Bits of old theatrical and musical stuff

 

It's that time again.  My desktop is getting as crowded as the Drury Lane stage in Novello days. It's time to plonk some these fascinating (to me) finds on The Blog ...

A couple of 1920s from American showbusiness. Different area of the American showbusiness ...

This is from 1924. How do I know that? Because Mr Strayer's 'Amusement Company', which was a carnival act, seemingly existed only between May and July 1924. Jarvis Robert STRAYER (b Martinsburg, West Virginia 19 July 1883; d Biloxi 18 October 1955) had worked for some years for the Cream City Amusement Co as a showman on the road circuits. I see him in the 1920 census 'carnival manager, travelling' in Milwaukee, with his wife Hannah Maria ...  In 1942 he is 'manager Pan American Shows, Cincinnati'. At his death, he was 'operator of a trailer court'. 

A little more pretentious was this one, also from the 1920s ..

Fanchon & Marco ..?

It is not inscribed, but the ebay vendor has labelled it as a Fanchon and Marco revue.  Fanchon and Marco Wolff were billed as 'the cleverest of modern dancers and terpsichorean specialists in the country'. They wrote their own material, played San Francisco and even ventured to New York in 1921 with their revue Sun Kist for a month of performances. Reading the breakdown for Sun Kist, this doesn't appear to belong in there. Perhaps 'the Mack Sennett Girls' in Let's Go. Anyway, they apparently made their money by producing potted musical comedies for production on film programmes. Perhaps that's them in the background?

They were brother and sister, the children of Solomon Isaac Wolff, (d 1929) a Russian tailor, and his Polish wife Ester (d July 1958), and the three eldest children -- Fanchon, Marco and Reuben (who was their musical director) -- were all born, yiddish speaking, in Los Angeles.

Marco (1894-1877) outlived his sister, as did brother Rube (1895-1976).

Findagrave, which I usually correct!, has a neat biog/obit for Fanchon (Mrs W H Simon) (1892-1965) which I reprint here, and which may be correct(ish), even if they can't spell Cyd's name correctly, or Wolff's:

"Vaudeville theater performer in the team of Fanchon and Marco and also operating a theatrical school in Hollywood some of the students being Judy Garland, Shirley Temple, Cyd Charrisse, Joan Crawford and Mae West. She was a first female producer producing dance numbers for Hollywood studios and she was a former owner of the Roxy and Paramount Theaters. She introduced the concept of actors presenting the awards. She was the sister-in-law of Abe and Mike Lyman and wife of William Simon of well known Hollywood restaurateur and sister of her partner Marco Wolf".

Well, I had never heard of Miss Fanchon and her family till this morning. So, that was an interesting one.

Here's another of the period and the type. It is simply labelled The Love Shop.  A 1920 George Choos variety production, featuring Eddie Vogt, and eight showgirls with lots of costumes. 'The act is as far as books and lyrics is hardly worth talking about .. it is the wardrobe of the act which really makes up the offering' reported the New York Clipper.

It did the Keith circuit rounds for a couple of seasons, like other 'big vaudeville acts' of the kind, and was then shelved in favour of more, like 'shows'.  This, apparently composite, photo survives ...

The occasional French lady ...

This is Zélie Anna DERASSE (b Ixelles, Belgium 19 September 1847). I knew her only for having played the part of Mimi in the Opéra-Comique production of Vert-Vert. She was a winner of a premier prix at the Paris Conservatoire in 1867, and multiple accessits in chant, opera and opera-comique (pupil of Révial), before being engaged Rue Favart. I see her there in 1869 playing Haydée, Isabelle in Le Pré aux clercs, and in Mignon, Camilla in Zampa, La Dame blanche .

She is credited with later appearances at La Haye (1872), Lille and Angers, and I see her in 1870 acclaimed for her 'magnifiques qualités vocales', Had her early promise evaporated?  Been held up by unplanned motherhood? Or had she gone to parts abroad? No, she'd just slipped from metropolitan memories.

I see her in 1873 giving Faust at Pau, in 1877-8 singing Le voyage en Chine, Inès in L'Africaine and Berthe in Le Prophète in Marseille, Leonora in Il Trovatore in La Havre ('très belle personne, qui donne au personnage une très grande allure dramatique'), in 1875 'fort chanteuse' at Montpelier, in 1880 ('after ten years') back in Paris at the Château d'Eau in Si j'étais roi, in 1883 playing Carmen at Limoges and ... is that in Réunion? Yes. 21 October 1883 as La Favorita ...

Whether or not she was a mother, she was evidently a 'wife' of some sort. She inherited the all of English photographer Robert Jefferson Bingham (1824-70), which earned her the occasional lawsuit re: reproduction rights.

A different type of performer was Madeoiselle LASCONI [NICOLAS, Aimée Fanny] (b Saint-Servan 31 August 1848) who featured on the Paris stage in the 1870s.

Duaghter of Pierre Marie Nicolas and his wife Aimée Marie Lemoine, she married the writer [Paul] Armand Silvestre, 30 January 1876.

I see her first in 1874, playing in matinées at the Porte Saint-Martin, then, over the three or four years to follow at the Châtelet (Les Muscadins, Acté in Les Folies du jout) and Théâtre Lyrique Dramatique cum Théâtre Historique (Maréchale de Mirepoix in Latude, Domenic in Regina Scarpi, La Botte Secrète, Catherine de Medicis in Le Jeunesse du Roi Henri, Elvire in Le Cid, Les Filles de Marbre et al) and in 1878 the Odéon.

Just fancied this photo of Ivy Sawyer, on her way from child performed to centarian ... not quite Lewis Carroll's demure little Alice in Wonderland, is she!

Ivy SAWYER [Elsie SAWYER] (b London, 13 February 1898; d Irvine, Calif., 16 November 1999) began her career as a London child starlet. She appeared for a number of years as Alice in Wonderland, originally (1906) as the dormouse, the first oyster and the cornflower (with two solo dances) and later as Alice (1909-1914), played in the chorus of Seymour Hicks's My Darling (1907), and for George Edwardes as the midshipman in The Marriage Market (1913) before, aged 20, she went to America, to appear in the title-rôle of Edwardes's Betty. She married her co-star, stayed, and they became an on-stage as well as off-stage pair appearing together in the Oh, Boy! tour (1917, Mrs Budd), Oh! My Dear (1918, Hilda Rockett), She's a Good Fellow (1919, Jacqueline Fay), The Half Moon (1920, Grace Bolton), It's Up to You (1921, Harriet Hollister), three Music Box Revues, Mayflowers (Elsie Dover), Just Fancy (in which she played an American girl, Linda Lee Stafford, whilst her American husband played the English Prince), and Lucky (Grace Mansfield), in which Miss Sawyer appeared for once with, but not opposite, her husband.

