Threads - A Stitch In Time

 

My paternal grandmother was a professional tailoress. She objected to being referred to as a dressmaker as she made clothes for everyone. Most of my childhood clothes were made by her and also, a beautiful, pink satin eiderdown for my first ‘big girl’ bed. It was beautiful and I wish I still had it. My mum and I had summer dresses in matching fabric. My dad and granddad always had smart trousers. It is sad that Nanna Hetty passed away when I was only eight years old, but from being about four or five, she’d taught me a few skills. I could thread a needle, sew a neat running stitch and sew buttons on to a piece of spare fabric. These small things sowed the seed for my future sewing abilities. At secondary school, I excelled in needlework. Over the years I’ve made clothes for myself and my daughter and made items of soft furnishings. As my eyesight worsened, it became a difficult task and these days I just sew buttons back on, mend things and sew name labels on school uniforms. From Nanna Hetty’s background, I learnt about a different type of thread than anything she had on her bobbins. It was family and the invisible thread that fastens us together, which I came to appreciate more when I started to research my family tree.

When our maternal aunt died, my sister and I, as next of kin, were tasked with dealing with everything. Amongst her belongings was a large envelope with my name on. It wasn’t private, it was open and over-filled, containing old family papers, certificates and important letters, directed to me because of my interest in family history.  Eventually, I got round to going through the contents, being very careful with delicate items. Most was self-explanatory but there was the running thread of a surname that was unfamiliar to me. Clearly, this name belonged in the family, somewhere. I needed to discover more and solve the mystery. Looking into my ancestry gave me the answers.

This year marks twenty years since I began to search online, piecing my family tree together. I have followed my paternal line to Southern Cemetery in Manchester, where upon finding a clerical error in their data input, I was able to help them to correct it and find the grave I wanted. I knew that my Nanna Hetty was orphaned as a baby as she’d told me, but I don’t know if she knew anything about her parents, in particular that her father was employed as a tailor’s assistant. That thread was definitely in her bloodline. The unfamiliar name in my maternal family turned out to be my great-grandmother’s maiden name. I’m grateful to Cheshire Births, Marriages and Deaths website for that discovery, long before I started on Ancestry.co.uk. My family tree, even now, is a work in progress. Now and again I pick up a known thread, which is often more than one person and see where it leads. These are the threads of life in my family, which will weave on into future generations.

I found this poem,

 

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

William Stafford   1914 – 1993

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Showtime: A Filmgoer's Diary

I have no idea how The Filmgoer's Diary (D. Harper & Co. Ltd, London) for 1956 came into my collection. It is one of a copious number of objects and ephemera filed away in the studio waiting for resurrection and possible repurposing. I rediscovered this little gem sandwiched between numerous vintage Blackpool Winter Gardens and Tower Circus programmes squirreled away in one of my cupboards.

The Filmgoer's Diary - title page

It is a curious little publication no bigger than the palm of my hand that led me on a journey exploring three actresses from Lancashire, the post WWII film industry and has given insight into an ordinary nameless someone (probable immigrant) who began their life in the south of England in 1956 and by the end of that year lived and worked at a hotel in St Annes-on-the-Sea.

The exterior of the diary is nothing special. The black textured faux leather cover has the title written in faded almost non-existent gold text on the front and a tiny No 94 embossed on the back. The spine cover has gone missing in action leaving the text block exposed and vulnerable. In flipping back the cover as if opening a curtain, the endpapers highlight scenes from The Glass Slipper. The title page follows, then the 1956 and 1957 calendars, postal information and a photo of Donald Sinden and Glynis Johns.

Next is a map of London’s West-End Cinemas followed by Films I Have Seen. No film titles are written however there are a couple of interesting entries under this heading. The first is the address of United States Lines, an organisation operating cargo and passenger ships. The second is a clothing list in English with the header in another language. Considering the items listed, I am leaning towards the idea that my diary writer is a man, as I believe shirts would be blouses and socks would be stockings if it were women’s clothing. The question of gender will never be answered as the Personal Mems. page remains forever empty.

The Filmgoer's Diary - clothing list

When January begins, black and white images of film stars start jumping off the bottom righthand corner of each page. All head shots are accompanied by a short biography. Celebrities include Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and Janet Leigh (later famous for her role in Hitchcock’s Psycho, 1960). Lancashire lasses Thora Hird, Janette Scott and Dora Bryan are also in the spotlight. As Lancashire is my home, curiosity got the better of me and I searched to find out more about these three women.

Thora Hird (1911 – 2003) was from Morecambe growing up in a performance environment. Her father was the manager of the town’s Royalty Theatre and when she became of age, joined the theatre’s company. At the time The Filmgoer’s Diary was published, she was working for the Rank Organisation as an established character actress. During her career she appeared in hundreds of plays, films, radio and television programmes working almost daily well into her 90s. She was made a dame in 1993 for services in acting, particularly for her roles in Last of the Summer Wine and Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads Monologues.

Dame Thora Hird (back row, far right) Red Rose Collection
Image credit: Lancashire Archives

Janette Scott (born 1938) is found peering out of the 5th-7th January page. She is the daughter of Thora Hird and was also born in Morecambe. Scott made her film debut in 1943 in Went the Day Well?. Later, in 1975 she was referenced in the opening song of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. She is now retired.

Dora Bryan (1923-2014) was born Dora May Broadbent in Southport and brought up in Oldham. She was 12 years old when she made her first professional appearance in Manchester. By the time her face shone underneath 16th June, she had over 30 films under her belt.

