Grockles, The System and the Guzzledown Brixham Connection

Working notes documenting the word ‘grockle’

In the early 1960s, our dad Peter Draper would get inspiration for writing scripts and screenplays by listening. One day he went to The Globe Inn on Fore Street Brixham. Freddy Fly was there too. He worked on the boating ponds at Goodrington Paignton. This day he told dad how his boss had compared a family of holidaymakers to grockles, characters from a children’s comic. Dad was writing the script for The System, directed by Michael Winner and starring Oliver Reed. Dad listened to Freddy, incorporated the word ‘grockle’ into the script, becoming the first documented text of the word grockle for holidaymaker. The rest is history.

Dad was interviewed many times about the origin of the term, saying it came from the comic character and it is documented in dictionaries that The System was the first time it was recorded, rather than by word of mouth.

The opening scene in the script was a railway station, Brixham Station became the location.

Draft screenplay 1963

Studio at Summer Lane where The System was written

With our parents, my sisters Sarah, Lou and Emma and I lived on Summer Lane, Higher Brixham, an area once known as Guzzledown. Dad wrote the script there, in his studio. Oliver Reed visited us, giving my oldest sister the hat he wore in the film and a signed photograph. We wore the hat to shreds, my sister still has the photo and I have the script, dad’s working notes and a connection to grockles everywhere

The hat

(Documents of The System are the property of Rebecca Nuttall and belong to the estate of Peter Draper) If you are interested in further information about the works of Peter Draper please use the contact form