MÉALY, Juliette [JOSSERAND, Juliette] (b Toulouse 1 October 1861; d Monaco 9 January 1952). Had plenty of photos taken in her long and scrumptious career. But I like this one. And anyway, folks could do with the facts :-)

Juliette Méaly 'with her abbreviated skirts, a wealth of rustling frills and a huge hat' not to mention a very fine soprano voice, led a full career in the European musical theatre, starring in many a Parisian rôle where a certain glamorous audacity was needed, yet proving herself a fine performer in a wide range of parts, from the classics to the music-hally, through a long career.

 She made her earliest appearances at a very young age at the Eldorado in 1884, but she first came into fuller evidence as a young and appealing jeune première at the Théâtre des Menus-Plaisirs (Marcel in La Fiancée des verts-poteaux 1887 etc) when she took over from Yvonne Stella in the central rôle of Audran's L'Oncle Célestin (1891). She followed up at the same house alongside Félix Huguenet in Roger's Le Coq (1891, Cécilia) and in the leading rôle of Audran's Article de Paris (1892, Jeanne) before moving on to appear in La Vie parisienne at the Variétés, and starring on the rather larger Gaîté stage as Michelette in Le Talisman (1893). She followed this distinct personal success by taking her new-found stardom to the rest of Europe, and later the same year she visited Budapest’s Somossy Theatre, Bucharests’s Théâtre Lyrique and the Vienna Carltheater playing Miss Helyett and Le Petit Duc, and then London where she appeared at Alhambra with Paul Fugère in a selection from La Femme de Narcisse, and was featured in a pasted-in `green-room scene' in In Town at the Gaiety Theatre (August), alongside American whistler Tom Browne and impersonator Cissie Loftus.

 Back in Paris, she starred as Christiane in Le Troisième Hussards (1894) at the Gaîté, as the voluptuous Mimosa, nude scene and all, in the spectacular Le Carnet du Diable(1895, 1897, 1899) and as another near-the-knuckle demoiselle, Paquerette in Le Carillon(1896), both at the Variétés where, under the direction of Fernand Samuel, she would make her `home' for most of the next two decades. In between her appearances in osée opérette à grand spectacle, she played in the Variétés revivals of the classics (Dindonette in L’Oeil crevé, Gabrielle in La Vie parisienne, Marguerite in Le Petit Faust etc). In 1897 she created the rôle of the actress Fanny in Le Pompier de service, but the years which followed brought no new rôles of value as Mlle Méaly appeared as Fragoletto to the Fiorella of Tariol-Baugé in Les Brigands and as Eurydice at the Variétés, and took another turn around central Europe, playing Madame Méphisto, Blondeau and Monreal's Parisian `opérette-folie' spectacle, which had her as a female demon taking vengeance on her underworld husband, Mam'zelle Nitouche, Le Pompier de service and L'Auberge du Tohu-bohu (Flora) at Budapest's Magyar Színház (16-20 April 1901), Berlin's Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtisches Theater (15 May 1901) and Theater des Westens (22 February 1901) and Vienna's Theater an der Wien and Carltheater.

 She had her best fresh rôle for a decade when she starred as the Princess Bengaline in Planquette's posthumous Le Paradis de Mahomet (1906), and then stepped aside from the Variétés to appear at the Moulin-Rouge alongside Mistinguett in La Revue de la femme(1907) and the following year as the star of the opérette Son Altesse l'amour, this time in competiton with Gaby Deslys. She was seen regularly on the Paris stage for another decade, repeating her best rôles (notably La Vie parisienne's Gabrielle, but no longer those requiring a nude scene) and creating the occasional new rôle, as in Les Merveilleuses (1914) or, as late as 1921, in a return to the stage, in La Galante Épreuve at La Cigale.

Now a piece of music. I don't know why I saved this. Some odd songwriters, a curious publisher -- Moorgate Station and Toronto, Canada. Errrr...?

Well, you have to investigate the unfruitful oddities along with the druitful, or else you never 'discover'.

Francis William SWIFT (b Cheetham 1 July 1850; d Workhouse, Lambeth 3 May 1905) was a son of Benjamin Swift, a salesman in the linen trade, and his wife Betsey née Denby. Their next son was Charles Albert Swift (b Cheetham 4 April 1852). Both boys had firm ideas as to career. Charles, it was the sea. He was, in turn, a coastguard, a member of the naval reserve, a missionary with the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, a naval pensioner ... Frank wanted to be in showbusiness. 

He began (1872) as a vocalist -- Mr F W Swift 'the new tenor' of 37 Lyme Street, Chorlton on Medlock. He can't have been awful, for I see him in Dundee 'singing several well-known and original songs' in 1873. But he doesn't seem to have stuck it. By the time, in 1878, he went bankrupt 'lately of Glasgow, Sunderland and now of Longsight' he was ticketed as 'music seller and composer'. He was also married 'professor of music' to one Clara Newton.

His published songs didn't attract many good reviews: 'Alone' ('a poor production'), 'My Fisher Maid' ('a simple ballad of medium compass'), 'The Path by the Mill' ('cheerful little love ditty of a familiar type'), 'In Dreams Alone' )('easily learnt, of moderate compass') or 'At the Stile' ('somewhat commonplace sentimental ballad') which was published by Willey and Co. They also put out a set of four songs in 1882 ('King David's Lament', 'Loyal and True', 'A Sailor and his Lass', 'Cheerily Haul, Hi!').

Frank had had two children before he abandoned Clara for the charms of a young variety performer, by name Nellie Roberts. They would have three daughters, who died as children, and apparently one son.

In the same time, he had sunk fairly low in 'the business'. When he, briefly, promoted something named 'the Swiss Choir' he was arrested for fraud, for scarpering without paying the choir's hotel bills. So he tried another trendy field: he composed the 'score' for a J H Booth burlesque-cum-musical piece entitled Moonlight, or The Pirates' Plunder. The piece was manufactured around the brothers, Fred and James May, and it was shown 8 December 1892 at Hereford. And it went on! Although the Brothers had their pantomime engagement to fill first! It got showings at Pontypridd, Bristol, Gloucester, Derby ... not many, but ..

