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The black and white stage photographs featured on this website all come from those taken at the time by Trevor Davies of Burnham-on-Crouch. Trevor was a well known local photographer in the Dengie Hundred who took photographs of many weddings in the surrounding villages. It was not therefore surprising that he should be approached to take photographs of the popular productions being put on by The Althorne Players in St Andrew's Hall, Althorne.
He was first engaged to cover show number 5 'All Aboard' which ran from the 4 to 11 May 1946. Surviving members of The Players seem to remember Trevor came along to the final dress rehearsal to get his shots. As there would have been just a small audience of family and friends in attendance for the rehearsal it meant he was reasonably free to move around taking the shots he wanted. Looking at some of the images it seems to me he may have gone along to at least some of the public performances. One of Trevor's photograph at least shows a presentation being made to Vero Lambert in 'Jingle Bells' on what appears to have been the last night of the show.
Apparently Trevor would produce a set of 'proof' images from which members of the cast then selected those which they would like to have final prints of. It is these
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As a young boy attending the pantomimes I retain very happy memories of the time. I was delighted to find photographs which confirmed my belief that for a small village the quality of the productions was of a high order. The magical scenery painted by Norman Carr making a particular impact on me. With his skillful use of perspective he transformed a very small stage into a magical make believe world for children and adults to enjoy. The last production covered by Trevor was show number 17 'Carpet Slippers' which ran from the 9 to 12 May 1951. This means he covered thirteen of the The Althorne Players productions in that time. Due to the age and poor condition of many of the photographs the quality of the images is somewhat variable. However, I feel we are extremely fortunate to have the opportunity for a nostalgic look back at a very happy time in the village and should be grateful to those who decided to take the photographs. Without them we could so easily have forgotten what a wonderful experience the shows provided for local people and how they helped to offset worries of the war years and subsequent rationing. I would especially like to thank Trevor’s son Barry Davies for his permission to feature these on the website. Barry explained that his father went on to be better known for his work in industrial and marine photography although he still found time to cover local weddings and amateur dramatic productions. Text copyright Bryan Dunn 27 January 2009 |
