A few notes about this website.

In 1999 I started work with Disley to create a website documenting his long career in Theatre, Film & Television. We knew it was going to be a long project as it was going to start from his birth in 1926 and terminate at the point of his virtual retirement in 2000. I say virtual because he never quite gave up and was still working on film scripts, novels and other projects he was forever creating right up to his death in June 2005.

The process was extremely laborious. Disley was a stickler for accuracy and was, as the project evolved, working his way through his own archive (I don't think he ever threw anything away regarding his work) sorting out out programmes, set designs etc. and having to recollect his experiences. His archive had travelled with him from the UK to Spain where he lived for a good few years and then back home to the three places that he resided in on his return to the UK. This meant it was not in particular good order.

The upshot of this is that due to constraints of my own time and Disley's own hectic life we never got any further than the 1950s and his work at The Connaught Theatre, Worthing.

The original website was with Freeserve (which then became Wannado, then Orange) and sometime in 2004, probably at the time of his move to sheltered accomodation in Kennington, he stopped using Freeserve's email facility. Because of this the website lapsed and disappeared. Despite his efforts Freeserve were unable (or more likely unwilling) to try to retrieve it. Disley died still thinking it had gone forever.

I thought so too until someone called Alastair Disley (no relative at all), in the course of email correspondence between us, found part of the website stored on an web archive called The Internet Archive Wayback Machine. All of the text was there and some, only some, of the many photos etc. that had been scanned and added.

The website is now in the process of being restored as best as possible. It will be augmented with reproductions of his obituaries and will also include his unpublished autobiography 'A Wide Mouthed Fag', a spicy, saucy and scurrilous tale if ever there was one!

All in all it will serve as a lasting tribute to a man who left his mark on British Theatre and Cinema - DISLEY JONES 1926 - 2005

CLICK HERE AND SEE FOR YOURSELF

Roger Fillary - April 2007