In Memoriam Harry Porter

I've just been told that the Senior Archivist of the Cambridge Footlights, Dr. Henry Porter, has died. This is very sad news. Harry served the club, which, for those of you who don't know, has produced a great many of Britain's finest comedians (more about that here), for over forty years, knowing people from John Cleese to Emma Thompson.

My first memory of Harry was after a pantomime, Sleeping Beauty, in which I played the Prince, in late 1996. Harry came up to me afterwards and told me I reminded him of a young Hugh Laurie; for some reason he was concerned I might not be pleased by this, though of course I was. After that, he wrote me a letter to congratulate me again on the performance, but it seems the letter ended up being sent to a different James, at another Cambridge college, and I never received it; though Harry was at least assured when the mistake was discovered that I had not just ignored it!

We were in touch frequently throughout my year as Secretary of the Footlights Committee. On rare occasions this was by telephone always me calling Harry; he hated the device and only kept one for means of others contacting him. Despite owning several videos (including past club shows and Jack Hulbert films - Harry was a member of this former Footlight's appreciation society), he didn't have a VCR until relatively recently; for fear, as he put it, that with one, he would never leave the house. His home housed the club archives over decades, where one could examine early photos of the likes of Douglas Adams and Clive James, or read hand-written Minutes concerning Stephen Fry or Graeme Garden. It was a comedy treasure trove.

I would bring copies of the Minutes I took round to Harry's - he was very complimentary about the style in which I wrote them, and on occasion the official Minutes he put in his archives contained items or comments that other members of the Committee did not see...

Harry was most complimentary indeed about the efficiency of the committee in my final year at Cambridge, and it was a privilege to sit between him and Douglas Adams at our annual dinner, to hear them discuss various ex-Footlights.

I stayed in touch with Harry after graduation; in addition to visiting him, we wrote to each other and I keep his letters, and know he kept mine; in a file with my name on, somewhere near the start of a collection of correspondence files, some names (like mine) obscure, others very well known to the general public. Former members of the club, famous or not, still popped by his house beyond Parker's Piece in Cambridge to visit him, and he always offered to let people stay round there if they needed to be in Cambridge.

He was a great film aficionado; despite having witnessed the development of some of the finest comic minds in the world, he seemed to take more excitement from the fact he once got Alfred Hitchcock along to the University Film Society. Harry had also seen many of the great stage performances of the Twentieth Century; which he took some mischievous delight in reminding me on several occasions... Gielgud's Prospero, Olivier's Othello, and many others. He was also a member of the Oxford & Cambridge club on Pall Mall, and would stay there when in London. I once had dinner with him there, and he subtly dropped the hint that he could get me membership, but I never took him up on it. Too late - always the case, isn't it?

I often wondered how the club would fare without its affectionate great-uncle; its ongoing link to the past. Various members of the club often did impersonations of him, and the vast majority never really spoke to him, but those who did valued him a great deal. Harry's service to comedy was wide and varied; he even gave Douglas Adams a name for his central character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by happening to have a book by one Arthur Dent on display when Douglas stayed round while directing the summer revue.

Harry was always writing a book; a sort of memoirs. He told me, quite frankly, that he neither expected nor intended to complete it. I suspect he has been proved right. The original of the picture of him on this page, in his filing cupboard, lives on my wardrobe, amongst those of ex-Footlights. Strange to think that the club's longest-serving member is now, finally, an ex-Footlight himself.

- James Casey, December 28, 2003.

Harry Links

All about Harry

The Harry Porter Tribute Evening

The Cambridge Footlights

The Harry Porter Gala Event, 2002

James Bachman on The Harry Porter Gala Event

M J Simpson's thoughts on Harry

Harry Porter on Google