would make an evening meal for me, although she was a dreadful cook. The pastry on her steak and kidney puddings was always as heavy as lead, and the filling was just as unappetising, with grey meat floating in a watery gravy. My grandfather would make himself useful around the house, and he’d boil up my washing in the big copper in the scullery and do the shopping every day.
In many ways he was a nicer, more approachable person that my grandmother, so it was him whom I asked to get me some sanitary towels when I started my periods.
‘Papa, when you’re out doing the shopping today, please could you bring me some sanitary towels from the chemist?’ I said, my cheeks turning red.
Even though he was very Victorian in some of his attitudes, he wasn’t the least bit embarrassed.
‘Yes, all right, dear,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you your women’s things.’
I think the reason he was always so keen to do the shopping was that it was an excuse to stop in every pub on the way home and have a few pints of ale. That day, when I came home from Italia Conti, there was no sign of my grandfather.
‘Where’s Papa?’ I asked my grandmother.
‘No idea,’ she sighed. ‘He went off to do the shopping and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since.’
By 10 p.m. I was starting to get worried. But Grandmother went to the front door before going to bed, and suddenly I heard the door open and then a terrible thud.
‘Good grief, Henry!’ I heard her yell.
I ran out into the hallway and there was Papa sprawled out face down on the tiled floor.
‘Look who I found asleep on the doorstep worse for wear,’ she tutted. ‘He must have nodded off stood up with his head resting on the door, because when I opened it he fell straight in.’
Gaga was certainly not amused.
‘Are you all right, Papa?’ I asked, trying to pull him up.
‘I’m fine, Rene. And don’t you worry, I’ve got your women’s things,’ he beamed, handing me a large packet of sanitary towels.
But for the most part I dealt with things on my own, and there were only a few times that it bothered me. One of those was at the end of my first year at Italia Conti when the school put on its annual production of Where the Rainbow Ends. It was a very famous play about a group of children who have to rescue their parents and face lots of dangers on the way. In the end they’re helped by St George, and it’s all very English and patriotic.
‘It’s going to be at the Coliseum,’ said Tony excitedly. ‘’Ere, imagine that, Rene. Us lot prancing round on one of the West End’s biggest stages.’
‘And in front of the King,’ said Daphne.
I couldn’t believe that we would be doing a Royal Command Performance for King George and Queen Elizabeth. I was even more thrilled when I was given a brief solo to perform.
‘Irene, I’d like you to be the evil blue fairy,’ Miss Moira the ballet teacher told me. ‘It’s your job to flit from one side of the stage to the other. Do you think you can do that, dear?’
‘Yes, Miss Moira,’ I said.
I was even more chuffed when I saw my costume – a blue dress with a boned bodice and a skirt with floaty bits of fabric coming off it.
But my heart was in my mouth as I turned up to rehearsals. With over 2,300 seats, the Coliseum was the biggest theatre in the West End and I was completely overwhelmed.
‘This place is huge,’ I sighed as I stood on the eighty-foot stage and stared out at all the seats. ‘It’s going to take me all day to dance across this stage.’
It seemed to go on for ever, and there was a huge, ornate domed roof and marble pillars.
We were thrown in at the deep end, as we were expected to learn the routine in half a day and we only had a week of rehearsals.
‘At the end of the performance the whole cast will come back on stage, and you must all turn stage right and curtsey to the royal box,’ Toni Shanley told us. ‘But there must be no staring, and under no circumstances must you look directly at the King and Queen, as that would be a breach of royal protocol. Please cast your eyes downward.
‘Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Miss Toni,’ we all replied.
I was fascinated by the whole idea of the royal family.
‘Do you think they’ll just use the normal theatre toilets like everyone else?’ I asked Tony Newley.
‘Oh, Irene, don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘They’re royalty. They don’t go to the lav.’
I was so naïve that I didn’t realise he was joking, and for many years afterwards I still believed that the royal family were too posh to go to the toilet!
Soon it was the night of the big performance. As I waited in the wings for my turn to dance on stage I just felt tremendously excited rather than nervous.
‘Blue fairy, on you go,’ whispered Moira Shanley.
Right on cue I ran onto the stage. The bright lights dazzled me and I could only make out the first row of the audience as the rest of the auditorium just looked very black. I took a deep breath and forced myself to remember Miss Toni’s words:
‘Focus on the front row of the dress circle. That way you’ll lift your head up, and the audience will see your eyes and the whole of your face. And smile, girls. Smile.’
As I danced across that stage I made sure that I had the biggest, broadest smile on my face. But the strange thing was, it wasn’t forced or fake. I was genuinely happy, as I suddenly realised in that moment that my dream really had come true. Here I was, nearly ten years later, dancing like one of those fairies I’d seen in the pantomime at the Clapham Grand. Not only that, it was on the stage of the biggest theatre in the West End. Performing in front of that huge crowd gave me such a thrill.
‘If only Mum were here to see me,’ I thought to myself.
But there was no time to be sad, and soon I was curtseying to the King and Queen and basking in the audience’s applause. Everyone was on a high and even strict Miss Toni seemed pleased with our performance.
‘That was a job well done, everyone,’ she said, although her face still didn’t crack a smile.
I was still buzzing afterwards, and I didn’t want to take off my fairy costume and get changed back into my ordinary clothes, as that would mean it was all over. As I got ready to go home I watched the rest of my classmates being greeted in the dressing-room by their proud parents, who had all come to watch the show.
‘Oh, Daphne darling, you were absolutely wonderful,’ said her mother, handing her a red rose and a huge box of chocolates.
Others were being lavished with hugs and kisses and praise for their performance. I knew there was no one in the audience who was there for me, but I hadn’t expected there to be. As I squeezed my way out and headed to the Tube I refused to feel sorry for myself or let it get to me.
As part of your training at Italia Conti you were also sent off to appear in other productions during the school holidays. In the early Forties there were little variety theatres in every town and suburb, so there were endless opportunities to perform in summer seasons and pantomimes. I did a short tour with the Sadler’s Wells Opera in which I played a gingerbread child in Hansel and Gretel, and I appeared in a variety show in Brighton. There were no such things as chaperones in those days. We just got on a train on our own and got on with it. A lot of the time we had to find our own places to stay.
When I was thirteen we were sent to work at a pantomime at the Theatre Royal in King’s Lynn. Normally you wrote to the theatre where you were performing and they organised your digs, but our train was late into Norwich and by the time we got there that