Category: Barnet History

All the stresses and strains – and sometimes laughter – of everyday life in Barnet during the Second World War are captured in an imaginative and often poignant production at The Bull Theatre.

A Nightingale Sang in Barnet: The Blitz and Beyond opened with a sell-out show for the first of four performances highlighting yet again the ability of the Blue Door Theatre Company to deliver original productions celebrating the town’s history and traditions.

Wartime comings and goings among the patrons and staff at the Barnet Odeon provide a constant thread around which there are scenes and story lines based on family memories and tales about the war years.

Seven members of the company wrote the script and based their contributions on their own research, aided by the recollections of local families.

The playwrights succeeded in bringing together what director Siobhan Dunne says is a patchwork quilt of human stories and dramatic events that occurred literally on their doorsteps in Barnet.

The Odeon cinema – now The Everyman – was chosen to frame the highs and lows for the townspeople of Barnet as they coped with air raid duties, bomb damage, food shortages and all the heightened security conditions that restricted day to day life.

All the action is rooted in and around the Barnet of the 1940s with storylines that highlight local street names and places – Wood Street, Union Street, Victoria Bakery, Sebright Road, Arkley, Trotters Bottom and so on – a litany of familiar points of reference. 

A focal point for the play is The Odeon’s bomb shelter which becomes a regular meeting place for cinema staff, patrons and local people – and a centre of intrigue involving numerous plot lines.

Two local wartime dealers in the black market, Ada and Benny Spratt (Janet Parker and Tony Nagle) incur the wrath of the Odeon’s manager Bill Pendleton (Steve Mays) when he finds them in the bomb shelter trying to sell eggs and two chickens to the assembled crowd.

Ada and Benny are undeterred and put up a spirited defence of the kind of action which was frowned upon during the war.

Much of the dialogue reveals the underlying fears within the community, such as the dread of hearing the hum of enemy planes overhead, receiving news of a death at the front, or the need to look out for suspicious behaviour and Fascist sympathisers.

Cinema usherette Ruby Wilson (Teresa Howell) doubles up as a secret listener at the wartime monitoring station at Arkley. After her shift at the Odeon, she cycles off for her hidden duties.

Interspersed between the family vignettes are renditions of much-loved wartime songs and tunes which are greeted with applause and whoops of delight especially for some of the sentimental numbers.

In a glimpse behind the scenes at The Odeon, ARP warden Gwen (Sarah Munford) builds up a friendship with cinema projectionist Danny (Chris Browning).

The Blitz and Beyond does not shy away from tacking potential conflicts facing Jewish refugees and Russian emigres.

The strains and stresses experienced by the Levin family provide a moving reminder of how lives had been upturned by the war – Avram Levin (Tim King), Chana Levin (Rafaella Golding) and Rivka Levin (Ann Moore).

Wartime romances are not forgotten. Alberto (Francesco Giacon) an Italian soldier from a prisoner of war camp at Trotters Bottom, has to say farewell to his sweetheart, recently widowed Rebecca (Brigid Hekster).

Local children have leading roles. Wartime restrictions on keeping pets imply that one’s boy dog is in danger of being put down.

A closing peacetime scene shows two local boys and a girl sitting at the top of King George’s Field gazing across towards the City of London musing on their futures, speculating on how they might be able to contribute to the post-war effort to rebuild the country. 

Threading the story together against a backdrop of an amazing collection of wartime photographs and some compelling clips from cinema newsreels is narrator (Tim King).

One of the film sequences is an account by William Boyes whose father, grandfather and great grandfather were solicitors at 20 Wood Street, Barnet.

He describes how his father – Edward Boyes – was standing in the doorway of 20 Wood Street when a stray bomb was dropped by a German plane on its home run.

Two houses on the opposite side of Wood Street were destroyed in the explosion. Edward Boyes was seriously injured, losing part of his lung, but his father Archie was safe inside the house.

He was unhurt and was photographed emerging into Wood Street holding the family pet’s budgie in its cage.

The show’s finale provides Siobhan Dunne a chance to thank all those behind the scenes including her husband Nick Godwin who arranged the music.

Ms Dunne reminds the audience of Barnet’s good fortune in being able to deliver live theatre and she appeals for contributions towards an emergency appeal for £10,000 towards essential maintenance and running costs at The Bull Theatre. Nearly £3,000 has been raised so far.

For more details of the appeal and a donate button see: https://www.thebulltheatre.com/

A Nightingale Sang in Barnet: The Blitz and Beyond, at The Bull Theatre, High Street, Barnet, Friday 16 October, 7.30pm; Saturday 17 October, 2pm and 7.30pm,

Cast members are going through their storylines before rehearsals start in September at The Bull Theatre for a new play which aims to portray the life and times of the townspeople of Barnet during the Second World War.

