When Nicholas Alkemade Was On I’ve Got A Secret – SEE SAW Comics, Webcomics from the Sequential Artists Workshop

When Nicholas Alkemade Was On I’ve Got A Secret

This cartoon uses a precise transcription of Nicholas Alkemade’s appearance on the BBC One program “I’ve got a Secret,” which originally aired on December 5, 1984. The comic’s title appears at the top: “When Nicholas Alkemade was on “I’ve Got a Secret. “ The words “I’ve Got a Secret” appear in a cursive font. All of the other text appears in all caps in a sans serif font. The entire comic is in black and white with a few shades of gray. At the top left-hand side of the page is a man in a dark suit and a striped tie with a hankerchief in his suit pocket. He sits with his hands folded in front of him and a blank expression on his face. He is slightly balding, has a moustache, and is wearing glasses. His name appears underneath him: Nicholas Alkemade. Sitting next to him at the same table is the host of the show, Tom O’Connor. He wears a light-colored suit with an even lighter tie. He has long, helmet-y, light-colored hair. He has his right hand in the air with his forefinger pointing up. He says the following: And for the panel the clue is: “A happening with no strings attached.” Below him sits the show’s panel at a different table. On the left is Chris Kelly, a strong-chinned, handsome man in a suit and tie. To his left is an attractive, long-haired woman wearing a v-nick top. She has on earrings and a necklace. Her name is Anneka Rice. To her left is a curly-haired man in a suit and tie. He is wearing glasses. His name is Barry Cryer. To Barry’s left is a woman wearing a multi-colored outfit. Her hair is pulled up in a knot on her head and ringlets of hair fall on either side of her face. Her name is Bettine LeBeau. All of the contestants have pencils and paper. They wait in anticipation for the questioning to begin.

The two participants on this page, Chris Kelly and Nicholas Alkemade are shown from the chest up, Kelly on the left and Alkemade on the right. Kelly starts the questioning. He asks” “Were you on the ground when this happened?” Nicholas Alkemade replies, “Subsequently.” Kelly continues, “So whatever happened, happened …you fell.” Alkemade says, “Yes.” The audience responds with applause. This is symbolized by drawings of five sets of hands accompanied by the word “clap.” Kelly asks, “Were you climbing?” Alkemade says, “No.” Kelly asks, “Were you parachuting?” Alkemade responds, “No.” Meanwhile there is more clapping.

Page three begins in similar fashion with a picture of Chris Kelly looking puzzled in the upper left corner. He says, “Was that a ‘no’?” And then says, “This is kind of confusing. You say no.” Alkemade, to the right, makes no response. Kelly is interrupted by clapping from the audience. Kelly continues, “Was somebody parachuting around you?” Alkemade responds, “Endeavoring to.” Kelly asks, “Did you fall out and were saved by a parachutist?” Alkemade says, “No.” Kelly’s time for questioning ends with a buzzer, a “quack” really that appears in the cartoon as large letters at the bottom of the page spoken by a duck-like bird.

Page four begins with an appearance by Tom O’Connor in the upper right corner. He, like the others, is shown only from the chest up. He says, “So there’s confusion for you Anneka.” Anneka Rice’s picture appears three times on the left. O’Connor and Alkemade both appear twice on the right. Anneka Rice begins by asking, “Was this during the war?” Alkemade replies, “Yes.” She continues, “And were you a journalist?” Alkemade says, “No.” Rice asks, “You were in an aeroplane and you fell out with no parachute on?” Alkemade says, “Not precisely so.” O’Connor interjects, “You’re getting…” Rice continues, “Yes, you jumped out, the parachute failed to open?” Alkemade responds, “No. Not quite.”

Chest-up drawings of Rice and Alkemade appear on the page. There are three of Rice on the left and three of Alkemade on the right. Rice continues with her questioning. She says, “Not that either. There’s no strings attached. But you were falling…freefalling?” Alkemade says, “Oh, indeed.” Rice says, “And you didn’t have a parachute on.” Alkemade replies, “That’s right.” “And perhaps you should have,” she adds. “I should have,” replies Alkemade. Rice says, “Or you didn’t think this was going to happen when it did?” Rice is interrupted by the ‘quack’ sound and the accompanying bird. Undeterred she asks “And you landed in the sea?” Alkemade replies, “No.” Small waves of water are drawn across the bottom of the page such that Rice and Alkemade appear up to their necks in water. A small fish jumps out of the water toward Alkemade in an attempt to bite the word “No” as it escapes from his mouth.