The actors and actresses highlighted in this diary were part of the Golden Age of Hollywood (mid 1930s to the early 1960s). However by 1956, the film industry was beginning to see a decline at the box office for several reasons. At the time, themes were censored by the government (although beginning to be challenged) and many creative people were blacklisted including Charlie Chaplin(actor), Orson Welles (director, actor, writer), Leonard Bernstein (composer, conductor) and poet Langston Hughes. According to Allison Perlman the blacklisting

                was implemented by the Hollywood studios to promote their patriotic
                credentials in the face of public attacks and served to shield the film
                industry from the economic harm that would result from an association
                of its product with subversives.

Television was also growing in popularity contributing to fewer cinema ticket sales. More and more people began to be intrigued and mesmerised by the smaller screen settling for a more intimate experience.

Whatever one’s entertainment of choice, back in the mid-twentieth century Joe Public during and post WWII would have been hungry for escapism. The glitz and glamour (fabricated constructs) would have given ordinary folk something to dream about, to buy into and perhaps this is why the unknown writer of my diary chose to keep this particular publication close, whilst also keeping one organised.

Going back to examining the diary itself and trying to make sense of someone’s seemingly ordinary life I notice the first entry on 1st January is written in a language I can’t work out. Other entries in the diary are also written in this language mixed in with entries in English. It is likely English is not the writer’s first language.

The Filmgoer's Diary - 1st and 2nd January, 1956

On 2nd and 9th January Days Off is clearly written in English. This person was employed until 12th January when Look for another work is clearly written. The diary owner then travelled between 16th and 20th January to Southam Hotel, 12 Leam Terrace (Leamington Spa), then to Birmingham and finally on to Stratford-Upon-Avon. Was this travel a quest to look for work? 30th January has evidence of success in securing employment as he/she writes Staff Party Old Red Lion.

On Thursday 2nd February all that is entered is Big Frost. The weather clearly had made a big impression. I Googled this date discovering February was particularly cold that year in England and Wales with the average temperature for the month just below freezing.

Not much to note until April when the address of the Finance Officer of the Home Office in London appears, followed by entries in the unidentifiable language and an address for a hotel in Stratford-Upon-Avon. 6th and 7th May is a mystery, the Canadian Emigration – for £10 and Details: Ellis Travel Agency, 44 Cannon Street, Birmingham. No activity for the next two months. Then in July, 1st to the 5th is blocked off as Holiday. 6th July finds three words Come to Blackpool with Cleo Moore’s pensive visage sporting this page.

The Filmgoer's Diary - 6th to 8th May, 1956

The next few pages list two addresses, 76 Warley Road Blackpool, N. and one for the Blackpool Ministry of Labour placed above Kim Novak, then several entries in the language that I do hope someone can eventually identify. On Thursday 19th July employment is finally secured as evidenced in the statement I had start work at night in Glendower Hotel, St. Annes-on-Sea. In August, across from Jacques Francois is an address for the St Annes-on-Sea of Labour. Then on 30th August Day Off. Intermittently Day Off is entered throughout the remainder of the year.

This has been a fascinating investigation. Even without a name, one can conclude that the diary writer was from somewhere other than the United Kingdom. This person was probably a man deduced by looking at the clothing list and how much travel was involved with no indication of a companion, but one can never be absolutely sure. The diary writer was firstly employed in the south of England in 1956 then looked for work to stay in the country however there are still so many questions; Where did this person come from? What happened after 1956? Did he/she stay on Fylde, move somewhere else, find love and raise a family? Oh, how I wonder.

The 1956 Filmgoer's Diary

has bound within its pages
sixty six photos of those
classified in their time
as the most beautiful
most talented creatures
with perfect white teeth
and unblemished skin
manufactured to promote
a business entertaining
the dreamers writing
and performing their own
extraordinary scripts. 

Thank you for reading. J

Sources
Anon. (1956) The Filmgoer’s Diary 1956 (Leap Year). London, D. Harper & Co. Ltd. London.
Barker, D. (2014) Dora Bryan obituary. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jul/23/dora-bryan+accessed+19+October+2023 accessed 19 October 2023.
Heckmann. C. (2021) When was the Golden Age of Hollywood-and why did it end?. https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/when-was-the-golden-age-of-hollywood/ accessed 20 October 2023
IMDB (2023). Thora Hird Biography. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0386331/bio/ accessed 9 October.
Pak, E (2020) Charlie Chaplin and 6 Other Artists Who Were Blacklisted in Hollywood During the Red Scare.https://www.biography.com/artists/artists-blacklisted-hollywood-red-scare accessed 21 October 2023.
Whether Idle (2018). 1956 February. https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/default.aspx?g=posts&t=18507 accessed 20 October 2023.

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The Mystery of the Taliban?

Okay, so my weekly confessional has come around again and I must admit, I'm a bit of a book hoarder. 

I buy all sorts of books, none of them particularly fancy but to me, for that hour or so when I first open a new book up, it is an absolute must have. I do this with all kinds of books for all kinds of reasons. I go for price, cover, review, name, recommendation- all the usual things but the one thing that can hook me in is mystery. This is half of the reason I buy poetry books. I know they aren't in fashion long enough to be going out of fashion but there is always a rush there- and nobody seems to ever stop me. I buy them for the different ideas, for the different beliefs and for the different understandings and viewings of the world, which leads me on nicely to something of a topical post. 

There has been something of a backlash this week towards news publishers Hurst & Co. are to publish a Taliban poetry collection later this month. Whilst at first this may seem an outrageous proposal, I was reluctant to jump to conclusions over this before I had actually seen a copy of the book or at least read some of the poems in it...

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