Much of the action revolves around the wartime comings and goings at Barnet Odeon (now the Everyman) – both in the cinema and a bomb shelter where patrons and staff gathered during air raids.

In mid-October the Blue Door Theatre Company will be staging four performances at The Bull of A Nightingale Sang in Barnet – all about the blitz and beyond.

Director Siobhan Dunne, see above right with cast members Val Golding (far left) and Jan Parker, said they hoped to capture the drama and uncertainty of wartime in Barnet.

“We have five writers working on the play and some of the scenes are based on verbatim stories of family memories and others are imagined scenarios.

“But because we are portraying wartime experiences not all the story lines have a resolution so that adds to the drama and poignancy of the production.”

Jan Parker has the role of Mrs Sprat who is a wartime dealer in the black market and operates with her son.

“Mrs Sprat is the brains behind her black-market business swapping and selling things like eggs for cigarettes or whatever.

“We see her selling a chicken in the bomb shelter – the very kind of activity frowned upon during the war.”

By contrast Val Golding’s role as Mrs Leonard is a reminder of the legacy of the First World War.  Her husband was killed at the Somme, and she is very upset by the renewed outbreak of war across Europe.

Ms Dunne said they had all jumped at the chance to build a production around Barnet in the 1940s and extend Blue Door’s well-earned reputation for delivering sell-out shows that celebrate the town’s history.

There will be four performances – Thursday 15 October, 7.30pm; Friday 16 October, 7.30pm; Saturday 17 October, 2pm and 7.30pm. Tickets at £19 plus booking fee now available via www.thebulltheatre.com

Violet Walker led her final commemoration day service as head teacher of Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ ahead of her retirement at the end of the summer term.

Pupils walked in a procession up Barnet High Street to the parish church of St John the Baptist for the 138^th celebration of the founding of a school which is one of the oldest and most successful all girls state schools in the country.

Mrs Walker reinstated the commemoration day service the year after becoming head teacher in 2015 and her final service featured another celebration of the past – the school’s chamber choir sang the original QE Girls’ school song which had not been performed since the 1960s.

Its title was the school motto – Ever in the presence of God – which used to be printed in Greek lettering around a symbol of a Tudor rose.

Resurrecting the song and getting it performed once again by the chamber choir became a personal mission for the school’s director of music, Cosima Rodriguez-Broadbent (left) who with Mrs Walker’s help managed to track it down.

“We hunted through the school’s archives and found a manuscript with the music and text,” said Cosima.

“I had to transcribe the music and with the help of the organist Jonathan Gregory we began rehearsals. The choir had to sign the chorus in Greek, so it was a real challenge.”

Guests at the service, who included the Mayor of Barnet, Councillor Danny Rich, congratulated the choir on a brilliant performance of what Jonathan Gegory said was a “robust song” which the pupils liked to sing.

Lines from the song reflected the school curriculum:

“Sing we the song of day that are,

When in this school those dreams come true,

When science in her heart reveals,

This old world ever new.”

The service was conducted by the Reverend Cindy Kent who thanked the choir for reflecting on the school’s past – a reminder dedicated to Mrs Walker’s service as head teacher and whose inspiration it had been to reinstate the commemoration day service.

“Mrs Walker will be greatly missed, and I know the whole school community is so grateful for dedicated service to QE Girls.”

In her address, she advised pupils on how best to tackle tough times in their lives.

“Do try to be calm when things go wrong. Nasty things can happen and people can be unkind but do try to be nice to them.”

There was a chance for a chat with the pupils of today for three former QE Girls’ pupils – from left to right, Margaret Peart (Youngs), Val Mulder (Townsend) and Gill Williams (Rees) – who described what times were like when they started at QE Girls in the 1950s.

All three were present when Queen Elizabeth II visited the school – her first official visit to a school after her coronation.

“Remember in those days we were a grammar school and there were only around 500 pupils – far fewer than the 1,200 today,” said Margaret Peart.

“Back in those days all the girls wore Panama hats, and the police stopped the traffic for the procession from the school to the church.”

When Mrs Walker became head teacher in 2015 it was a case of coming home.

Not only was Mrs Walker a former pupil at QEGS, but she later returned to the school to complete her post-graduate training as a mathematics’ teacher.

From the start she said she intended to be resolute in her conviction that QEGS’ role was to continue to serve the Barnet area as a local community girls’ comprehensive, committed to reflecting the school’s history and traditions, while at the same time embracing the latest technological advances in teaching and research.

Mrs Walker (Violet Hamid) was a pupil at QEGS from 1969 to 1976 and has fond memories of the headmistress of her day, Miss Marjorie Payne, who was head teacher for 17 years and was widely respected.

A successor to Mrs Walker as QE Girls’ head teacher has yet to be announced.

QE Girls was established in 1888 and shares foundation trustees with QE Boys’ School, Barnet, which was created in 1573 by a charter from Queen Elizabeth I.