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Streatham Hill Theatre – a personal connection
Whilst sorting through many, many boxes of my father’s papers I came across a bag of mixed theatre programmes, nine of which are for Streatham Hill Theatre dated pre-war 1939*.
I cursed the vast quantity of 60 plus years of hoarded ‘stuff’ but in the end it proved to be a wealth of valuable, detailed personal family history. My parents, Bert and Norah, married in 1940 so the theatre programmes definitely represent their courting days. My mother grew up with her grandmother in Frome, Somerset and was only 17 when her gran died. Being homeless she went into service with two elderly spinsters who shortly announced that they would be moving and she could go with them. My mother thought they said they were going to nearby Wells, but it turned out to be Tunbridge Wells in Kent. She didn’t know anyone here and was pretty miserable and lonely.
The house In Tunbridge Wells was large and may have needed some refurbishment as one day an electrician was called in to mend a bell. This was my father. A romance soon began, but my mother was still lonely and moved to Tooting to rent rooms with a friend who had come up to London from Frome. It wasn’t long before my father followed and clearly they enjoyed outings to many local theatres and cinemas.
Strangely few of the programmes for Streatham Hill Theatre have dates, only volume numbers. My father has written on the back of one for Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple (no 1283):
To celebrate – or more of an excuse to wear our new handbag and raincoat, and to have Welsh Rarebit in a Milk Bar, not forgetting the new hat.
He signed it Dirty Shirty!
The cast included Robert Donat, Stewart Granger and Andrew Cruickshank. The reference to the modest snack gives a lovely picture of the times.
After marrying in March 1940, during the early months of the war they lived in Mitcham and then Sanderstead, South Croydon. With more time and after bringing up three children they returned to their love of theatre and cinema, especially my mother. In those days you could get a bus to five different local ‘picture houses’. She introduced me to the world of cinema and I went on to work in BBC Television. I still very much enjoy going to the cinema and theatre. Thanks mum and dad!
Jennie Butler
* Jennie has kindly sent us these programmes for our archive. Thanks Jennie.
My sister, Jennie has reminded me of an amazing outing when I was a teenager. I remember going to Streatham Hill Theatre in 1958 to see West Side Story before it moved up to the West End. It was absolutely thrilling, and remains among the best stage performances I have ever seen. My parents were not entirely supportive of me going there with a gaggle of girls, but never mentioned it was an old haunt of their’s.