Memories of a founder member
Christopher Bernard Fynes 1941 - 2023
Chris Fynes, my Dad, was born on 8th October 1941 in Durban. His father was employed as an engineer by Imperial Airways, later to become BOAC and eventually British Airways. Dad spoke fondly of his early days – the sweet local fruit and the care from his native South-African nanny.
The end of World WarII saw the family, including his younger and older brothers, move to the UK – initially in to a corrugated metal hut on Bovingdon airfield, before settling in Stanwell, near Heathrow, where his father was now working.
My mother, Juliet, lived with her parents in Hayes, on the opposite side of Heathrow, and their paths might never have crossed but for the fact they both took up church bell ringing in their teens. Mum became very good but Dad was quite brilliant. He composed, conducted and even rang two bells in peals of as many as sixty or more spliced Surprise Methods. These are the hardest class of ringing methods, so it’s quite an achievement to master one, but to be able to switch back and forth between many is a level reached by only a very tiny minority of ringers.
As a schoolboy Dad had a fascination for all things mechanical and technical. He once built himself a cat’s whisker radio. He also had an artistic flair. When he subsequently attended Twickenham Technical College he opted to take the Graphic Design course. After qualification he went to work for Alfred Wurmser, a pioneer of television animations, including Captain Pugwash. Thus began his long career in television.
Mum and Dad married in St Peter & St Paul’s church Harlington in August 1965. They moved in to Fairfield Cottage on the day of the wedding. Pure luck brought them to Petworth, Mum spotting the house in the window of Harrods Estate Agency. Yes – the Harrods - who famously sell everything – apparently including medieval cottages in Sussex. They loved it so much that Dad was prepared to undertake the daily commute to London for the next thirty years and Mum still lives there.
Dad learned the techniques of animated captions for television at Wurmsers. These were large sheets of cardboard with moving parts controlled by levers and pulleys constructed using paper fasteners and elastic and painted thirteen shades of grey before the advent of colour television.
He moved to the BBC, working at their Lime Grove Studios on current affairs, in particular “The Money Programme” (see below). In addition to creating exemplary title and graphic sequences, he provided political cartoons in the style of James Gillray – which were so accomplished that a two-month exhibition was held at the London Stock Exchange. There is an extensive BBC graphics online archive featuring some of Dad’s work alongside write-ups written by him and his colleagues. Click here
Dad was a pioneer of working from home. The cellar of Fairfield Cottage was converted to a rostrum camera studio with the camera moving up and down on a steel girder above a rotating/tilting table where each frame was filmed separately. Films were rushed up to Wardour Street for processing overnight, the many hours of filming reduced to just a few minutes of television time.
His career in television animation spanned the end of the age of hand made cardboard captions, through stop frame filming, into the era of computer graphics. There were no “packages” available to begin with, so he taught himself the Fortran computer language and wrote his own programmes. In the 1990s, with a colleague, he formed his own company, Infynity. It was responsible for many iconic television titles of the era, including; The National Lottery, Parkinson, Wogan and sequences for major sporting events. Over the years, Dad inspired many young programmers and designers who still speak fondly of his kindness and mentorship.
Musical boxes had entered his life in the 1960s when he spotted a Dawkins 10-air lever-wind box in an antiques shop. He was immediately intrigued by the mechanism. It was playable but in a scruffy state. Restoring the worm-eaten case presented no problem and he was able to strip down, clean and reassemble the movement with help from books by Graham Webb and Arthur Ord-Hume. This led to my parents joining MBSGB for the first time and enthusiastically attending the London meetings. Dad quickly acquired a taste for early key-wind boxes and they managed to scrape together enough to buy a lovely overture box which remained one of his favourites for the rest of his life.
Membership of the Society lapsed due to work and family commitments. Then in retirement they discovered that there was a thriving branch just up the road in the Old School. They rejoined and thoroughly enjoyed the meetings and holiday weekends. Musical box collecting really took off then and Dad turned his skills to restoration. The film studio was gutted and the cellar re-equipped as a workshop.
My parents were founder members of the “Association of Musical Box Collectors.” Dad used his design and photography skills to assist in the production of the association magazine, using Photoshop to “improve” images, including reconstructing missing elements and designing the magazine covers. He also did much of the artwork for AMBC promotional material and publications. He also wrote numerous articles based on his own collection and produced several fine audio CDs.
