Probably An Old Question . . .

. . . but it's recently been bugging me.

Who was Harlington, and was anything about him/her ever established?


Michael

> Who was Harlington, and was anything about him/her ever established?

I thought it was established that Harlington was a place, not a
person?

Marc

> I thought it was established that Harlington was a place, not a
> person?

And I say this because of the episode "ESP", where Straker receives
that heavily-stamped envelope from Croxley. The address on the
envelope reads:

MR. ED STRAKER,
HARLINGTON - STRAKER STUDIOS,
HARLINGTON WEST,
WESSEX

Of course, the postmark looks like it says "1969", but we'll
ignore that... :-)

Marc

I don't remember the story line ever establishing a character named Harlington.

There is a town called Harlington in Middlesex county not far from Pinewood
Studios.



________________________________
From: Marc Martin <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Sat, August 7, 2010 4:05:46 PM
Subject: Re: [SHADO] Probably An Old Question . . .

 
> Who was Harlington, and was anything about him/her ever established?

I thought it was established that Harlington was a place, not a
person?

Marc

 


     

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And just close enough to the northern edge of Heathrow to make it interesting.

I think you people in the "Harlington as location" camp are onto something.Thank you.


Michael

--- In [hidden email], Ron DeMedeiros <rj_demedeiros@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> I don't remember the story line ever establishing a character named Harlington.
>
> There is a town called Harlington in Middlesex county not far from Pinewood
> Studios.
>
>

> MR. ED STRAKER,
> HARLINGTON - STRAKER STUDIOS,
> HARLINGTON WEST,
> WESSEX

And it does appear that there is a Harlington in Wessex:

http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/projects/london/harlington/index.html

I'm just not sure why there is a hyphen between "Harlington" and
"Straker"...

Marc

I got my new issue of "Andersonic" today -- it's good to see some new memories of UFO from Leo Eaton, who was the first assistant director on several episodes, and if I'm reading this correctly, was fired for ruining the episode "Ordeal"... (I always wondered why they decided to deviate from the script, which I thought was better than the finished episode)

Marc

In one of the Engale magazines there is mention of a Harlington C0mmunications firm who help in setting up the studios. And there are places that arecalled after people and vice-versa. so Harlington could have been a firm as well as a place. (Almost like a business park, named after the main company there.)
Always seemed a little more logical , having the studio named after two people. MGM?

In [hidden email], "Marc Martin" <marc@...> wrote:

There also seems to be a business called Harlington-Straker Group:

http://harlington-straker.co.uk

I'm not sure if it's legit, or a joke.



Dave in Canada







________________________________
From: Marc Martin <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Sat, August 7, 2010 11:44:07 PM
Subject: Re: [SHADO] Probably An Old Question . . .

> MR. ED STRAKER,
> HARLINGTON - STRAKER STUDIOS,
> HARLINGTON WEST,
> WESSEX

And it does appear that there is a Harlington in Wessex:

http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/projects/london/harlington/index.html

I'm just not sure why there is a hyphen between "Harlington" and
"Straker"...

Marc


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Don't know about the hyphen, but interesting piece about archaeology doingsat Harlington.

Don't want to know if I'd dig too deeply around there, though. Might uncover a bit more than I expected.


Michael

--- In [hidden email], "Marc Martin" <marc@...> wrote:

--- In [hidden email], "Marc Martin" <marc@...> wrote:

<< And it does appear that there is a Harlington in Wessex:
 
http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/projects/london/harlington/index.html >>

Not really. The Harlington being described from the link above is Harlington in Middlesex - not far from, as someone said earlier, Heathrow.
http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=1802

But the "wessexarch" in the url is actually an archeological company called(unsurprisingly!) Wessex Archeology who're doing something archeological in Harlington. Harlington linked with Wessex in the url is a coincidence rather than geographically indicative.

Wessex, as written on the envelope in ESP, is an ancient administrative area of south-western England, fell out of use about 1000 years ago (!) and owes most of its present day popularity to the author Thomas Hardy who set his novels (written in the mid - late 1800s) in "Wessex". It isn't actually acounty (like Devon or Somerset) or a defined administrative region. It is frequently used in business or event names though.

I've always thought that Wessex as a location for Harlington-Straker was odd - although, as I'm sure I've read previously on SHADO, in the 60s there was a lot of UFO activity (allegedly!) around Warminster in Wiltshire which,at a stretch, is "Wessex". Perhaps that was the thinking behind the choiceof region. Or maybe the Andersons just had a holiday home in Dorset. :-)

--- In [hidden email], Dave T <myspeedometer@...> wrote:

<< There also seems to be a business called Harlington-Straker Group:

http://harlington-straker.co.uk
 
I'm not sure if it's legit, or a joke.

Dave in Canada >>

It seems to be real because if you whois the domain name it's a firm in thenorth of England and if you then Google harlington-straker concorde house stockton then H-S appears in a number of business directories. Must be a fan, though. And rather kewl to have built a group of companies around the name. Though the H-S website is, to say the least, lacking on detail. Which rather fits, really. LOL.

Carole

I think this is a pre qualification for the new UFO film, Great cover storyfilm studio in this day and age seems lame. Remember Jeff Tracy was an industrialist and look was he could hide from the balance sheet.
 
