Spotlight on St Trinians 15

The History of Superintendent Sammy Kemp Bird

Joyce Grenfell’s Policewoman Ruby Gates is one of the undisputed stars of the first three St Trinians films, but she would be nothing without her Sammy.  We learn in ‘Blue Murder’ that the policing pair have been engaged for 14 years, but despite Ruby’s desperate entreaties her Sammy refuses to make an honest woman of the poor old girl. This backstory really adds meat to Joyce’s role. Everything she does, she does for Sammy but her envisaged future happiness is continually thwarted. To some extent we can sympathise with him, obviously he has dug himself into a hole that he doesn’t know how to get out of. And you can see how Ruby might be hard work. But still, he’s a big old coward and a rotter for leading her on for so long.  Let’s find out some more about the actor behind the old stinker.

Lloyd Lamble was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1914, which explains the very slight accent behind the otherwise standard 1950s diction. Listen carefully, you can hear it. Lloyd came from a musical family – his father was secretary of the Musicians’ Union of Australia. Lloyd went straight into entertainment as soon as he was old enough, and he worked as a radio announcer and as an actor. He also opened his own acting school. His first film acting credit according to IMDB is in an Australian film ‘The Farrer Story’ from 1949.

Lloyd left Australia when the work dried up in the early 1950s – and by this point he had also been married three times! Perhaps he didn’t need to dig too deep to find a man trapped in a relationship that he didn’t want anymore…His first British film was called ‘Island of Desire’ and this was released in 1952. It also featured other soon-to-be household name Peter Butterworth. By the time that ‘Belles’ was released just two years later, he had appeared in 16 previous films. He obviously had something that British film-makers wanted. This was probably his voice. It had always been considered solid and reliable and it had been used by the Australian Government during WW2 to deliver propaganda messages. I recently watched a film called ‘No Trees in the Street’ and up popped Lloyd – as a policeman of course – being calm and strong in a crisis. A typical British attribute that we liked to see back in the 50s.

 Lloyd appeared at the Edinburgh fringe in the 1970s and acted in the West End. His career continued on into the 1980s – according to IMDB his final role was in soap opera ‘Howard’s Way’ in 1985. But he lived on to the staggering age of 94, dying in 2008. There was certainly more to him than a mean old Barsetshire Superintendent!

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