Dad was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer around the time of his 75th birthday – following a successful operation he continued with his hobbies but eventually it returned, this time with a grim prognosis.
During (covid) lockdown, when no meetings could take place, the magazine became particularly important for the AMBC community, but by the time things began to return to normal Dad was gravely ill. Despite his failing health he continued his work on the magazine and Paul Bellamy’s books. He wanted last October’s edition, as the thirtieth, to be a special celebration. He knew this would be his last and it cost him a considerable effort.
Dad’s legacy is in his television archive, and the work that is being produced by those he inspired. Within the musical box world he leaves behind the CDs, artwork and photography he created for AMBC.
His family legacy is in the traits passed on to his children and grandchildren – though none of us can come anywhere near his level of ability in everything he undertook. He was an exceptionally talented man who will be greatly missed.
Justin Fynes
The end of World WarII saw the family, including his younger and older brothers, move to the UK – initially in to a corrugated metal hut on Bovingdon airfield, before settling in Stanwell, near Heathrow, where his father was now working.
My mother, Juliet, lived with her parents in Hayes, on the opposite side of Heathrow, and their paths might never have crossed but for the fact they both took up church bell ringing in their teens. Mum became very good but Dad was quite brilliant. He composed, conducted and even rang two bells in peals of as many as sixty or more spliced Surprise Methods. These are the hardest class of ringing methods, so it’s quite an achievement to master one, but to be able to switch back and forth between many is a level reached by only a very tiny minority of ringers.
As a schoolboy Dad had a fascination for all things mechanical and technical. He once built himself a cat’s whisker radio. He also had an artistic flair. When he subsequently attended Twickenham Technical College he opted to take the Graphic Design course. After qualification he went to work for Alfred Wurmser, a pioneer of television animations, including Captain Pugwash. Thus began his long career in television.
Mum and Dad married in St Peter & St Paul’s church Harlington in August 1965. They moved in to Fairfield Cottage on the day of the wedding. Pure luck brought them to Petworth, Mum spotting the house in the window of Harrods Estate Agency. Yes – the Harrods - who famously sell everything – apparently including medieval cottages in Sussex. They loved it so much that Dad was prepared to undertake the daily commute to London for the next thirty years and Mum still lives there.
Dad learned the techniques of animated captions for television at Wurmsers. These were large sheets of cardboard with moving parts controlled by levers and pulleys constructed using paper fasteners and elastic and painted thirteen shades of grey before the advent of colour television.
He moved to the BBC, working at their Lime Grove Studios on current affairs, in particular “The Money Programme” (see below). In addition to creating exemplary title and graphic sequences, he provided political cartoons in the style of James Gillray – which were so accomplished that a two-month exhibition was held at the London Stock Exchange. There is an extensive BBC graphics online archive featuring some of Dad’s work alongside write-ups written by him and his colleagues. Click here
Dad was a pioneer of working from home. The cellar of Fairfield Cottage was converted to a rostrum camera studio with the camera moving up and down on a steel girder above a rotating/tilting table where each frame was filmed separately. Films were rushed up to Wardour Street for processing overnight, the many hours of filming reduced to just a few minutes of television time.
His career in television animation spanned the end of the age of hand made cardboard captions, through stop frame filming, into the era of computer graphics. There were no “packages” available to begin with, so he taught himself the Fortran computer language and wrote his own programmes. In the 1990s, with a colleague, he formed his own company, Infynity. It was responsible for many iconic television titles of the era, including; The National Lottery, Parkinson, Wogan and sequences for major sporting events. Over the years, Dad inspired many young programmers and designers who still speak fondly of his kindness and mentorship.
Musical boxes had entered his life in the 1960s when he spotted a Dawkins 10-air lever-wind box in an antiques shop. He was immediately intrigued by the mechanism. It was playable but in a scruffy state. Restoring the worm-eaten case presented no problem and he was able to strip down, clean and reassemble the movement with help from books by Graham Webb and Arthur Ord-Hume. This led to my parents joining MBSGB for the first time and enthusiastically attending the London meetings. Dad quickly acquired a taste for early key-wind boxes and they managed to scrape together enough to buy a lovely overture box which remained one of his favourites for the rest of his life.
Membership of the Society lapsed due to work and family commitments. Then in retirement they discovered that there was a thriving branch just up the road in the Old School. They rejoined and thoroughly enjoyed the meetings and holiday weekends. Musical box collecting really took off then and Dad turned his skills to restoration. The film studio was gutted and the cellar re-equipped as a workshop.