Paul

--- On Sun, 8/8/10, Dave T <[hidden email]> wrote:


From: Dave T <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [SHADO] Probably An Old Question . . .
To: [hidden email]
Date: Sunday, 8 August, 2010, 13:22


 



There also seems to be a business called Harlington-Straker Group:

http://harlington-straker.co.uk

I'm not sure if it's legit, or a joke.

Dave in Canada

________________________________
From: Marc Martin <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Sat, August 7, 2010 11:44:07 PM
Subject: Re: [SHADO] Probably An Old Question . . .

> MR. ED STRAKER,
> HARLINGTON - STRAKER STUDIOS,
> HARLINGTON WEST,
> WESSEX

And it does appear that there is a Harlington in Wessex:

http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/projects/london/harlington/index.html

I'm just not sure why there is a hyphen between "Harlington" and
"Straker"...

Marc

------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

As previously mentioned, 'Wessex' is an old Anglo-Saxon county, along with Sussex, Essex, Anglia and Mercia that have long since gone.
It is used in a similar context to the "555" area codes in US movies as a fictional address or phone number.

Rob

Interesting that someone would pick that. Almost certainly a fan using
the name. It reminded me of a local estate agents (real estate) company
going by the name of 'Hotblack Desiato' who I had assumed had poached
the name from Douglas Adams' 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' - So
after a bit of research discovered I had got it totally ass-about-face,
and it was Adams that had purloined the name from a genuine company.

"The character is named after an estate agency based in Islington, North
London; Adams said he was struggling to find a name for the character
and, spotting a Hotblack Desiato sign, liked the name so much he "nearly
crashed the car" and eventually telephoned to ask permission to use the
firm's name for a character. Apparently, the firm's staff later received
phone calls telling them they had a nerve naming their company after
Adams's character."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_t\
he_Galaxy_characters#Hotblack_Desiato
http://www.hotblackdesiato.co.uk/about.asp

So you never know, there may well be a Mr Harlington and a Mr Straker
out there just trying to run a business... ;)

Rob




--- In [hidden email], Dave T <myspeedometer@...> wrote:

> In one of the Engale magazines there is mention of a Harlington
> C0mmunications firm who help in setting up the studios.

Yes, but those guys were always just making thing up...

Did the original novelizations say anything about Harlington?
Probably still not canon, but I don't think anything was
mentioned in the series or even the scripts.

Marc

Probably the address was chosen to avoid placing the studios in an existingtown, city or county. "Wessex" may have been chosen because its historicaland cultural connotations might work better with the audience (especially internationally) or to suggest that in the future the UK would have revamped its regional names and "gone back to the future" in a sense.
 
As previously mentioned there is no reference anywhere to Harlington being a person of the time but such a "double-barrelled" company name would oftenconsist of the two owners or founders. Sometimes it might be a combinationof two place names but rarely would it be a combination of a place name and a personal name. There is perhaps one exception - Harlington Straker could have referred to it being the Harlington branch or office of a wider Straker organisation with others elsewhere. If Ed Straker were really a movie mogul he might have had studios in other locations elsewhere.
 
Of course there is no evidence of this anywhere on screen or in the production materials. In a way it might have been interesting to have had a mysterious Mr. Harlington who had somehow funded the studios and put (his friend?) Ed Straker in charge.
 
AB

--- On Mon, 9/8/10, Marc Martin <[hidden email]> wrote:


From: Marc Martin <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [SHADO] Re: Probably An Old Question . . .
To: [hidden email]
Date: Monday, 9 August, 2010, 19:52


 



> In one of the Engale magazines there is mention of a Harlington
> C0mmunications firm who help in setting up the studios.

Yes, but those guys were always just making thing up...

Did the original novelizations say anything about Harlington?
Probably still not canon, but I don't think anything was
mentioned in the series or even the scripts.

Marc









     

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Hi,

I can't remember where it was - think it was at Uforia 1 or 2, and I think it has been mentioned in one of his interviews, but the subject of Harlington came up, and Gerry said it was just a name that came straight out of thephone book.

Hope this helps,

Griff

> I can't remember where it was - think it was at Uforia 1 or 2, and I
> think it has been mentioned in one of his interviews, but the subject of
> Harlington came up, and Gerry said it was just a name that came straight
> out of the phone book.

That would make it a person, not a place?

As for the ESP envelope, what about the "Harlington West" part (below
the studio name and above "Wessex"). Would that be a city? A street?
Something else?

Marc

Hi,

Well, that's how I remember it, however it was originated. I suppose even if it came from a phone book, it doesn't follow that it had to reference a name/person. Most writers I know go straight to the phone book for a fictional name/title/place.

G

--- In [hidden email], "Marc Martin" <marc@...> wrote:

If it was below the Studio name, then it would probably be the name of the town that the studios were based in.
A city (or large town) would probably have had it as a suburb reference ;

HS Studios
Harlington West
Slough
Wessex

If it had a postcode (zip code?)on, then it didn't really need much more detail as these are confined to specific small areas.. one side of a street for example.. Postcodes started in the mid-sixties so they should have been used. (boring fact there!)

> > As for the ESP envelope, what about the "Harlington West" part (below
> > the studio name and above "Wessex"). Would that be a city? A street?  
> > Something else?
> >
> > Marc
> >
>