Percy Topliss

[tannie]

Hello,

In the 1980s there was a drama about a Private Percy Topliss who was played by one of the Mcgann brothers.I got the impression at the time that this was a true story,it was about a private(i think) in ww1 who pretended to be an officer.Percy was executed at the end of the story, but i cant find mention of him regarding the'shot at dawn' book.Is this a true story? If so was his name changed for the drama(to save embarrassment to the family)? Or was it fiction?

Thanks,

Anthony.

Percy Toplis was his real name and to date there are many of the Toplisfamily still living in Blackwell Derbyshire. In fact a relation of his (now deceased) lived next door to my mother, and was interviewed at the time for amy information she may have had on him.

regards

Ann

[Guest]

I noticed someone looking at this old thread, and was reminded that I found the man's M I C. Not sure if it's been posted before?
Medal Index Card of Pte 47551 and EMT/54262 Percy Toplis



Mike

[trajan]

See now: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-34845592... "Plaque unveiled in memory of 'Monocled Mutineer'"

[Dragon]

The BBC is reporting this in a rather misleading way. According to the local authority, the plaque marks the place where this event in the town's history happened (as the plaque says). It isn't glorifying him or recalling him with any affection. I'll post a link when I am back on my computer.

[David Filsell]

The script was not factually correct in many areas - as Bleasdale admitted, it was intended as a political statement. It was too, left and looney

[paulgranger]

It seems a very strange act, to commemorate a petty criminal and murderer. Does Penrith not have more worthy recipients?

[Dragon]

It is just to mark an event in local history. Local plaques don't necessarily have to mark quality people. One in my town is to a famous highwayman - a vicious robber, who was hanged. The plaque is just saying that this was a significant and well known event: this is the spot where it happened.

I was in Penrith in March and I was impressed by how thoroughly they have created several town trails to record events and people, good and bad. I didn't have time to follow them properly but it gets away from the impression that everything which happened in the Lake District was to do with Wordsworth, daffodils and Gothic landscapes. If they're going to do it properly, they can't omit one or more people because they were involved in murky events and crimes. If a visitor's interest is piqued by a reference they've heard of, they may be prompted to look round the other trails, which is good for local shops and cafes.

I've not seen a television series about him, so to me the plaque came across as simply a piece of history. The local paper online says that Toplis is taught in local schools and is featured in the museum. "The civic society felt that it was important to mark the site of such an significant event in local history. ... However we stress that we are not seeking to glorify this individual (who was certainly... a controversial figure and about whom history is quite uncertain), but rather to simply recognise this notable event in local history, which as such is no different to other blue plaques around the country for controversial figures." The museum collections page is quite clear that he was an unpleasant and dangerous man, and, further, that a researcher distanced himself from the television version.

http://www.eden.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/museum-penrith-and-eden/museum-collections/percy-toplis/

Gwyn

[Andrew Upton]

It seems a very strange act, to commemorate a petty criminal and murderer. Does Penrith not have more worthy recipients?

On those same grounds, York should kill all its connections to Dick Turpin... it doesn't have to be a good guy to make good history!

[paulgranger]

On reflection, yes, I see the point.

[MelPack]

It was too, left and looney

My word David, do you feast on the Daily Mail and the memoirs of Lady Birdwood?

[KGB]

I have been trying to find out for years what happened to Percy's Webley Mk VI .45. It "went missing" from the Cumbria Police museum. 1975?

[David Filsell]

Hardly, being from a working class family with a strong trade union position.

Bleasdale freely admitted his political position, that the play was 'fictionalised, and justified as telling as telling "A greater truth".

2 Not to me he wasn't. Loony was my take on his posturing.

[Dragon]

From the Penrith website (link above):

"In 1986 Alan Bleasdale adapted the book 'The Monocled Mutineer' for the television. This cast Percy Toplis once more as hero of the riot which broke out among British troops, in September 1917, during the First World War, near Etaples, in France. However, a researcher soon distanced himself from the BBC's production alleging 'serious inaccuracies'. The service record of Toplis, of 'monocle' fame, reveals in fact that he was nowhere near France at the time of the incident but aboard the 'Orantes' en route from Devonport to India. A soldier who witnessed the Etaples incident at first hand noted 'Never once did I see or hear any reference to Toplis'. However his further comment that 'he was in the Air Force whose depot was at le Havre over 40 miles away' flags up the probable cause of the confusion for there were three men called Percy Toplis from the Midlands recorded as having served in the First World War. The play clearly projected a romantic image of a 'working class hero' at odds with overbearing authority, but with respect to the life of the Percy Toplis who was shot near Penrith, it was pure fiction."

[Moonraker]

Scriptwriters have a long tradition of sanitising villains, not least the aforementioned Dick Turpin and countless "Westerns" bad guys, and biopics often omit the protagonists' defects. When "The Monocled Mutineer" was screened, was there are any notification that it was "fictionalised, and justified as telling 'a greater truth'"? Something on the lines of "based on fact"? It's a long time ago, but at the time I think I assumed I was viewing a sequence of events in which Toplis had taken part. Again, in the best/worst tradition of film-making, McGann played a dashing, handsome Toplis, far more so than suggested by the photographs of the man himself.

