Mid-week Memory

Aside

This was a photo taken of the play ‘A day in the Death of Joe Egg.’ - Peter Nichol’s black comedy about a couple and their daughter, who was severely brain damaged at birth. The play is a mixture of black comedy and heart break. The author himself had a very handicapped child.

I played the mother – the chap playing the father was a born comedian which was right for the play and made the sadness even more poignant. The school girl who played my daughter had to remain mute throughout, and was a sweetie.

There is quite bit of talking to the audience and I decide to do one piece, whilst putting lipstick on at the same time. We were very well rehearsed and normally the prompt was totally reliable but I’m happy to see we rarely, if ever, needed her. However one night she lost concentration and prompted me on a pause I had made to apply lip-stick – as we had rehearsed fifty million times. One of my friends in the audience said my face didn’t move a muscle - but my eyes flashed. I was quite cross!

Maddie’s going.

Story contd

Since I left home as a young girl, Maddie and I had had a fairly volatile relationship mainly because I had developed a mind and opinions of my own. She and her husband came over each week-end and I valued her friendship so it was a blow when she told me they had decided to emigrate to the States - a much bigger step then than now.

She had my aunt, as a resident – a GI bride who lived in Rhode Island and Liam, Jamie’s brother who lived with his wife and family in NY State. Maddie asked me if I ever thought of Jamie and I said the recent experience with Gary had make me think of him and regret that we hadn’t taken our relationship further.

‘If it had been Jamie instead of Gary I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. I feel I cheated both of us. But it’s all over now. I’m a different person and I’m sure he is too.’ I assured her and stuffed any further thoughts of what might have been way out of my consciousness.

Maddie and I decided to have a few days walking together before she left and we had a really bonding time in Wales- getting to know each other as adults, although I would always be the younger sister to her – dammit! We stayed in an interesting hotel with a lake in the garden and nearly froze to death. Each night we would huddle in the bar where mine host and his attractive wife would regale us with tales which might have come straight out of ‘Under Milk Wood’. The locals would come to inspect the two English ladies and the whisky flowed freely. The bedrooms were so icy we dreaded going to bed.

It wasn’t all decadence – we climbed two mountains; one was Y Garn and the other one’s name escapes me. I do remember – when we were at the top, having a blonde moment and suggesting we went another way down, which looked rather pretty. At the bottom we realised we were miles from where we had left the car and had a long walk in pouring rain before getting a hitch. We were terrified we may have missed dinner (the food was excellent) but our worried hosts had kept it for us.

Maddie asked me if I would go up to Mum and Dad’s with her to soften the good-byes. All went well until we were on the station at Manchester and Dad was in a huff- God knows why. As it got nearer and nearer to the time when we got on the train I couldn’t stand it any longer and took Dad off.

‘Dad you’ve GOT to say good-bye properly. You may never see Maddie again.’ By this time I’d lost it and we ended up all hugging each other and smiling through our tears but all the tension had gone. I’m happy to say that the parents visited the States many, many times for the rest of their lives and Maddie came over at least once a year.

At the theatre club I decided to do Shaw’s ‘The Devil’s Disciple’ as a big public production. The character of Dick Dudgeon had always attracted me and I persuaded Alan, who was our solicitor, to play the part. He was a fine actor – more cerebral than physical; I treasure the look he gave me when I asked him to leap onto a table to hold forth. It was difficult for him but we got there in the end.

We had an old film actor in the club (he appears in the film ‘The Lady Vanishes’) and I thought he would make a great General Burgoyne but Charles wasn’t going to give in so easily. He leant over me from his great height, a lank lock of too- black hair flopping over his moustached face,

’ Who played the original part?’ he demanded. I looked up at him, blinking a little.

‘Laurence Olivier.’

‘Harrrrrumph!’

And I knew he was mine, but he was very high maintenance and I had to provide a pair of thigh high suede boots before he was happy. Those wretched boots; every time Charles was on stage they seemed to me to be the focus of attention. Actors can be difficult at times!

What I discovered was that each act is written in a different style so one could get beautiful Chekhovian movement in the first act – then it’s all war, war, war and finally funereal with the Dead March. Still it went down well and it was a learning experience.

We had a bit of bother at the shop. Someone had opened a shop run on the same lines as us in the next town. They were perfectly entitled to do this but they named it using four words only one of which was different to ours and then by only three letters. People would come in the shop and say we went to your other shop. It’s called ‘passing off ‘as if someone opened a store called Marks and Spicer. Alan, our solicitor was convinced when his partner said,

‘I see Pat’s opened another shop.’

Alan was great and sent them some strong letters and they had to change it. Cheek!

All was going well; the family were fine, the shop was booming. I was in demand a an actress and director and then I met Tim

A New Venture

Story contd

Mary and I agreed a date to go down to Worthing to visit her old friend Ellie. They had known one another for years and Ellie, whose husband was a master at a renowned public school, had made a nice little earner for herself over the last few years. She had started a shop with a partner, based on the old thrift shops out in Germany, where I think the partner had been an army wife. The idea was you had a shop and accepted children’s outgrown clothes and sold them for the client who then received payment - with a percentage going to Ellie and partner. Basically it was school uniform but as time went on they included all children’s clothes especially ski and riding attire.

Ellie took us to see the shop which was bustling with mothers and children and was obviously providing a deep felt need. Like us they had many schools in the area from prep schools, grammar schools and public schools all of which demanded a uniform. No way was it an old clothes shop – the key was quality and the clothes should be in perfect order and dry cleaned. At half the original price customers realised what a good deal it was and, as I already had discovered, many of them were struggling to pay the fees to educate their children privately.

Over coffee I told Ellie that as both of us had large houses we could have the shop at home and cut out the expense of premises. Ellie was horrified.

‘Are you serious about running a business or are you just playing at it? You have to have premises and run it as a business. And are you sure you can run it together? You are working happily together now but you Mary are working for Pat. Are you planning on being equal partners?’

We assured her we were.

‘Well get yourselves a partnership agreement then.’

It seemed that Ellie and her partner of a good few years were now having difficulties which were beginning to seem insurmountable.

‘It’s when you start being really successful the trouble starts.’

Back at her house she showed us some of the lovely things she had bought recently but she was nervous and worried and I thought what a pity that success had brought two friends to the point of litigation.

It was time to leave as we both had to pick up our children from school. Another thing Ellie had pointed out was that she and her partner were older, with their children off their hands.

‘You need a third partner who has no children. Your business needs to be open normal shop hours and she can do the hours when you have to pick up your children.’

Somewhat chastened we contemplated running a business form 9.30am to 5.30pm, six days a week with a complete stranger. A bit daunting but I could see Mary was as excited as I was. I knew we could do it and couldn’t wait to get started but Ellie had given us excellent advice and we needed to give the whole project a lot of thought.

I picked the boys up from school and after I had given them tea and bathed them there was just time to have supper with William and give him a brief outline of what we planned. He wasn’t sure how I would be able to manage but it was a rehearsal night at the theatre club so we postponed the discussion.

Pete the director worked in television and was often late for rehearsal and I was deputed to be acting director. I really enjoyed this and had bought a whistle to get the cast to quieten down when I wanted to give direction. Much more fun than props and I determined to learn as much as possible about putting on a play. The leading actor Alan Burns was a solicitor and during a break I asked him if he had much dealing with partnership agreements.

‘All the time - in fact if more people had them from the beginning half my work would be cut out.’

I told him what we were contemplating and asked if he would be prepared to act for us and he agreed.

That’s the solicitor sorted now all we needed were premises, a third partner, a name, stock… oh and some capital. No problemo!