My parents were founder members of the “Association of Musical Box Collectors.” Dad used his design and photography skills to assist in the production of the association magazine, using Photoshop to “improve” images, including reconstructing missing elements and designing the magazine covers. He also did much of the artwork for AMBC promotional material and publications. He also wrote numerous articles based on his own collection and produced several fine audio CDs.
Dad was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer around the time of his 75th birthday – following a successful operation he continued with his hobbies but eventually it returned, this time with a grim prognosis.
During (covid) lockdown, when no meetings could take place, the magazine became particularly important for the AMBC community, but by the time things began to return to normal Dad was gravely ill. Despite his failing health he continued his work on the magazine and Paul Bellamy’s books. He wanted last October’s edition, as the thirtieth, to be a special celebration. He knew this would be his last and it cost him a considerable effort.
Dad’s legacy is in his television archive, and the work that is being produced by those he inspired. Within the musical box world he leaves behind the CDs, artwork and photography he created for AMBC.
His family legacy is in the traits passed on to his children and grandchildren – though none of us can come anywhere near his level of ability in everything he undertook. He was an exceptionally talented man who will be greatly missed.
Justin Fynes
Chris & The BBC's Money Programme
Chris Fynes made a major contribution to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) during the 1970s. They only had two channels and his work appeared on BBC2, the first European TV channel to broadcast in colour. It also concentrated on more ambitious programmes such as politics and orchestral concerts.
The Money Programme had serious intent but it was also humorous and satirical in style, an ideal situation for Chris’s artistic talents. Its opening theme was equally subtle, taken from the film called The Carpet Baggers’, a story about a ruthless industrialist.
Chris had to work at high speed to produce his satirical cartoons with very little notice, often on the day of live transmission. He produced stills that were used to accompany a script read by a BBC presenter. He had to conjure up images and words in the form of cartoon characters of prominent people and the characters that had to be instantly recognisable to the BBC audience. He also produced animated cartoons made from cut-out pieces of cardboard with articulated joints. This was teamwork, with assistant Maeve Stephens painting the backgrounds, animation cameraman Peter Willis filming the sequences and Producer Peter Meloy writing the scripts. It was quite and extraordinary feat, one that he did for several years. The importance of his work received widespread recognition at a two-month Exhibition at the London Stock Exchange, organised by the Chairman of the Exchange, Sir Nicholas Goodison.
Some of Cartoons have relevance today. For example:
Fig. 1 was produced in November 1978. It shows the working population with cartoon faces of known union leaders, queuing up for wage rises they were unlikely to get whilst the clergy, no doubt represented by ‘The Upper Chamber of Parliament’, the House of Lords, walking away with a 21% rise in salary. It was a year of political and social turmoil with the Firemen going on strike, Margaret Thatcher fearing that immigration was going to overwhelm British culture but when Anna Ford became the first female television presenter on the only commercial TV channel, ITV (Independent Television).
Fig. 2 was produced the following year, showing socialist Prime Minister Jim Callaghan dishing out ‘gruel’ in the form of monetary subsistence to both business and the poor. It was the year of ‘The Winter of Discontent.’ Rail and public-workers went on strike (including grave diggers!). Scotland and Wales held a referendum for independence but failed to gain a majority. The Conservatives win the general Election and Thatcher becomes the first female UK prime minister.
Fig. 3 Shows Margaret Thatcher in 1979 receiving donations from the rich and powerful with the help of Saatchi & Saatchi advertising.
Fig. 4. Again in 1979, President Carter, President Gisgard d’Estang of France, Helmet Schmidt of Germany and Margaret Thatcher were considering sanctions against the Iranian regime but worried about the consequences of losing Iranian oil supplies.
Chris Fynes made a major contribution to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) during the 1970s. They only had two channels and his work appeared on BBC2, the first European TV channel to broadcast in colour. It also concentrated on more ambitious programmes such as politics and orchestral concerts.
The Money Programme had serious intent but it was also humorous and satirical in style, an ideal situation for Chris’s artistic talents. Its opening theme was equally subtle, taken from the film called The Carpet Baggers’, a story about a ruthless industrialist.