Frank's next theatrical achievement, however, at last gave him a profile. For a while. He formed an association with the Dundee writer, Robert Fenton Mackay (b Fochabers, Co Elgin) 'for many years a representative of the publishing house of Mackenzie'. Mackay had been successful with his earliest plays: The Black Diamond (with its sensation coal mine scene), The Life We Live produced by Charles Warner, Spellbound et al, and Willie Edouin had tried some of his little musical comedies. Then he got involved in producing. The Life we Live was now 'by Fenton Mackay and F W Swift' and the men were partners (October 1895) in something called 'the Music and Arts Corporation' exploiting their works. They sold or hired their lucubrations to producers, and the greatest of these was Edouin. And their first new piece was a hit. It was a conventional 'French' comedy entitled The J P, by Mackay, with songs by Swift (plus 2 or 3 others and David Stephen for the entr'actes). Lionel Rignold and Florence Lloyd starred for Edouin at the Strand Theatre ('full of fun'). Of course, it was all too good to last, the following year their firm was liquidated and Mackay went on alone (The Skirt Dancer, Another Man's Wife, Brown at Brighton) eventually to diminishing returns.

I don't know what happened, but Frank -- who described himself as 'composer and dramatist' in the 1901 census -- died in Lambeth Workhouse 3 May 1905. 

Well, that's one pile sorted. I'll start the next tomorrow ...

Julia Lucy NORTHALL of Brooklyn ... a discovery!

 

In the twenty years and more that I delved into the world's Victorian Vocalists, and wrote up some thousand of them, there were some areas on which I somewhat focussed more lightly than others. For various reasons. One of them being the sources available. I mean, Boston? One of the most important and worst documented (on line) major cities in America. Which kind of put the singers of mid-century Massachussets out of my reach. Mrs this and Mrs that ... Oh, I picked up the ones who went international, but ...

Well, yesterday a righted that neglect just a little. I picked up a piece of music ...

Well. Linley ain't rubbish. But who is Miss Northall. Julia L Northall. That frightful middle initial thing, so clearly American ...

Wrong.

Julia Lucy NORTHALL was British-born, even though her singing career was made wholly in America. She was born in Lower Mitton, Worcestershire, on a date she 'couldn't remember' and christened there 15 January 1823. She was said to be the daughter of William Knight Northall, a schoolmaster who at various times ran a 'Classical and Commercial Seminary' in Stouport and at Birmingham's Synge's Hill et al. The history of Mr Northall (b 1780?) is not quite clear, but he married an Ann Drucilla Turley in 1802 and, at undefined dates, fathered five children. He christened them all, in a job lot, at Mitton, in 1823. After Drucilla died. He remarried promptly and seems to have more children ... but in 1837 announced his departure for America.

He can be seen in King's NY, in the 1840 census. Family not listed. So I wonder who came with him. Or is this son William, born allegedy 1811 ... I don't know and I'm not going to dig any deeper. William jr became a dentist in Brooklyn ..

Henry became a 'merchant and committed suicide.

Julia became a vocalist. She played around with her date of birth, so I'm not even trying to sort that out. She claimed Drucilla as her mother, so, work it out.

Professionally, I find her first at the New York Tabernacle 6 January 1845, singing alongside the violin antics of Ole Ball. The Tabernacle would be the base of her early years, in concerts alongside such as de Begnis, Brough, Rosina Pico ... the backbone vocalists of the best concerts of the time.  I don't know who sang what when they performed Messiah. Madame Pico was a 'dramatic soprano'. Julia was 'a sweet little singer'.

She was seen lavishly in New York and Philadelphia concerts thereafter, always to darling responses. She sang with the New York Sacred Music Society (Creation, Elijah, Messiah), the New York Philharmonic Society, at the Castle Gardens ('Per questa fiamma', 'Dovè mai' 'Slumber, sweetly slumber') and 6 November 1846 she gave a concert of her own at the Apollo Rooms ('Bird of Spring'. 'Giorno d'orrore' with Mme Pico). A few days later, she sang at a Henri Herz concert at the Tabernacle with a song entitled 'Jessie' (10 November). I think it may have been the only time.

More impressively, she joined de Begnis and Pico in the bass's famous duo and trio from Il fanatico per la musica, duetted Maria Padilla with Pico, and gave such pieces as Maria Hawes's 'Thou art Lovelier', Knight's 'I'm Queen of ther Fairy Band', Bellchamber's 'The spell is broken', and even 'In questo semplice'. The critic was not quite convinced by her rendition of Italian opera.

5 May 1848 she sang in a Benefit concert at the Apollo Hall where all the participants were British -- Mamvers, Eliza Brienti, Stephen Leach, Arthurson, George Loder, Mrs C E Horn, Samuel Lover -- and later that year she teamed up with pianist Moritz Strakosh for a series of concerts around Eastern America. Boston, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Washington et al. She interleaved his keyboard items with such numbers as 'The Captive Greek Girl', the cavatina from Parisana, 'Robert toi que j'aime', 'The Heart of Norah', Salute à la France, 'Casta Diva', 'Bird of Spring' and most regulalrly, Balfe's 'By the Banks of the Guadalquivir'. And all the time, she continued to appear regularly at the Tabernacle for this society, that charity, for Allen Dodsworth the cornettist (Spohr's 'O mighty Love') , one Desire Ikelheimer, a blind harpist, and a Madame Bornstein-Routh from Paris ..

6 March 1849 she sang at a special Benefit. Brother William the dentist, between teeth, had become a playwright and journalist, and he was given a Concert at Burton's Theatre.

But the following year it came to an end. In August, Julia married a young man from Breslau by the name of Frederic William BODSTEIN. Quite what Mr Bodstein did, I cannot be sure. He is usually listed as a clerk, a bookkeeper, working for the Post Office or Customs  ... but other momentary occupations seem to have intervened. Anyway, he did his husbandly daughters, and Julia gave birth to three daughters, Clara, [Julia] Lucy and Emily Pearson (20 May 1862).

Although Mrs Bodstein appeared now in concert only on special occasions, she by no means ceased singing. Since 1847 she had been the soprano of the Grace Church choir and she would continue in that employ ($1500 pa) for some twenty-six years.

Mr Bodstein seems to have died in the mid-1880s, and daughter Lucy, unmarried, 23 March 1895 at the age of 39. Julia survived them, and died 28 June 1896 at the alleged age of 73. I need to check Drucilla's death date ..

Daughter Emily was the success story. She married Mr William Proctor, son of Harley Thomas Proctor, the original Proctor of Proctor and Gamble. She died at Corfield Cottage, Bar Harbour 25 September 1949.

Clara died 1 January 1907 at 103 East 29th Street.

As for the Northalls, I don't know how many of them and which ones came to America. We know W K jr became the journalistic dentist, and another brother, Henry, hanged himself, aged 46, in Gloucester, Mass ... as for Julia, well, working out whether she was born before or after Drucilla's death ..

