1981: Esther Rantzen is Arrested | That's Life! | BBC Archive

0:00 It all began when a viewer wrote to us

0:02 and said that given the world shortage of protein,

0:05 has anyone thought of introducing into this country a French delicacy, bat soup?

0:10 And they kindly enclosed some bats.

0:18 We took these two the Queen Elizabeth College of Nutrition and there Dr.

0:22 Derek Miller said that they'd been smoked.

0:24 It seems that smoking bat doesn't carry a government health warning.

0:27 And they actually [laughter] said this was very good for you.

0:30 So we made a nice bat soup and went out onto the streets with it.

0:34 Breaking it gently to people exactly what the soup was made of.

0:38 Oh yes, it's nice.

0:40 A bit gamey.

0:40 What would you say what it was made of?

0:42 Well, I don't know.

0:43 It tastes as gamey to me, like game.

0:45 You mean like a a pheasant?

0:47 Pheasant, yes, something like that.

0:48 Well, it is a bit like that.

0:49 It is a not quite so many feathers, more furry.

0:52 Uh More furry?

0:56 Yes.

0:54 Not rabbit.

0:55 No, it flies.

0:56 Flies?

0:58 Well, what flies that's furry?

1:01 [laughter] Bat.

1:03 You're right.

1:05 GOSH.

1:07 [laughter] GIVE ME A CLUE.

1:15 I KNOW YOU GIVE ME TWO.

1:16 What's another one?

1:17 It uh comes out in the night and squeaks.

1:24 [laughter] Um shall I show you?

1:25 Go on then.

1:26 A bat, I like it a little bit HOT NEXT TIME.

1:31 [laughter] WHAT WOULD YOU SAY?

1:33 RABBIT.

1:35 Kind of like rabbit, but flies.

1:38 Oh good, it isn't going to be a bat.

1:40 YOU'RE RIGHT.

1:42 [laughter] HAVE YOU EATEN BAT BEFORE?

1:44 NO, I HAVEN'T.

1:46 Would you recommend it to the viewers?

1:47 It's very nice.

1:51 [laughter] What is it?

1:51 Monkey.

1:52 No, it's a bat.

1:53 It's a bat.

1:53 It's a bat.

1:54 Oh, I don't like it.

1:55 monkey.

1:56 Is it a bat?

1:56 It's an excellent source of protein, bat, sir.

1:59 Bat.

1:59 You've eaten bat before, sir.

2:00 Oh yes, in the States, yes.

2:02 I have stumbled over the only person in the whole

2:04 of London that's ever eaten a bat before.

2:06 used to use bats, you know.

2:08 We In In the country,

2:09 we we make a a dish out of bats when we can catch them, right?

2:13 You do?

2:13 Oh yes.

2:14 And you recommend it?

2:15 Oh, they're very good, very good.

2:16 And what what special powers are there in in bats?

2:19 In bats?

2:20 It's a brain food.

2:21 What do you make out of it?

2:22 Just cook the meat.

2:23 Skin the meat off and cook it, you know, over over a campfire at night.

2:27 a bat chop?

2:28 Yeah, that would be something.

2:30 Bat steak.

2:30 Yeah, like uh tidbits of bat.

2:35 It's a bat.

2:37 Very nice.

2:39 And you don't mind that it's made of bat?

2:40 No, it hasn't changed a bit since the last time I tried it.

2:43 And when [laughter]

2:44 Oh, about 7 years ago.

2:46 So thank god they're still maintaining the standard,

2:48 you know, it's still very good.

2:49 What do you think?

2:51 Too much veg in it.

2:55 [laughter] Do you like bat?

2:55 Yeah, tastes No, not the bat.

2:57 It's made of bat, what you've just eaten.

2:58 Oh, you dirty monkey.

3:04 Well, apart from that lady, it did seem,

3:06 as you saw, that everyone really likes bat stew.

3:08 Everyone except one gentleman.