Chris had to work at high speed to produce his satirical cartoons with very little notice, often on the day of live transmission. He produced stills that were used to accompany a script read by a BBC presenter. He had to conjure up images and words in the form of cartoon characters of prominent people and the characters that had to be instantly recognisable to the BBC audience. He also produced animated cartoons made from cut-out pieces of cardboard with articulated joints. This was teamwork, with assistant Maeve Stephens painting the backgrounds, animation cameraman Peter Willis filming the sequences and Producer Peter Meloy writing the scripts. It was quite and extraordinary feat, one that he did for several years. The importance of his work received widespread recognition at a two-month Exhibition at the London Stock Exchange, organised by the Chairman of the Exchange, Sir Nicholas Goodison.
Some of Cartoons have relevance today. For example:
Fig. 1 was produced in November 1978. It shows the working population with cartoon faces of known union leaders, queuing up for wage rises they were unlikely to get whilst the clergy, no doubt represented by ‘The Upper Chamber of Parliament’, the House of Lords, walking away with a 21% rise in salary. It was a year of political and social turmoil with the Firemen going on strike, Margaret Thatcher fearing that immigration was going to overwhelm British culture but when Anna Ford became the first female television presenter on the only commercial TV channel, ITV (Independent Television).
Fig. 2 was produced the following year, showing socialist Prime Minister Jim Callaghan dishing out ‘gruel’ in the form of monetary subsistence to both business and the poor. It was the year of ‘The Winter of Discontent.’ Rail and public-workers went on strike (including grave diggers!). Scotland and Wales held a referendum for independence but failed to gain a majority. The Conservatives win the general Election and Thatcher becomes the first female UK prime minister.
Fig. 3 Shows Margaret Thatcher in 1979 receiving donations from the rich and powerful with the help of Saatchi & Saatchi advertising.
Fig. 4. Again in 1979, President Carter, President Gisgard d’Estang of France, Helmet Schmidt of Germany and Margaret Thatcher were considering sanctions against the Iranian regime but worried about the consequences of losing Iranian oil supplies.
There were many more examples but suffice to say that Chris had to have his ’finger on the pulse’ of national and international politics in order to maintain BBC impartiality when producing his wide variety of cartoon characters that would have been instantly recognisable to the audience of the day and the text that supported them. He did so in a quiet and unassuming manner that hid an enormous intellect and artistic ability.
For those who want to revisit his articles on restoration refer, to the AMBC website for details. Also for sales of his Musical Snuffboxes CD, which goes towards a cancer charity:
List of AMBC articles written by Chris Fynes
Mechanical Music World Issue Number
1. Snuffboxes, details supplied by Chris Fynes.
4. A Martinet et Benoit Overture musical box.
7. Who was Morel F? - a Mandoline musical snuffbox by Bordier
8. Restoring a sectional comb movement
9. A Mandoline snuffbox by Bordier
12. A most unusual musical mangle
13. Musical snuffboxes
16. Alibert, a Geneva musical box maker
17. Restoring a cylinder musical box
18. The Mikiphone (Juliet and Chris Fynes)
20. A musical clock/display case restoration
22. A ‘Phoenix’ musical box: The restoration of a wrecked early musical box case
23. A case for restoration; The case restoration of a Lecoultre cylinder musical box
24. A Lecoultre & Falconnet Overture musical box
26. Captivating musical boxes: A comparison of two musical boxes by Henri Capt.
Paul Bellamy
For those who want to revisit his articles on restoration refer, to the AMBC website for details. Also for sales of his Musical Snuffboxes CD, which goes towards a cancer charity:
List of AMBC articles written by Chris Fynes
Mechanical Music World Issue Number
1. Snuffboxes, details supplied by Chris Fynes.
4. A Martinet et Benoit Overture musical box.
7. Who was Morel F? - a Mandoline musical snuffbox by Bordier
8. Restoring a sectional comb movement
9. A Mandoline snuffbox by Bordier
12. A most unusual musical mangle
13. Musical snuffboxes
16. Alibert, a Geneva musical box maker
17. Restoring a cylinder musical box
18. The Mikiphone (Juliet and Chris Fynes)
20. A musical clock/display case restoration
22. A ‘Phoenix’ musical box: The restoration of a wrecked early musical box case
23. A case for restoration; The case restoration of a Lecoultre cylinder musical box
24. A Lecoultre & Falconnet Overture musical box
26. Captivating musical boxes: A comparison of two musical boxes by Henri Capt.
Paul Bellamy