And now I want to know about Rosina Pico. I see her in London in 1865 ... Havana ... Mrs Adelindo Vietti .. oh! its THAT Rosina Pico (mezzo-soprano). She got around. Died Chelsea, London 1884. Maybe tomorrow ... one two-hundred-year-old soprano a day suffices ...

Esther Jacobs: high notes and low life

 

Twenty-five years ago I researched and wrote this article about the soprano, Esther Jacobs. One of my first shots at a Victorian Vocalist. I hav'n't ever come back to it for a second try .. but today this photo turned up on e-bay, so ...

JACOBS, Esther (b City Road, St Katharine Cree c 1831)

 

Launched on a career as a soprano concert vocalist, with some success, in her earliest twenties, Esther Jacobs later moved on to a colourful career in theatre, and an even more colourful one in the world.

 

Miss Jacobs was born in the City Road, apparently the first daughter in the considerable family of John Jacobs, a tailor, and his wife Sarah née ?Davis (d 117 Queen’s Road, Peckham 12 December 1890). By the time of the 1841 census, the Jacobs household, at 8 Bury Street, St Katherine’s Cree, already housed, alongside their parents, Esther, Harriet, Ellen, Joseph, Henrietta and Henry Jacobs, and two further infants, Julius and James, would soon follow. By the 1851 census, John Jacobs had risen to the rank of ‘clothier’ and, by the following year, twenty-one-year-old Esther had made her first appearances as a vocalist.

 

I first spot her out in public on 7 January 1852, in a concert given for the benefit of the Youths’ Benevolent Society at the Sussex Hall. If the venue was one largely used for not-always-classy Jewish entertainments, on this occasion the bill was a splendid one: the young Esther shared the programme with Louisa Pyne, Joseph Swift, Charlotte Dolby, Henry Whitworth and Ferdy Jonghmanns, with whom she sang the duet from Lucia di Lammermoor.

 

On 3 March of the same year, she appeared at the same venue in a concert mounted by the tenor George Perren, this time giving a version of ‘Nobil signor’ (Les Huguenots) and, if her singing won pleased notices, her appearance attracted a different kind of notice: ‘[Miss Esther Jacobs] whose physiognomy as well as her name betrays her Israelitish origin sang ‘My Lords I salute ye’ (‘Nobil signor’) with great taste and substituted, as an encore, an Irish ballad which she rendered equally well, but while we acknowledge her taste as a musician, we must protest against her taste in decorating her pretty person as being altogether unsuited to display her charms to advantage…’

 

On 29 March, Esther produced herself in concert at the Whittington Club, with a bill including Perren, Rose Braham, Jonghmanns, and the Brougham sisters amongst its attractions, and then, two days later, she made her debut at Exeter Hall. Joseph Stammers’ Exeter Hall Wednesday concerts had already won notice and popular success, above all by the success of the new young artists they had introduced – Rose Braham and the Broughams amongst them: this series introduced a very old favourite in John Braham, but the new artists were there too and, in the third concert (31 March), Esther Jacobs was one of them.

 

She appeared in the next two Wednesday concerts as well, and went on to be seen at the City of London Institute, the London Tavern, at Crosby Hall, in concert at Sadler’s Wells as well as, on a regular basis, at the Sussex Hall. Her versatility was already making itself evident, for in the summer she appeared in concert at the Margate Assembly Rooms, in November she took a turn to Holder’s Variety Theatre in Birmingham, and in March 1854 she won grand reviews performing with E L Hime at the Dover Catch Club and in June at the Royal Panopticon alongside lectures on Frictional Electricity and the hot topic of Decimal Coinage. Later in 1854, after a further concert of her own at the Sussex Hall, she and Hime joined the actress Isabella Glyn to supply the musical accompaniment to her readings from Shakespeare at the same hall.

 

If the centre of Miss Jacobs’s musical world remained at the Sussex Hall, rather than the Exeter Hall (her concerts, Charles Lowick’s, David Miranda’s, The Creation with the City of London Singing Association), she also travelled frequently out of town, and also into town where, for example, she took part in the Saturday Concert series at St Martin’s Hall, in 1856-7.

In 1856, too, she took the step that would lead her definitively away from Exeter Hall and all it stood for. In May, she took an engagement at the Strand Theatre, where she came out in a comedy entitled Lovers at Play, which required her to play three separate characters, as well as, of course, sing the incidental score ('a clear, fresh voice and a good deal of dramatic talent'). She went on to appear in a run of pieces at the Strand, in comedy such as The Two Gregories, in burlesque, where she played Marietta in the Belphegor Travestie, in the favourite musical comedies (Perfection, The Loan of a Lover, The Queen’s Musketeer, The Beggar's Opera) and, come Christmas time, in the theatre’s pantomime, playing Lady Agnes and a Singing Columbine in The Magic Mistletoe.

 

In 1857, Miss Jacobs appeared in burlesque at the Olympic Theatre, playing Graceful, the King's minstrel, alongside Clara St Casse in The Fair One with the Golden Locks, in concert at Cremorne, and at Glasgow, guesting with George Honey in operetta, musical comedy, burlesque and tragedy. She also, unfortunately, got married.

 

The gentleman (and I use the word very loosely indeed) whom she married (4 June 1857) was named Abraham Levi Goodman. Now, there were two of these – father (d 1863) and son (?1832-1904) – and both were well known figures in London life and, most particularly, nightlife. They were also well known in the British law courts and on British racecourses. Goodman senior had been condemned for ‘robbery at the races’ as early as 1828, again as the ‘keeper of an infamous night-house’, for various gambling offences in 1838 and, as the proprietor of an ‘oyster and wine rooms on the corner of Bow Street, Covent Garden’, which was used as a front for a gambling business, in 1840. In 1844 he had been a key figure in the famous ‘Running Rein scandal’, in which a betting coup was pulled on a ringer, in the Derby. The press referred to him daintily, on the occasion of his bankruptcy in 1847, as ‘well known on the turf and in the play world’, and on several other delicate occasions – such as the elopement of his 14 year-old daughter with an army officer – as simply ‘connected with the turf’.

 Goodman junior followed, if a little less dramatically, in his father’s footsteps, being involved in a gambling club at 14 Jermyn Street, another like establishment at 28 Coventry Street, being apparently connected with ‘a saloon in Piccadilly’ and also ‘well-known as a gambler on horses’.  Esther was marrying into one heck of a family, even if – as it turned out – not for very long.