3:11 PC Herbert, who arrived while we were handing out the soup, as you will see.

3:17 No soup.

3:18 You're right.

3:18 I'd like some more.

3:19 Yes, please.

3:19 What is it?

3:21 Can you move back?

3:22 Yes, certainly.

3:24 Excuse me.

3:24 Sir, would you like a little bat?

3:26 No, no.

3:27 Move back.

3:30 Move back there.

3:32 See that that young man there?

3:34 Would you Would you like a bat, sir?

3:36 I absolutely do not want one, honestly.

3:39 Can you move back?

3:40 It's for that PC.

3:43 He seemed very jolly and I thought he was talking to the crowd, so I kept going.

3:47 But 10 minutes later, PC Herbert came back.

3:50 We have here a French You must be joking, man.

3:53 I must tell you once more to move.

3:55 If you don't move, I shall arrest you for willful obstruction.

3:57 That's the end of that.

3:58 You're blocking the pavement.

4:00 But we filmed here every week.

4:01 I don't care what you've filmed here for the last 10 years.

4:04 If you don't move, I shall arrest you for willful obstruction.

4:07 Madam, will you come with me and we'll try a little stew down here?

4:10 Yes, sir.

4:11 So we did move, first into a side street

4:13 and then across the road onto a wide corner.

4:16 But half an hour later, PC Herbert came back again.

4:20 Okay.

4:20 You're arrested then.

4:22 Sorry.

4:23 I I've just been arrested for handing OUT BAT STEW.

4:27 [laughter]

4:27 THIS IS THE FILM THAT BIT OF PAVEMENT THERE, WHICH IS not obstructing.

4:30 Because people are moving there.

4:33 blocking the complete pavement as you are now.

4:34 Where would Where would you like us to All right, where should we go?

4:37 We'll call the police station.

4:38 Where do we call from?

4:41 [laughter] You're blocking it.

4:41 You just said you can't block this pavement.

4:44 But we aren't blocking this pavement.

4:47 [laughter] But we aren't.

4:47 Really we aren't.

4:47 Yes, you are.

4:48 How can we be blocking cuz people are People stand because they're interested.

4:52 Well, I've arrested you for willful obstruction and that's it.

4:54 I mean, what do you So what do you say when you get into the station?

4:58 All right.

4:59 I'm afraid I'm in support of Miss Ramsbottom.

5:04 [laughter] [applause] You'll be charged then.

5:16 I'll see you later.

5:21 [laughter] And if anyone would say I wasn't obstructing,

5:28 could you tell them Could you tell them I wasn't obstructing?

5:33 I wasn't obstructing OR AT LEAST IT WASN'T MY IDEA.

5:40 [applause] [applause] Of course I did everything wrong.

5:52 I wasn't supposed to get in the front of THE BLACK MARIA.

5:56 [laughter] AND THE OTHER THING I DIDN'T KNOW WAS

5:58 THAT I'd broken this, which is the Highways Act.

6:01 It says If a person without lawful authority or excuse

6:05 in any way willfully obstructs the free passage along a highway,

6:08 he shall be guilty of an offense.

6:10 And so shall she.

6:12 And it really doesn't matter if there's plenty

6:13 of room for other people to get past because even

6:15 one person standing still on the pavement can be

6:18 guilty of obstructing the bit of pavement he's on.

6:21 Well, the moment that happened to me,

6:23 other people wrote to us saying it had also happened to them.

6:26 Andy Hudson wrote to us.

6:27 He said I went to a Frank Sinatra concert at the Albert Hall,

6:30 but a friend of mine didn't turn up, so I had a spare ticket.

6:34 A man in the queue saw me with it and said he'd like to buy it,

6:37 but a policeman tapped me on the shoulder and said,

6:39 "Move on, you're causing an obstruction." I thought he

6:41 must mean I was blocking one of the doors, so I stepped to one side and said,

6:45 "Sorry." A couple of minutes later, he came back and said, "I warned you,

6:49 you're under arrest." He took me to the police police station,

6:53 put me in a cell and I was left there for about an hour.

