大象传媒

This story is submitted by a volunteer on bbehalf of Radio Bristol Action Desk at City of Bristol College.

I joined ENSA when I was 16 in 1942. I had been training as a dancer since I was 7 in London and I always wanted to be a dancer on the stage.

I was at school till I was 15. At ENSA I started with the small shows, usually a pianist, singer, dancer and comedian. I then joined the only all girl show on ENSA and we went on tour for 6 months to Northern Ireland, Scotland, and the Orkney and Shetland Islands, 12 girls in the show. The comedienne was Joan Fred Emney, Fred's sister. Typical performance would be like a revue with singing and dancing. Not homesick at all, and my mother was away in ENSA as well, as a violinist. Songs like Over The Rainbow, no skimpy costumes allowed. These were called the Garrison Theatre Shows, under the director Archie de Beers. When we returned to the South of England, I met my future husband in Winkleigh, Devon. His name was John Hall,and he was a navigator with a night fighter squadron as a Pilot Officer flying Beaufighters and Mosquitoes. He was sitting in the front row! He introduced himself in the Officers Mess after the show. He proposed a week later and I said 'no'. But I said 'yes' when I was on Embarkation Leave 6 months later on my way to Egypt and Palestine. i.e he thought he would put a ring on my finger before I disappeared. I was in Ishmalia half way down the Suez Canan on VE Day. I returned to England before VJ Day and we were married in February 1946 at Surbiton, so I was engaged for just a year and I was just 20. We were married for 52 years and I have a son Roger and Daughter Carol. I stopped work as soon as I married and John came out of the forces and he was an heating and ventilating engineer.

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