 

Professionally, she continued in what was now her established vein, mixing concert singing, at the Sussex Hall, the Royal Surrey Gardens (‘I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls’) or at provincial music halls, with theatrical engagements, notably pantomime, Lalla Rookh, or The Princess, The Peri and the Troubador at the Lyceum (1857, Hinda), Oberon, King of the Elves (1858, at the Liverpool Adelphi) and at Astley’s Theatre in Harlequin Tom Moody (1859, the goddess Diana), and performing with Mr J H Ogden (‘the greatest delineator of Irish character since Tyrone Power’) (1859).

 

From 1861, however, Esther Jacobs moved definitively into the theatre, and over the next half dozen years she became a great favourite in, especially, two of London’s most roaringly popular houses – the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton in the East End of London, and the Surrey Theatre, south of the river in the Lambeth Marshes. 

 

Among her credits at the Britannia were included Claude Melnotte in An Extraordinary Version of the Lady of Lyons, Lord Lovel in Ye Mysseltoe Bough (1861), Sir Rupert in Little Busy Bee, Apollo in Midas (1864), The Swiss Cottage (1866) and Mephistopheles in a burlesque of Faust (1867). In the burlesques she played opposite the theatre’s manageress, Mrs Sara Lane, whose rousing performances kept East End playgoers cheering for many years, and one critic commented that Mrs Lane was ‘hardly as demonstrative or saucy as Miss Jacobs’, which says something for the broadness of Esther’s acting.

 

At the Surrey, she again appeared in burlesque and pantomime – Hey Diddle Diddle and the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Poor Tom, Mad Fred – singing a burlesque of ‘Sweet Spirit Hear my Prayer’ --, Old King Cole, Miss Leer &c), but also in musical comedy (The Loan of a Lover), and in opera. In 1861, she sang the role of William in Rosina, alongside Fanny Thirlwall and Thomas Wallworth, and, in 1862, she was seen in the title-role of The Waterman.

 

Between her engagements at the Britannia and the Surrey, Miss Jacobs played a season at the East End’s Standard Theatre (Midas, Cherry and Fairstar), and took turns to Weymouth, Birmingham, Margate and other provincial theatres. In 1864, when she appeared at Birmingham’s Theatre Royal as Leicester to the Amy of Ada Harland in Kenilworth and in the title-role of Endymion the local critic noted ‘she has a voice the equal of which is possessed by few burlesque actresses’. ‘Plays and sings with a wonderful amount of skill and spirit’. He also noted her East End habit of playing out front instead of to her fellow actors!

At Christmas 1866, when Esther appeared at the Britannia, it was recorded that ‘she was received with tumultuous applause’, and a survey of British burlesque beauties approved her as ‘a good-looking Jewess with a fine voice for singing’, but, soon after, her name disappears from the theatrical listings.

 

The only trace of her that I can find thereafter is in the theatrical press of May 1869, where the details of the divorce suit (24 April 1869) in which she finally rid herself of Mr Goodman, were displayed.

 

I tracked down the rest of the extended Jacobs family, in the hope that the divorced Esther might have moved in with one of them. In the 1881 census, mother Sarah, now 80, is living at 64 New Kent Road, with unmarried Julius (‘musician’) and James; Henrietta has become Mrs John Hopkins Keen, wife of a former hay merchant, now a traveller in photographic equipment, and Rebecca (with whom Esther was living in 1861) is now Mrs George Rogers Harrison, wife of the solicitor who managed Esther's divorce. Joseph is an auctioneer. But there’s no sign of Esther. Nor of ‘Goody Levy’.

So I don’t know what finally became of Esther Jacobs, East End vocalist and actress. Hopefully, one day, I’ll find out.

 

Just in case you are feeling sorry for Esther, getting mixed up with the seediest part of East London Jewry, I should add that she was seemingly bred in ‘the milieu’. Her father was up in court quite young (‘John Jacobs, a young Jew clothes salesman who keeps his shop in Crown Street, Finsbury square, was brought up on a charge of changing good money for bad’), a few years later for ‘stealing second hand clothes and trying to palm off a dubious 10 pound note’ and, in 1834, for another money-changing scam. It’s all in the blood, as they say. But Esther could really sing, it seems ..

 

 

 

Memories of West End Days .. Driving Mr Daisy mad!

 

Half a lifetime ago ...

This little thing brought an episode fluttering back ...

In my time, I cast or part-cast or re-cast a schlepp of (mostly) musicals, from On the Twentieth Century through Barnum, Singin' in the Rain, Chess, 42nd Street, the splendid Charlie Girl revival, Robert and Elizabeth, Fat Pig, Carmen Negra (Vienna), The Biograph Girl,   and .. I forget (some, purposely). Most of the assignments were thoroughly enjoyable - I except the Peg experience, with a producer who could be persuaded into ghastly extravagances by .. well, enough. THAT's another story!

The producer of 42nd Street -- dear Helen Montagu -- was a little like that, too. Ring up dahhhling Helen and avoid that punctilious casting director -- even Harold F got briefly caught that way until he realised that I could find him better (and cheaper) than Miss X's clients!

I adored Helen. And after my long stint on 42nd Street, I became her reference in casting matters. Chuckle, I was better and cheaper than most around!  So much so, that when she produced this delicious play, I was given -- my first non-musical job -- the casting. Halloo Hallay! Certain agents became much more respectful towards this man who 'only does musicals'.

The joy was slightly muted by the fact that 'we have to have Wendy Hiller, dahling'. Fair enough. Name value. I didn't fight Michael Crawford in Barnum or Tommy Steele in Singin' in the Rain .. who would? They were both superb, a joy to work with on repeated re-castings ... happy days!

I found an excellent understudy for Michael ... yes, that's an important part of the job, as important as three days of chorus replacements .. it's not all above-the-title casting!

So. We would need a cover for Wendy, an elderly black man (not easy, in the UK!), and a middleaged actor with (imho) a special quality. He has to be quite nice, but 'managing'.   WRONG!  I was sorting out potential Wendy covers, when Helen bombed: 'Oh she won't be off, dahling, and if she is, we'll just cancel'. Theoretically, my job had just been made easier. But it hadn't.

I lined up every ageing gent of colour in the UK. Most of them, I had to dig out with a microscope. We needed TWO of these rarae aves. Player and cover. Oyyyyyyy! And, of course, that useless blob named Equity wouldn't let us import. Day One of auditions. Disaster. The lovely Alfred Uhry blanked them all. They have West Indian accents! Oyyy! We can't cast Bertice Reading ...