Tom O’Connor appears on the right and says, “Very near. Some of it was very near, some of it was miles away.” He continues, “But I’m sure Barry can get even further away.” Barry Cryer looks on from the left side of the page as the audience laughs at O’Connor’s jab at Cryer. The audience’s laughter appears in a curved gray swath from left to right. Inside the gray swath the word ‘Ha’ appears repeatedly. Cryer starts his portion with. “You’re going down in a plane and you hadn’t got a parachute. The plane was going down… The audience claps at this point, which we see with six pairs of hands appearing between chest-up drawings of Cryer and Alkemade, with the word ‘clap’ along with each one. At the lower right corner of the page, Alkemade replies, “Yes.”

In the upper left corner Cryer looks down at Alkemade who is slightly below Cryer on the right. Cryer says, “But obviously there was a happy ending, which we’re pleased about.” He then asks, “Somebody solved this crisis for you?” Alkemade replies, “I took a decision.” Cryer says, “You took the decision to jump out of the plane without a parachute, right?” There is more applause from the audience accompanied by more drawings of clapping hands. Cryer continues, “And you landed in an environment that enabled you to survive.” Alkemade says, “Indeed.” And Cryer replies, “Right.” Below Cryer and Alkemade at the bottom of the page there is a drawing of a row of many fir trees.

Tom O’Connor, at the upper right interjects, “What we’d like to know is, the big part about the fact that he didn’t have a parachute was, how far he fell.” Barry Cryer, on the left, says, “An amazing distance.” “Yes,” says O’Connor. “36,000 feet,” guesses Cryer. Alkemade says, “That’s a slight exaggeration.” “That’s my last offer,” replies Cryer. “But to you…” says O’Connor. Cryer adds, “Any distance in this situation is amazing.” O’Connor continues, “It’s amazing, yes. You’re quite right that Nicholas fell over three miles to the ground without a parachute.” The audience applauds. We see eleven pairs of clapping hands at the bottom of the page.

At the upper right, Tom O’Conner says, “And he did mention that the decision was entirely his, because…explain the situation, Nicholas.” Alkemade says, “Well, it was the end of the line as far as I was concerned. The plane was on fire. The turret was on fire. I was on fire. My parachute was on fire.” Along the left side of the page we see all four panelists gasping in horror as they see Nicholas Alkemade at the lower right of the page surrounded by flames.

At the top of the page is a drawing of a four-engine bomber in flight. The aircraft is marked with British insignias and is undamaged. O’Connor, on the right, says “Now he’s a rear gunner in a Lancaster, and because he was a rear gunner, there wasn’t room to wear your parachute, so the parachute was somewhere else, and he had to go through a couple of doors to get to it.” Alkemade says, “That’s right.” O’Connor continues, “By the time he got there, it was on fire.” At the left, the panelists look on horrified. More flames appear at the bottom of the page between the drawings of the panelists and the drawing of O’Connor.

Alkemade appears by himself on the right side of this page. He says, “It was completely useless and I was forced back into the turret by the fire. And by which time the ammunition started to explode in the gun turret. And I thought that, as far as I was concerned, it was the end of the line.” Coming in from the upper left we see the same four-engine bomber sweep toward the lower right of the page. The aircraft is now on fire. Damage can be see on the wings and fuselage. The outboard left engine is no longer functioning.

Nicholas Alkemade sits at the table with one hand on top of the other. He says, “But I did still have a choice as to which way I was going to die either in the fire or a quick, clean end on the ground. So I chose the latter. Anneka Rice holds her hand over her heart as he speaks. Then she asks, “So what happened? I’d like to know more.” Tom O’Connor, at the bottom right, quips, “And he died.” O’Connor, as the audience laughs, then quickly says, ‘No!”

At the upper right side of the page, Alkemade speaks. On the left, we see someone in a military uniform with a helmet, goggles, and parachute harness falling upside down through the air. His boots have come off and fall just above him. Alkemade says, “Well, I rotated the turret by hand and opened the doors and just did a back flip out. And I thought, well, you know, if this is dying, there’s nothing to be afraid of. I wasn’t afraid at all. I had one regret that, this was on a Friday night, and I was expecting to go on leave on the Sunday.” Alkemade is interrupted by audience laughter. O’Connor interjects, “Doesn’t everything always happen at once?” Alkemade adds, “All the bad luck in the world.” At the lower left there is a clump of fir trees.

O’Connor appears at the upper left. The background is a dark, starry sky. Starting at the bottom of the page and extending toward the middle are two bootless legs. One of the feet points toward O’Connor. The other points toward the upper left corner of the page. O’Connor says, “I like to think about you saying you knew you were upside down in the air because you could see the stars beneath your feet.” He adds, “That’s lovely that.”

At the upper left, Anneka Rice clutches her hands together and asks, “Where did you land?” At the right is Alkemade. He explains, “Well, I landed in some fir trees in Germany, and, you know how closely young trees grow together and the boughs were interlaced and, I presume that I broke off the boughs progressively as I came through, and each bough as the further down I got, the stronger they became, until I eventually rolled off the bottom ones, like rolling off a bed. Or something like that. Along the left side of the panel are several large fir trees. An airman bounces down the branches on the right toward the ground.

