiting his GP. He said his GP told him he saw many alcoholics and didn’t understand them spending vast amounts of money for the privilege of premature death.

[@bohomaturebabe]

They don't make em like Jeffrey anymore!

[@Cockneyartist]

There’s no characters around any more, not like this anyway, now we all have to worry about what we say in case it offends some snowflake, god it’s shite now. RIP old days