We saw some very, very capable actors for the part of the son. Any one of ten of them would have been capable of playing the part. But there was one who SHONE ... his name was David. Something. He'd just been in something in the West End. And he was PERFECT.  Did the get the part? No. I pushed and shoved. Alfred didn't seem to care .. and, then, Mr Barry Foster swanned on to the stage. 'Hello, Helen. Of course, you won't want ME to read, will you?'  A cold shiver went down my back. I'm going to be debited with casting this man. And, yes ... dammit, Helen fell for it. He played the role exactly as any of the ten others could have done ... David, I'm sorry, it should have been your part. Huh! The Foster family tried this on me again with daughter Joanna ...  I won that time.

As for the hugely important role of the chauffeur ... well, we got there. I knew Clarke Peters as a youngish song-and-dance lad. But he was negro and American so, I made a call and ....  Clarke, made up old(ish), was a triumph. I am glad he was never off, for one of aged West Indians was, perforce, his understudy.

Wendy was OK, Clarke stole the show, Foster was forgettable ....

Helen died. And noone ever entrusted me with a play again.

PS Merde, I see Mr Foster even negotiated himself second billing above Peters ... yeccccch!

Hull Theatre 1821: scrutonizing the Scruton family

 

A queer night. In bed by 7.30pm, as usual. 10pm, pee-stop number one. Switched out light. Slept. Then, suddenly, awoken. Switched on light. Nothing. Looked at illuminated clock. Non-illuminated. Bloody power cut. Tried to get to the fridge for some iced water. Well, I have difficulty walking in the daylight, in the Stygian dark I wobbled ferociously at every step. Made it safely back to bed -- there will be a few crooked pictures in the morning -- and grabbed Schnidi for safety. OK. It's not one of those two-minute powerblips. Schnidi sang me a dragonabye ... and I dreamed I was preparing to ride a horse for Peter Wolfenden. I was late and I'd left my hard hat at home and .. it was a galloper! (I hav'n't sat on a horse's back, as opposed to behind its tail, for 75 years!)

I awoke with the dawn. The clock is flashing. Phew, that meaning there will be water, lavatory, a shower, my hot lemon and, hopefully, the computer won't have suffered. The first four rituals accomplished, I set out to reset the clock. But ... it had reset itself!  Odd. Oh, well, on to the computer. It, too, was in pristine ready-to-go condition. No. No restart, no passwords .. just go. And there, on the screen, was a document I'd whizzed past the day before .. glaring at me, challenging me ..

Scruton? How unusual. I thought a scruton was a testicle-receptacle. Well, I thought, there clearly would not be too many of those around, and it's a beastly, muggy 27deg outside, so I might as well play with the Scrutons for a nice, quiet day. 

1821, eh? Mr and Miss. Father and daughter? Husband and wife? Brother and sister ..?  Well, I picked wrongly, and spent several hours among the several (yes!) James Scruton 'musician's ... I won't list the details ... here's what I've distilled ...

The answer, by the way, is brother and sister.

This is what, I think, is the family. Ignoring Mr Scruton the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, painter and pantomimist et al.

James Scruton 'musician', son of James Scruton, barber, of Silver Street, York. I guess they are the James Scruton seen at 'at the sign of the Noah's Ark, Silver Street' in 1803.

1804 'the celebrated ventriloquist'? 1805 and thereafter oboeistt, clarionettist, flautist through a couple of decades... in 1806 he's 'Mr Scruton jnr' ... and Mr Scfruton sr is playing bassoon ...

In 1800, he married a lady named Charlotte. We don't know for sure if she were Charlotte CLOUGH or Charlotte RESTIAUX, because she couldn't write. Maybe there were two Jameses and Charlottes. Anyway, thence came a James (9 September 1801), a Charlotte Elizabeth (27 April 1803), a Caroline (1 February 1805), an Elizabeth (13 May 1808), a Matilda (22 November 1810) ...

I discovered Matilda first and puzzled a while how she could have played Jeannie Deans at ten years of age, till I discovered the elder sisters. So ... I presume that the 'Miss Scruton' at Whitehaven, in 1814, must be one of those elder sisters. Which one? No idea. In 1819, Miss C Scruton (presumably Caroline) can be seen singing at spots in Westmoreland ...

Miss M[atilda] and E[lizabeth] come on the scene around 1824-5. One of them sings Rossini at the Yorkshire Amateur Meeting. They all seem to appear together at the Liverpool Olympic Circus, 'Miss' appears in Norwich and Bury, and, goodness, here is 'Miss' singing Semira alongside Miss Stephens at Chester!  And then in 1829 we have the 'three Misses Scruton' all together at Liverpool .. by 1830, it is two again, for Caroline 'of the Theatre Royal, Bolton, has married. 

The name of her husband is recorded variously as John Walker MASON/MAYSON/MAYON!/MANN (it was Mayson) and he was a Bolton-born solicitor from Preston. The chap who became Mayor of Tynemouth (d 1870). This gent married a widow in 1844 ... so I suppose Caroline had died. Yes, there she is, died Northumberland, 1842. And there they are in C41, at Dispensary House, Tynemouth, with John's brother, William 'apothecary'.

Sister Matilda married into the theatre. A performer named Edward Benwell (17 January 1831). Witnesses James and Elizabeth Scruton. Brother and sister.

Married life was too much for Edward. He supplied two sons, in two years, and then headed for the churchyard. After which Matilda married a Scotsman, Thomas CUNNINGHAM. And I lose her.

But all this was after the theatrical heyday, such as it was, of the Scruton family.

I hope I've sorted them out correctly. But they are confusing. The 1841 census shows, in Liverpool,  James Scruton aged 55, with wife Charlotte 65 ... with Edward (9) and William (7) Benwell. 

So which James is that? Obviously Matilda's ... brother?  Teacher of music at 7 Hunter Street in the 1840s?

So, who is the James who died in 1834 aged 34. Who is the James 'musician' who died at Walmgate 22 December 1824? 

Death and the burlesque beauty

 

A decade or two ago, I dove deeply into the careers and lives of the young ladies who, in their time, had been member of the celebrated Lydia Thompson troupe of, so-called, British blondes. I wrote up quite a few of them, then published the principal ones in a European scholarly journal, and abandoned the rest of the work.

Then, some years later, I started on a history of burlesque. A factual one was, and is, needed. But I abandoned that too, when a chunk of what I already written was drowned during my computer's encounter with a dish of Dorper Lambjuice. 

Today I came upon a photo of a British burlesque beauty who was never a member of the Thompson troupe, but, rather, was promoted instead as a rival to Lydia. In America. Fatally. For her. Which was very unfortunate, for she was indeed one of the best burlesque girls in her home land ... if only she has stayed home, she might have had a happy career and a happy life. But from the moment she left London town ...

