Page 26 - My Story

My Story: LOVE and MARRIAGE 1953 – 1963

Great Yarmouth loved its rep. and was very supportive then, in the early 50s, but it wasn’t enough.
John called me in to his office and explained that he was running out of money and had to cut back on
personnel. I was doing a good job but being the last one in had to be the first to go. He very much
regretted, etc. So, there I was, out of work, again.

My last night was 31 January 1953 when huge floods hit the east coast of England and the
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Netherlands. Uncle Nat had come to Great Yarmouth to see the play, I forget what it was but I had a
considerable part, and drive me home. We could hear the storm from the stage and kept looking out of
the window to see whether we were cut off. The theatre was built partly on a pier jutting into the sea.
All seemed well. We went home and slept and drove to London the next day. My parents were frantic.
They had been trying to reach us all night, but telephone wires were down and the whole country in chaos.
We had been oblivious!

The North Sea storms of 1953 were very damaging. Many people along the east coast of England
and in Belgium and the Netherlands lost their lives when sea defenses collapsed.

I was once again out of work and doing the rounds of the agents. My father put up with this for
about two weeks and then told me to get out and get a job. I went along to the Astoria cinema and got a
job as an ice cream girl. In those days there were usually three features shown at a cinema, the news, a
B movie and then the main feature. In the intervals between items the ice cream girl walked up and down
the aisles selling ice cream and sweets. I thought that with a job like this I would still be free to do the
rounds of the agents in the mornings.

In my spare time I was going out with an old friend of my cousin Stanley, Dickie. We were usually
in a crowd, but Stanley was the only one who never paired with anyone. He was always alone. Sad that
we didn’t know anything about gay people in those days and maybe Stanley himself didn’t understand it
and was ashamed. He died alone, in his fifties or sixties, found in his flat some time after death, because
of the smell emanating from the front door.

I got on quite well with the other employees at the Astoria, the boys from the projection room –
no digital films in those days - the films arrived on huge reels which were mounted on massive projectors;
the manager, the usherettes and the other ice cream girl. And I got to see a lot of films, including Fantasia,
which I loved and happily watched day after day.

My social life was OK. I was in touch with Alan whom I’d met at the Rietty play. He was a student
at Cambridge, lived in west London and introduced me to a friend of his, Jonathan, also studying at
Cambridge, with whom I started going out. He talked of our going to watch the Boat Race and attending
the May Ball.

In April I was invited to a 21 birthday party by Mimi Lesser, a school friend of Jackie. The Lessers
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were an interesting family. The parents were Russian, I believe, the father deceased. The two older
brothers were communists, had fought in the Spanish civil war and were journalists for The Daily Worker,
London’s communist newspaper. There were four girls – Queenie, Ruth, Shirley and Mimi. I knew Shirley
and Mimi from school. Shirley was a nonchalant type and good actress, Mimi was warm, kind and not at
all pretty.

I went along to the party with Jackie and Peter and realised it was a mistake within about five
minutes. The other guests were all girls from school, but a year above me, a few with brothers. I had
nothing in common with any of them. Jackie, of course was flitting around showing off Peter, whom they
all knew, and the pretty diamond on her finger. Jackie in those days looked very gamin, much like Leslie

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