6:56 I had tickets for a load of friends

6:57 who all missed the concert because I was arrested.

6:59 And my wife was worried because she had no idea where I was.

7:03 When he had come out, Mr.

7:04 Hudson went back to the Albert Hall and spoke

7:06 to the manager and that's when he discovered why it had happened.

7:09 He told us The manager said he'd asked the police to get

7:11 rid of the ticket touts and touting isn't against the law,

7:15 so all they can get them under is the law of obstruction.

7:18 And in fact, I found the same thing was going on when I went

7:20 to the Magistrates Court because there were

7:22 five other obstruction cases heard before me,

7:24 but all of them were gentlemen who'd

7:27 been selling ties and watches in the street.

7:29 They all pleaded guilty and got fined £5.

7:33 So in a way, it's like paying VAT for them.

7:38 [laughter] You know what I'm going to say, don't you?

7:41 I pleaded not guilty, got fined £15 and I suppose THAT WAS VAT.

7:49 [applause] YOU MUSTN'T ENCOURAGE ME.

7:55 ANYWAY, THEY AREN'T the only ones who get moved on or arrested.

7:58 When I was in Bond Street conducting interviews about slug soup,

8:01 we saw a young couple kissing in the street.

8:03 A policeman ignored us and moved them on.

8:06 And street entertainers get moved on or arrested.

8:09 That's why there are hardly any buskers

8:11 in London now because they're always getting nicked.

8:13 The experts at being nicked are the Road Stars.

8:17 This is some rather old film of their act,

8:20 which used to be very well-known sight in London.

8:22 Lovely movers, aren't they?

8:24 They even bill themselves "The Road Stars direct

8:26 from London's West End streets and police courts." [laughter]

8:31 And they've got themselves in the Guinness Book

8:32 of Records for being arrested for obstruction the most often.

8:35 Harry Hollis, one of the Road Stars, told us We got nicked more than 500 times.

8:41 We were the third generation of buskers.

8:43 I started at 15 with my old man.

8:45 Sometimes we get nicked two or three times a night.

8:47 There was one particular copper we used to call

8:49 Isaiah cuz one eye was out and the other.

8:53 [laughter] One night we saw him coming for us as usual,

8:57 so we scarpered round the corner to a pub.

9:00 He followed us and waited outside.

9:02 I tied a white hanky to a stick and stuck it

9:04 out of the door and waved it as a sign of surrender.

9:07 We walked out and he nicked us.

9:10 And as you may have seen in the papers,

9:12 Father Christmas in the street has been done.

9:14 Even vegetable lists have been done.

9:16 Mr.

9:16 Peter Pook, who runs a greengrocer shop in Basingstoke,

9:19 told us I put my broccoli and Brussels sprouts out in front

9:22 of the shop and the police warned me that that was obstruction.

9:26 The only thing is that some people don't get moved on or arrested.

9:29 Harriet Harman, legal officer of the National Council for Civil Liberties,

9:32 told us Some people don't get arrested.

9:35 Poppy sellers, for example.

9:36 The police approve of them and they let them get on with it.

9:39 It is up to the policeman to decide if

9:41 he thinks someone's got a good reason to be there.

9:43 The law ought to be much more precise and not so chancy.

9:46 And the problem seems to be that obstruction is such a vague offense.

9:50 After all, if it was rigidly applied, we could never film in the street,

9:53 so we would never have met Annie and no one would

9:56 ever queue in the street or watch the changing of the guards.

10:00 As one lawyer told us,

10:01 The law at the moment gives so much discretion to the police and the courts.

10:05 In a way, we've got a police free-for-all when it comes to obstruction.

10:08 If a very fat man bends down to tie his shoelace,

10:11 he could be arrested for obstruction.

10:14 You'll forgive me for saying so,

10:16 it's usually people they don't approve of who get arrested.