Her name was Elise Holt. Properly Elizabeth Harriet HOLT born 11 July 1847, in St Pancras, the second daughter of one Thomas Holt, who ran a manufactuary of iron bedsteads, and his wife Eleanor or Ellen Ann née Dowdell. 

She apparently learned dancing from 'Madame Louise' (Louise MILLER), a former soloist and maîtresse de danse at Drury Lane and at the Italian Opera House, and the teacher of many a good English danseuse, and is said to have made her first stage appearance under her aegis 'at the Surrey'. Well, Mme Louise hada hand in the panto Old King Cole at the Surrey in 1863, and her featured girlie was Miss Celia Reynolds. Miss Reynolds was to become 'Minnie Venn', best remembered as one of the paramours of composer Teddy Solomon.  But Elise wasn't there. Perhaps she was, earlier. Now she was at the Victoria, playing in Giselle and the Phantom Night Dancers as a little Cupid, and dancing Harlequina. The role of Giselle was taken by Ada Harland, who would become one of the famous 'original big four' in the Thompson troupe. And a certain 'Miss [Nellie] Farren'. Oddly, Celia/Minnie was billed as 'pupil of Madame Louise', but Elise wasn't. Ah, I see that another source says 'the Surrey Gardens'. Not so easily traceable.

Anyway we can count the Victoria as the first meaningful engagement in Elise's career. She would remain there for more than a year, acting, singing, and above all dancing in the variegated programmes produced. At Easter, Madame Celeste came for a season 'supported by the whole strength of the company'. Misses Farren and Maria Daly got the girl's parts. It wasn't till the production of the drama Troubled Waters, or The Family Secret at the end of June that Elise had a noticeable part. A drama? Well, she was cast as Lotti Lawson 'a strolling player in the backwoods' and noticed for her 'saucy little mannerisms and spirited dancing'. 'Miss Daly has a song and Miss Holt a dance' .. and the drama managed to sneak in a negro minstrel act.

Miss Daly was featured in another piece, The Detective, or A Ticket of Leave in which Elise played a boy, and when Miss Daly took the lead in another drama Elise and Ellen Powell featured in a ballet divertissement.  When Life in Lambeth was put forwarded she seconded Miss Powell in a rustic ballet. And then it was panto time, and once again Elise was Harlequina (with Miss Powell as Columbine) as well as 'the Dog Star' in Baron Munchausen, or Harlequin and the Mountains of the Moon. But, come March, it was back to the dramas -- I see Elise cast in The Octoroon -- and at Easter Miss Holt, in one of the few good decisions of her professional life, moved on. 

The wage was 15 shillings a week. But the engagement was at the Swanborough family's Strand Theatre, the bloomingest burlesque house in London's West End. And she opened her stay there in the title role of a 'six-nights only' revival of their hit Aladdin or the Wonderful Scamp. Elise had found her metier, and the Strand Theatre had found a player ideally suited to the pieces they produced. 'Excellent', 'saucy', 'lively style and abundant confidence', 'dancing encored'....

Miss Raynham

Aladdin stayed on the bill for an entire month. Of course, Miss Holt was not to be leading lady at the Strand. Ada Swanborough of the management family was in loco stellaris, the top 'boy', Alice Raynham, firmly installed ... but she was not too far below the title. And there, for the best three years of her career, she would remain, occasionally in a play (Snatches in Upstairs and Downstairs, Orange Blossoms) but above all, radiantly out-front in burlesque. The Earl of Surrey in Windsor Castle, the blind fiddler in Mazourka, Oneiza in Mazeppa, Don Alva in L'Africaine, Cupid in Pygmalion, Mercury in Paris, Kenilworth, Pierre Gringoire in Esmeralda, Fra Diavolo, Albert Tell in Tell, Hassan in The Caliph of Baghdad, de Boisey in The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 'One of the cleverest dancers and most piquant actresses on the stage'. One of. The star of the last piece was Lydia Thompson.

And she had arrived at the Strand just as it reached the peak of its powers and prosperity. With Windsor Castle and L'Africaine it had produced what might be regarded as the first English equivalents of the new French opéra-bouffe.  With The Field of the Cloth of Gold it had boosted Lydia Thompson up the next rung towards mega-stardom ..

Elise was not a Lydia Thompson. Indeed, she had similar talents, but a different projection. Let's just say, Elise was more out-front, less subtle, less winning. And that is part of the reason why, especially when she got to America and became broader in her delivery, she played to a different kind of audience. The 50 cent one, rather than the $2 one.

As in Lydia's case, America was the fault of a man. And, yes, eventually a husband. Which was a  bit of a nuisance because whereas Lydia had lost her husband to a racing accident, Elise still had one. And two pre-marital babies. 

He was Henry Gordon Palmer, an Irishman, son of a colonel, briefly attached to the Royal Artillery (he squeaked into Woolwich in last place), and dragged to court in 1864 for theft of a £10 note. Her first child Arthur Henry Holt Gordon was born 17 December 1866, the second, Catherine Elise Holt Palmer on 7 September 1868. After which they got married (23 November 1868). I don't believe they ever divorced, nor do I know what became of the babies, but they both married or 'married' elsewhere ...

But the man who messed up Elise's life had only good intentions. Like, making money. His name was Harry H Wall and I am not going to attempt to unravel him, as there were several Harry Walls (one of whom was the husband of singer Annie Adams) on both sides of the Atlantic. Our one was the one who was a dramatic agent in New York. 27 June 1868 he sailed for London on The City of Paris and returned 7 December bringing with him that latest fashion in the theatre world, a troupe of British blondes. Elise Holt, vocalists Emily and Mary Pitt, Emma Grattan ... and a burlesque from London's Holborn Theatre, Lucrezia Borgia MD or, The Grand Doctoresse.

While Wall announced his troupe for The Olympic Theatre, the New York gossip press fulfilled its part: 'her rare beauty makes her very conspicuous' etc etc. They didn't open at the Olympic. They didn't open 'on Broadway'. They opened indifferently at the Boston Continental. But they trudged on to New York's Waverley Theatre. Indifferently. Elsie had laryngitis. She was 'off'. And 'off'. They fled to Philadelphia. They flopped. Elise's blonde hair and 14 1/2 inch calves (padded?) weren't pulling them in. They fled to California, downmarketing as they went ('her costume consisted of three inches of white silk tightly girt' , 'the most outré kind of burleque'), but persisting with their three-wheeled burlesque in which the title-role had devolved on to Wall. They tried a report that Elise has whipped a newspaper editor ... then they set out for New Orleans, Cincinnati, Albany ... and threw in the sponge.

