Stars past my eyes

This contribution to WW2 People’s War was received by the Action Desk on BBC Radio Norfolk. The story has been written and submitted to the website by Jane Bradbury (Volunteer Story Gatherer) with the full permission and on behalf of Hazel Snowden

The BBC Variety department were evacuated to Bangor (North Wales) in 1943 (?). I was at work at the Liverpool Victoria Insurance (also evacuated from London) in Bangor. I was 16 and worked in the offices. They took over a big mansion house. They rented houses and the performers brought their families with them. Their children went to the local schools. Charlie Shadwell’s daughter worked in our office. We used to see Arthur Askey in a big car, driving through the town — he stayed in Caernarvon.

ITMA did a variety programme every week in Penrhyn Hall (Council Chambers?). They broadcast live — I was given tickets and was in the studio audience. The light was green on the microphone and when it went red it was live, on the air. You could see all the sound effects. A character called Horace Percival said, “Don’t forget the diver,” and somebody blew through a straw into a tumbler of water to make the sound of bubbles. There were about 50 in the audience and it was broadcast in the evening.

Other shows were in the County Theatre in Bangor. These were also broadcast, with a bigger audience and a bigger studio. We were encouraged to clap and laugh. When anything went wrong we had to sit through it again while it was redone.

There were 3 bands: Billy Terrents and his band, Charles Shadwell and his orchestra and Ernest Longstaff who was more classical. I went one Sunday night, which was unusual as I usually went to Chapel where I played the organ. Ernest Longstaff’s orchestra was playing and Betty Driver was the guest artist — she sang ‘My Devotion’. She was very young and pretty and had a lovely voice. She wore lovely dresses which we all envied as we were on coupons. (NB. She is the barmaid in ‘Coronation Street’).

Ernest Longstaff had very upmarket people such as Harriet Cohen, a classical pianist, who showed us a gold charm bracelet which was presented to her by the ruler of an Eastern (?) country. Noel Gay, who was a well known producer and composer of musicals in London, was a guest one evening and afterwards he sat on the pavement to sign autograph books by writing his name on the stave, but he got tired just as it was my turn and I was very disappointed as I would have loved to get one.

The programme ‘Monday night at 8’ finished with a mystery guest who came on about 8.50 pm and as we listened at home to it on the radio we’d wait to see who it was and if it was somebody famous we’d take off with our autograph books and race down to the theatre to get their autograph. Richard Green (the original ‘Robin Hood’) was one, Anna Neagle and George Formby were others. We lived about half a mile from the studio. My parents used to listen with my sister and me.

My grandmother’s sister emigrated to New Zealand before the war — her son came over on a hospital ship, the ‘Wanganui’, where he was a member of the crew and he brought gifts from the family, such as leather bags from the Middle East etc.

In May 1944 Bangor raised £225,000 odd for ‘Salute the Soldier’. There was a thermometer on the town clock in Bangor indicating the amount raised. The target was £200,000. There was a procession through the town.

The local boys who had been Japanese prisoners of war came back and marched up the street looking like death warmed up. There were about 24 of them, dressed in khaki and people lined the streets to see them.

My father was a sergeant in the Home Guard and sometimes they were entertained by a member of the BBC. One night it was Helen Hill, a soprano, and my father was most impressed.

One day at work a telegram arrived in our office to state that my colleague’s fiance, Ken, a local boy who was a pilot in the RAF, had been lost, presumed killed. She was called out of the office to be told.

A lady who was billetted with us had to be told by my Dad, who had received the telegram, that the body of her brother lay in a mortuary in Clapham. He was an air raid warden and had been bombed in London. She was devoted to him and was distraught.

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