You remember Bert Papps, don’t you?
Recently I was sitting on his bench and it reminded me of some of the amazing things he did.
Like the time he ran the four minute mile to check if it was safe for Roger Bannister to have a go. What a star.
Then there was the time his plane was shot down in the Battle of Britain, and instead of giving up he landed tail-first so he could carry on firing his guns up into the sky at the enemy.
Or do you remember when he invented Worcestershire Sauce? It’s hard to believe it now, but before he came along, if you wanted to put something obscure on your cheese on toast, you had to whisk some vinegar into egg whites and pour that over instead.
Let’s all share our Bert Papps memories here.
10 comments on “In Memory of Bert Papps”
I remember the time he created the sitcom ‘My Two Dads’. Nobody believed a story about two fathers living together not knowing which had fathered some irritating little girl but he did and it made Greg Evigan into the super star he is today. Next?
Ha! That was amazing. What impressed me was that he never owned a TV, and instead insisted on having all the people in his street come over to his living room, where he would stand behind a cardboard TV and act out his own educational TV shows for them. I heard that people in his street were 8% more intelligent than the national average as a result.
I heard that Bert Papps gave Simply Red the name Simply Red.
Wasn’t it ol’ Bert who discovered the formula for popping candy?
Do you know, I think it was. You can almost forgive him the Simply Red thing for that.
I well remember the day he liberated Sarajevo. What a guy.
There’s a rumour going round that Bert Papps was the inspiration for the best-selling garden book series by Mr Smith.
He’s been the inspiration for so many books! It’s hard to keep track.
I think he was also the real-life story behind Mrs Doubtfire.
Someone at work let slip that he may or may not have separate the British Isles using his bare hands from the rest of the world. Then he invented tea and threw it in a Frenchman’s face.
That sounds like ground for A knighthood all by itself. Does PouringBeans have the power to award knighthoods yet?
Not just yet, but we can award celebratory pats on the back.