| Stanley Unwin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 7 June 1911 Pretoria, South Africa |
| Died | 12 January 2002 (aged 90) Danetre Hospital, Daventry, Northamptonshire, England |
| Resting place | Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, England |
| Occupation | Comic actor, writer |
| Spouse | Frances Anne (1916–1993) m. 26 December 1937 |
| Children | Marion (b. 1939) Lois (b. 1940) John (b. 1944) |
| Parents | Ivan Unwin (d. 1914) Jessie Elizabeth (d. 1968) |
Stanley Unwin (7 June 1911 Pretoria, South Africa – 12 January 2002 Danetre Hospital, Daventry, Northamptonshire[1]), sometimes billed as Professor Stanley Unwin, was a British comedian and comic writer, and the inventor of his own language, "Unwinese", referred to in the film Carry On Regardless as "gobbledegook".
Unwinese was a mangled form of English in which many of the words were corrupted in playful and humorous ways, as in its description of Elvis Presley and his contemporaries as being "wasp-waist and swivel-hippy". Unwin claimed his gift came from his mother, who once told him that on the way home she had "falolloped over and grazed her kneeclabbers".
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Unwin's parents emigrated from the United Kingdom to South Africa in the early 1900s, and their son was born in Pretoria in 1911. Following his father's death in 1914 his mother arranged for the family to return to the United Kingdom. By 1919, Unwin had been sent to the National Children's Home at Congleton in Cheshire. In the late 1920s he studied radio, television and languages at the Regent Street Polytechnic.
In the 1930s, he married his wife Frances, with whom he had two daughters and a son. Unwin later stated Unwinese had its roots in enlivening the bedtime stories which he told his children. In 1940, Unwin got a job at the BBC working on transmitters and was stationed at the Borough Hill transmitting station in Daventry, England. Unwin, his wife and their nine-month-old daughter Marion moved to Long Buckby in Northamptonshire, where he lived for the rest of his life.
His early career and training introduced him to wireless and radio communication, and this, coupled with work in the BBC's War Reporting Unit from about 1944 was ultimately to prove to be a conduit into the media.
It was whilst based in Birmingham, between 1947 and 1951, that Unwin made his first accidental broadcast. Whilst testing equipment, he handed the microphone to broadcaster F.R. "Buck" Buckley who ad-libbed a spoof commentary about an imaginary sport called "Fasche". Buckley then encouraged Unwin to join in and introduced him as "Codlington Corthusite", handing back the microphone - he continued in Unwinese.
The recording was played back to two BBC producers, who added some sound effects. The recording was eventually broadcast on Pat Dixon's Mirror of the Month programme and after receiving a good response led to another sketch in which Unwin was interviewed as a man from Atlantis being asked about life in the sunken city. The broadcast produced Unwin's first fan mail, from a lady who had been impressed by his performance – Joyce Grenfell. Since Grenfell was Unwin's heroine, the encouragement gave Unwin a tremendous boost and he was inspired to break into show business.
After the war, but still with the BBC, whilst in Egypt and recording a series of shows by Frankie Howerd, the star was taken ill at the last minute and Unwin was pushed onto the stage and told to "do a turn".
Back in the UK, Unwin began to do more on the performing side of the microphone. His next major breakthrough came when producer Roy Speer introduced him to leading comic Ted Ray. Once Ray had heard Unwin talking he said simply: "I want him in the series." The series was The Spice of Life which also featured June Whitfield and Kenneth Connor. During the mid 1950s, Unwin did about a dozen of these shows and in the process met agent Johnnie Riscoe and daughter Patsy who were to become his managers for the rest of his career. By the end of the fifties Unwin had ventured into the film industry, winning a part in the 1956 Cardew Robinson film Fun at St Fanny's.
Unwinese, also known as "Basic Engly Twentyfido" – probably a reference to Charles Kay Ogden's 1930 work Basic English, which strips the language down to 850 words – was a special, ornamented and mangled form of English in which many of the words were corrupted in a playful and humorous way. Unwin’s performances could be hilarious yet disorienting although the meaning and context were always conveyed in a disguised and picturesque style.
Unwinese might also be traceable to Lewis Carroll's 1871 poem, Jabberwocky.[2]
In the ensuing years, Unwin made the following:
Unwin was less active in later decades, but still made occasional appearances. In the 1970s, he appeared in The Max Bygraves Show on ITV, sometimes speaking normally and sometimes in gobbledegook. In the final episode Bygraves tried out some gobbledegook phrases on Unwin, who claimed he could not understand them.
In 1994, Unwin collaborated with British dance music act Wubble-U, on their single "Petal". A 1998 re-release took the track to number 55 in the UK Chart.
In 1998, Unwin made a cameo appearance on the Aardman Animations series, Rex the Runt, as an accountant who spoke almost entirely in Unwinese.
NB: Although 'Unwinese' was largely improvised and spontaneous, with many actual English phrases and sentences thrown in for contrast, the following list of examples may give an impression of the 'language'. Of course the best way to experience it is to hear it spoken by its only exponent, Stanley Unwin himself.
Stanley Unwin died in 2002 in Daventry. He is buried in the churchyard at Long Buckby, with Frances, who died before him. Their gravestone has the epitaph, "Reunitey in the heavenly-bode – Deep Joy". A service of thanksgiving was held at St Lawrence's Church in Long Buckby a couple of weeks after his death and ended with a rendering of "Bye, Bye, Blackbird" by John Percival and friends.
The valediction had been prepared by Unwin himself: "Goodly Byelode loyal peeploders! Now all gatherymost to amuse it and have a tilty elbow or a nice cuffle-oteedee - Oh Yes!"
His work is thought to have been a significant influence on the two books written by John Lennon in 1964/5 – John Lennon In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. [4]