Mr and Mrs Wall (as they allegedly now were) headed for London, and the Strand Theatre, where the Swanboroughs welcomed Elise back at £15 per week (and an extra 5 for the husband). Now she was Darnley in The Field of the Cloth of Gold ...  But times had changed, and Elise had undoubtedly coarsened in her delivery since the old days. The theatre closed and Wall sued for wages. He won, but the doors of the Strand would be closed henceforth to them.

Elise played in The Mistletoe Bough at the Adelphi at Christmas 1870, at Bath for panto 1871 (Valentine in Valentine and Orson), took over for Mrs John Wood at the Adelphi briefly, and fulfilled an engagement at the Alhambra playing in Clodhopper's Fortune with Harry Paulton. Christmas 1872 was Birmingham (Dick Tucker in Twinkle Twinkle). I think she may have, by now, been too broad even for Bimingham.

It hadn't worked, ths return to sources. They packed up, and, in September 1873, headed back to New York for an engagement at Wood's Museum (which was thoroughly not what it had been in the days of Lydia and Ixion) ... It was worse than before. They were reduced to minor houses ...  In January 1874, they were playing New Orleans when Elise got ill.

In 1887, when another damsel launched a girlie troupe as 'Elise Holt's Exquisites, the editor of The Clipper remarked : 'not the GREAT Elise'. Well, the only thing 'great' about Lizzie Holt was her (padded?) calves. She had been a fine second boy/girl in good  burlesque who found -- like Lisa Weber and Ada Harland of the Thompson quartet -- that when promoted to top-of-the-bill, she didn't quite cut it. And then, of course, the man ...

Father Thomas died, also, in 1874. He had re-married after Eleanor's death (1863). In the 1871 census Elise's little daughter can be seen living with him in Newington Causeway under the name 'Catherine P Holt'. More than that I cannot tell ...

PS Somewhere in my divan drawers I've got some broadsheets of Elise's greatest Strand successes. I will get them out and add them in here ... another day :-)

Trotting down near Antarctica ...

 

A moment back in the 21st century, on behalf of our little girl .... she goes to the races again tomorrow!

So I popped in to see against who she was racing and ... what a muddle .. I gulped a large whisky and had a wee rant. No one will listen, but I enjoyed the whisky and got it off my (what passes for) a chest.

Something Rotten in trotten in the State of Southland

 

What is happening in the trotting world in Southland? And who is responsible?

 

On Wednesday Invercargill HRC has a meeting. Nine races scheduled of which two are trots: a maiden worth $12,000 and an everybody-else worth $11,000. Anomaly?

 

There are 96 nominations for the combined nine races. so .. about 10 horses per race? Oh no. The maiden trot has 6. The rest-of-them race has 19. 

 

The pacers? The maiden pace -- to be run in two heats -- has, guess, twelve horses racing -- ie six per heat. Oh and $12,000 per half. They can't be topped up from the 1-win heat, ($10,000!!) because that's only got nine nominations ..  

 

There are three more pacing events with a total of 36 nominations. Three ... to share a number of horses not even twice as large as the poor 'all-the-rest' trot.  Who'd be a trotter?

 

It seems to me that whoever is responsible for framing the programmes down Antarctica way is out of touch with reality.

 

But that isn't all in the way of anomalies. The race conditions for 'our' trot (yes, we have a horse nominated) states 'front 35-40; 10m 41-50; 20m 51-57; 30m 58-65'. But the noms include Aveross Majesty (53) off the front? A horse that has won $84,000 in stakes and is nominated for the Green Mile. Its fellow 8 year-old, Cody Banner, which has won a deserved $147K, is off 20. And we? We are on 10, as we were last start. We have won $66K. As for the back marker, the likely favourite, Missile, he has just $43K in the bank ... What's up?

 

Another anomaly. Four of the six maidens are rated 'unruly' and three of the 'bottom' five grown-ups -- who will, doubtless, be dumped into the maiden race, are also 'unruly'. I can see a race like a maiden at Taranaki developing!

 

Right. Fields will be out shortly. Let's see how Invercargill have resolved this mess -- whether it was they or HRNZ who created it ...

 

SO ...

 

Withdrawals. Phil Williamson has, understandably, taken two of his out, leaving 17. Aveross Majesty is still off the front ...  and there are still just six maidens ...  Oh no! the best race of pacing day, the 2yo race, is going to be split ... bah!

 

Still waiting. Less than 48hrs from the meeting and no fields yet. What are they toiling and troubling over down there? Trying to make a race meeting out of ...  Or at HRNZ. Auckland has its fields for Friday up at 3.45. 

 

OK, here we finally are. Three trotters removed from the 'free-for all', down, to the maiden. Which is no longer, thus, a maiden, but an old-style C0 and faster. Why only three? Still fourteen left, in the grownups' race. Ah, I see Aveross Majesty is back to its proper rating ... duuhhhhhh. 

 

Well, they've done amazingly well in making up a decent programme. Nine puntable races. Even if not necessarily the races that were advertised in Programmes.

Sad, that they chose to split the 2yo race (for sexist reasons) instead of the trot. But hey ... you can't fight Town Hall. And definitely HRNZ ....

 

Now we have to wait till race day. Best race, by miles: the grown-up trot. $11K. Well, maybe we'll get a slice of it. Behind MISSILE or CODY BANNER or SHANDON BELLS ... Fingers crossed ...

 

(To be continued, after the race)

I'm a lousy picker.

But it was a queer race.

First shock. Our EMILY was hot (and I mean hot) favourite. I have no idea why. CODY BANNER misbehaved horribly. MISSILE was sabotaged by its own stablemate, a beast named DWINDLE STAR. This creature, which had got in our road in little Em's first Southland race, didn't seem to have learned anything from that experience. It shot to the front, imprinted a fast tempo -- with the result that Em was forced to race parked for the whole race, but also that MISSILE could never make up its 30 metre handicap! Team racing ... NOT!  Em did her damnedest, but as so often in cases of this kind a horse which had sat quietly mid-field bombed them all in the last metres. And a good solid mare which had had a perfect run on the rails ran on for second. EMILY fought womanfully for third ... which is about what I'd looked for, before the gambling world went crazy ....

Meanwhile, up at Addington the magical McClymonts -- RATA and STYRAX -- added two striking metropolitan wins to the Southland total ...  the former beat Emily half a length at her previous start, with the latter down the track. 

No, we are NOT going to Addington. Ever again. EMILY is a Southland girl now and forever!