We have, of course, discussed Percy Toplis before, not least

here

Moonraker

[Norrette]

I will confess I have the video pack. The sleeve notes say: "gripping true story of the first world war mutiny led by Pte Percy Toplis" and "Script by Alan Bleasdale, from the novel by William Allison & John Fairley"

[Old Tom]

I have a faint recollection that there was a local story that he was shot on a hill on the A 303 not far from Bulford Camp and that the hill was called Toplis Hill. That's along way from Penrith.

Old Tom

[Uncle George]

As I remember it, 'The Monocled Mutineer' was broadcast in the summer of 1986, and the officer who confronted Topliss at Etaples appeared and was interviewed on the 'Wogan' TV programme. I recall that as I was going to go out I tried to record it, but videos were new (to me anyway) then and I didn't record it properly, and consequently have never seen it.

Does anyone remember this?

[IPT]

I think I do.

The chap was very old and infirm and had to be accompanied by a relative. He said he had not seen or heard of Toplis being there. I remember him being asked about the scene in the programme where he let the mutineers cross a bridge. I remember him saying that they said they would shoot him if he didn't get out of the way, so he did. That's my recollection anyway.

A quick google says that he was James Davies, and was 90 when he appeared, saying that he would have paid more attention at the time if he had known there would be a television series made about it.

Getty Images seem to have it in their Analogue Archive (whatever that is), broadcast 8th September 1986 and also featuring Ruby Wax and Alan Alda.

He was 2nd Lt James Davies, Royal fusiliers, and his account of the incident is here(with no Toplis, of course); https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cJApCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT71&lpg=PT71&dq=%22etaples+mutiny%22+%22james+davies%22&source=bl&ots=zPTnypTWza&sig=mVyUpPUmCq2R8JFaveO_55hiBwo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAWoVChMIqMqD3-ecyQIVxrsUCh3IqwS1#v=onepage&q=%22etaples%20mutiny%22%20%22james%20davies%22&f=false

[Moonraker]

After the war, Bulford Barracks became a shambles, with soldiers desperate to get out of the Army wandering around in civilian clothing and new recruits yet to be issued with uniforms. There were many swindles, including selling army petrol to local taxi-drivers. Involved in the last was Percy Toplis, who, in two of the many roles he assumed, walked around the barracks in Royal Air Force and sergeant-major’s uniforms. He fled the area after killing Sidney George Spicer, one of the taxi-drivers involved in the swindles, on Thruxton Down, which I take to be the locality just south-west of the motor-racing circuit and airfield.

Thruxton village website:

"One April evening in 1920 a Salisbury taxi driver was hailed at Amesbury to take the passenger to Andover. As he was driving up the hill to Thruxton Down he was shot in the back, being killed outright. His body was found by a labourer next morning behind a thick hedge. There was a hue and cry throughout the country. Some weeks later the murderer was found in Banffshire where he shot and injured two apprehending policemen and escaped. He was later found on the Carlisle to Edinburgh road where he was shot dead. The murdered taxi driver was named Topliss and hence the hill at Thruxton Down became known as Topliss Hill."

(Toplis seems to have acquired an extra "s" to his surname.)

The locality has been much changed since 1920, the former highway having become a local road, with a a very busy dual carriageway running close by.

(Just discovered in the bookcase my copy of The Monocled Mutineer. It places Toplis at the head of the Etaples mutiny, laying down conditions for its ending to the camp commandant, Thomson. More creative "factual" history?)

Moonraker

[Moonraker]

Quite a few references on the Web to Toplis' service record, though I suspect in some cases this may mean his unit's records. Have any of us seen it?

Moonraker

[Uncle George]

I think I do.

The chap was very old and infirm and had to be accompanied by a relative. He said he had not seen or heard of Toplis being there. I remember him being asked about the scene in the programme where he let the mutineers cross a bridge. I remember him saying that they said they would shoot him if he didn't get out of the way, so he did. That's my recollection anyway.

A quick google says that he was James Davies, and was 90 when he appeared, saying that he would have paid more attention at the time if he had known there would be a television series made about it.

Getty Images seem to have it in their Analogue Archive (whatever that is), broadcast 8th September 1986 and also featuring Ruby Wax and Alan Alda.

He was 2nd Lt James Davies, Royal fusiliers, and his account of the incident is here(with no Toplis, of course); https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cJApCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT71&lpg=PT71&dq="etaples+mutiny"+"james+davies"&source=bl&ots=zPTnypTWza&sig=mVyUpPUmCq2R8JFaveO_55hiBwo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAWoVChMIqMqD3-ecyQIVxrsUCh3IqwS1#v=onepage&q="etaples%20mutiny"%20"james%20davies"&f=false

Thanks very much for this: I know nothing of the Getty Archive, but the clip does not appear to be available on YouTube.

[Old Tom]

Moonraker,

Many thanks. The coincidence of names is remarkable, pleased it was not soemthing I imagined.

Old Tom

[IPT]

I'm confused. The taxi driver was Spicer, wasn't he?

[Moonraker]

Yes.

Spicer Inquest report

Toplis Inquest report

Moonraker

[Moonraker]

A preview of The Monocled Mutineer book is now available on-line

here

with a few "teaser" pages - not sure how many.

I'm re-reading my paperback copy with a rather more discerning eye than when I first got it and in the light of sceptical comments made here on the GWF. It's one of those books that is very readable, but has a lot of invention to flesh out the bare bones of fact.

Moonraker