Raymond Edward Johnson opens this Elspeth Eric script about a young American boy at an elite British boarding school. This story could be what might be known today as a syrupy “Hallmark Channel” TV movie where a widowed mother is helped by her child to find true love and marriage once more. Oh, how sweet. This story has an interesting twist to it, but Suspense is the only place where this story could have been presented at this time. It would have been much more appropriate for a series such as Romance or another “lighter” series a few years earlier. That’s not a choice any more.
Johnson plays the school’s headmaster. Mrs. Trowbridge was recently widowed, and is the mother of a twelve-year-old student, Wallace. She visits the school to see her son. The headmaster is a bit confused by this. The records about Wallace are missing. The headmaster recalls, however, that Wallace went to his parents, Lord and Lady Pancoast in Glebes. This is very strange, and obviously a mistake. The story plays out in an interesting way. (Today, Wallace could only do this by hacking into the school’s records and their security system, and editing their video files).
She visits the Pancoasts in Glebes, where Wallace is staying. He keeps referring to his true mother, Mrs. Trowbridge as “Nurse” when he sees her. (If this was real Suspense, she would have grabbed him, threatened everyone to stand back, and get into a waiting getaway car. But, instead…) She meets Lord Pancoast and he gives the full narrative about what is really going on. He is very calm about it all. He explains that he and his wife had lost two sons in the war. Lady Pancoast and Wallace are playing out a fantasy that she is his mother and he is her son. They are doing their best to keep the fantasy up because it fills emotional needs that both of them have.
Lord Pancoast continues to explain that Wallace orchestrated the entire deception. The boy felt abandoned and lonely due to his mother's attempts to hide his existence from a new love interest, William Hines. Mrs. Trowbridge was widowed, and wanted a fresh start. She explained to Hines that Wallace was actually her late sister’s son. Wallace met Lady Pancoast in Kensington Gardens, playing out a Peter Pan fantasy that evolved into her believing he was her son and himself believing she was his mother. Lord Pancoast explains that Wallace stole his own school records to solidify his break from his past. But curiously, Wallace and his friend in America, “Billy,” have been corresponding. Mrs. Trowbridge said he had no such friend, but Lord Pancoast explains that the friend was actually his mother’s love interest, William Hines, himself!
Wallace, acting on his own initiative, calls William Hines in New York, inviting him to Glebes. He will be visiting Glebes to eventually marry Mrs. Trowbridge. The fantasy that Wallace created and Lady Pancoast participated in was ultimately to have his mother be free to start a new life in a new marriage. There was deception all around, on the part of Wallace, the Pancoasts, and Mrs. Trowbridge. Even Mr. Hines kept his true knowledge of Wallace and their correspondence secret. The fantasies and the secrets are about to come to a romantic end, and perhaps Wallace, the Pancoasts, and the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Hines can live happily ever after. (Fade to Hallmark Channel commercial break).
The location of the story is often misspelled as “Gleebes.” “Glebes” is a British English word that relates to land owned by a parish to support its pastor. In this title, it relates to most any building that was built on such land.
In the story, it is explained that Wallace first meets Lady Pancoast at Kensington Gardens, a real place. It is one of eight Royal Parks in London. There is a Peter Pan statue there. The book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens can be found at Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26998/26998-h/26998-h.htm
Wallace was originally planned to be played by Alan Howard and was replaced by Tommy Leap. Twelve-year-old Tommy Leap was appearing on Broadway in The Sound of Music as “Kurt von Trapp” at the time of this broadcast. He worked on television in 1963. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1967, when attempting to save his younger sister from wreckage of a car accident they were in. When he got to her, the vehicle burst into flames, leaving no survivors.
This is Raymond Edward Johnson’s final appearance on Suspense, and his next-to-last known appearance in a radio drama. His last radio appearance would be in Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar on 1962-08-12 in The Oldest Gag Matter. Johnson was probably diagnosed with multiple sclerosis around this time. He became a favorite visitor to Friends of Old Time Radio conventions through the years, offering dramatic readings from a wheelchair in the 1970s, and many years later from a hospital bed that was arranged for him at the events. Johnson passed away at age 90, in 2001. He was most famous as “Raymond, Your Host” on Inner Sanctum. He left for WW2 service and had to give up the role.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP620729
THE CAST
Raymond Edward Johnson (Headmaster), Tommy Leap (Wallace), Neil Fitzgerald (Burton), Christopher Cary (Lord Pancoast), Hillary Holden (Lady Pancoast), Grayson Hall (Mrs. Trowbridge)
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