At the upper left is Anneka Rice. She asks, “You just walked away?” Alkemade replies, “Well, virtually.” Alkemade is silhouetted against the dark outline of a fir tree. He continues, “I was unconscious for about 3 or 4 hours, but, when I regained consciousness, I pulled myself onto my feet and walked a few paces. But I didn’t have any broken bones at all.” At the lower left the airman lies prone on the ground with his eyes shut.

Another fir tree silhouette extends from the top to bottom left. There, a young-looking Nicholas Alkemade is confronted by three German soldiers in helmets and dark uniforms. They do not look happy. At the top right, Tom O’Connor says, “And here’s the crunch. The crunch is that the Germans got you, didn’t they?” Alkemade replies, “Oh, yes.” O’Connor continues, “And they wouldn’t believe him. Thought he was a spy, that he’d buried his parachute, you see. So, like he’s there saying, ‘Listen lads, you’re not going to believe this.’ ”

Along the left side of the page the panelists look on with surprise and concern. At the top right is Tom O’Connor who says, “Because you didn’t even have any boots, did you?” On the right, Alkemade replies, “No, my boots came off. I had great big clodhopper boots, electrically heated ones, but I left those in the turret, I presume, or they came off in the course of my descent. And it was a very, very cold night.” At the lower right beneath a starry sky there is a ghostly, mythical figure who we see from the chest up behind a stand of fir trees. This bearded old man with a halo of white hair appears with his index finger pointing up toward Alkemade. He is blowing icy, cold wind toward the panelists on the left.

At the top right is Alkemade. He explains, “When the Germans eventually came and found me, they made me, tried to make me march out of the field and out of the woods. And I said, well I couldn’t, and so they put me on a tarpaulin and dragged me across this field and down the side of a hill. And, I’d landed on my back, which was one huge bruise. And then being dragged across this frozen field on my back on this tarpaulin was probably the worst part of the evening.” From the top left to the bottom right there is a curving trail made by the airman being dragged by two of the soldiers across a snowy landscape. The third soldier leads them toward the lower light portion of the page. Near the trees at the upper left is what appears to be a fox. A deer peers out of the trees not far from the soldiers and the airman.

On this, the final page, Tom O’Connor appears at the upper right. He says, “As a mark of proof that all this really happened, they actually gave Nicholas a certificate, that’s been signed by all the NCOs, the senior British NCOs.” It is noted here that NCO stands for non-commissioned officers. O’Connor continues, “An amazing story, Nicholas, and proof of course that when all seems lost, hope springs eternal.” As the audience applauds, O’Connor congratulates Alkemade with these words, “Ladies and gentlemen, Nicholas Alkemade!” Toward the bottom of the page is a facsimile of the certificate. It is cut off at the bottom, but the following words are legible: “It has been investigated and corroborated by the German authorities that the claim made by Sgt. Alkemade 1431537 R.A.F. is true in all aspects, namely that he made a descent from 18,000 feet without a…”

Published On: November 29, 2025

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This cartoon uses a precise transcription of Nicholas Alkemade’s appearance on the BBC One program “I’ve got a Secret,” which originally aired on December 5, 1984. The comic’s title appears at the top: “When Nicholas Alkemade was on “I’ve Got a Secret. “ The words “I’ve Got a Secret” appear in a cursive font. All of the other text appears in all caps in a sans serif font. The entire comic is in black and white with a few shades of gray. At the top left-hand side of the page is a man in a dark suit and a striped tie with a hankerchief in his suit pocket. He sits with his hands folded in front of him and a blank expression on his face. He is slightly balding, has a moustache, and is wearing glasses. His name appears underneath him: Nicholas Alkemade. Sitting next to him at the same table is the host of the show, Tom O’Connor. He wears a light-colored suit with an even lighter tie. He has long, helmet-y, light-colored hair. He has his right hand in the air with his forefinger pointing up. He says the following: And for the panel the clue is: “A happening with no strings attached.” Below him sits the show’s panel at a different table. On the left is Chris Kelly, a strong-chinned, handsome man in a suit and tie. To his left is an attractive, long-haired woman wearing a v-nick top. She has on earrings and a necklace. Her name is Anneka Rice. To her left is a curly-haired man in a suit and tie. He is wearing glasses. His name is Barry Cryer. To Barry’s left is a woman wearing a multi-colored outfit. Her hair is pulled up in a knot on her head and ringlets of hair fall on either side of her face. Her name is Bettine LeBeau. All of the contestants have pencils and paper. They wait in anticipation for the questioning to begin.

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