Women of Intelligence: Winning the Second World War with Air Photos (18 page)

Catching the train up to London was a popular off-duty option. Peggy Hyne and her colleagues often went into London to see a matinee performance at a theatre:

We would take a train from Marlow to Paddington and then go to the Dorchester Hotel which had Turkish Baths in the basement. Then we could lie down and feel more refreshed, very welcome after a night on duty, before seeing a play in the afternoon.
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All uniformed personnel were offered, and accepted, lifts in cars and lorries and, although officers were not supposed to ‘thumb’ a driver down, they too hitched when necessary. Usually all they had to do was walk past the guardroom and out through the main gate of RAF Medmenham for some sort of service or civilian vehicle to stop and offer them a lift. Charlotte had a rather different approach to acquiring transport: arriving at the main gate, she would inform the airman on guard duty where she wished to travel to. Then she waited until a suitable vehicle had been halted and her travel requirements passed on to the driver. Rather similar to a hotel commissionaire hailing a taxi, but it always worked for Charlotte.

Due to the nature and intensity of work at RAF Medmenham, off-duty activities on the station grounds were officially encouraged. After a 12-hour shift concentrating over a stereoscope or working at the other demanding jobs, all physical sports such as football, tennis and running were popular and well supported. Physical training (PT) was compulsory, although Myra Murden managed to avoid a daily session by carefully choosing the right work shift, and Mary Harrison saw it as a way of keeping warm through the chilly winters. There were station sports’ days and several rowing ‘Blues’ took over the boats of the Marlow Rowing Club, temporarily without members due to the war, and held regattas on the Thames in the summers of 1942 and 1943.

With artists and musicians working and living alongside people formerly employed in the theatrical world, it was not long before a variety of entertainments were being staged. The RAF Medmenham Players came into being in 1942 and performed full-length plays, revues and pantomimes. The unit was completely self-sufficient in actors, dancers, scriptwriters, musicians, set builders, costume designers and any other skill necessary to stage a near-professional performance. Men and women from all the services took part in these either on stage or behind the scenes.

The model makers were a group of professional sculptors, artists and architects who readily turned their hand to set designing, building and lighting, while the scriptwriters included a BBC drama writer and producer, Captain Bill Duncalfe, a PI in the Army Section. The Lynx RAF Medmenham Dance Band was on hand to provide the music required and one of the vocalists, Robert Rowell, another army PI, was a professional operatic singer. Props were ‘scrounged’ from various quarters and the programmes and posters were designed and drawn by renowned cartoonists, such as Julian Phipps and A.E. Beard, who had both worked on newspapers and magazines in pre-war days. The costumes were designed and made by the women at Medmenham who, with inspiration and much improvisation, achieved stunning results.

Once Upon a Time
was a production staged by the theatre group at RAF Medmenham.

LACW Myra Murden reported to the unit dental officer one day:

I had a bottom front tooth needing to come out according to an earlier dentist’s decision. I protested as I was going to be in the front line of the chorus in a show being put on that evening and I did not want to appear with a gap in my teeth. So the young dentist agreed to do a root job instead, which incidentally was very painful, on condition that I introduced him to my glamorous friend, Gill Clarkson – she went on to dance at The Windmill after the war. So I got my tooth and the dentist got his date – a good deal all round.

The concerts were great fun – there were one or two a year. In one I was a mermaid, luring an ATS officer (Margaret Hodgson) as a sailor to her death at the bottom of the sea! Photographic silver foil was cut up and made into a scaled fish tail for me – that was Sarah’s idea. I was instructed to keep absolutely still to avoid rustling on stage.
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The name of this stage production is unknown but clearly required lavish costumes.

First-class productions were ensured by Flight Lieutenant Ken Bandy – who had been the stage director of the Windmill Theatre before he joined the RAF – and Sarah Churchill, a professional dancer as well as a talented stage and film actress. Sarah appeared in four full-length plays at Medmenham, including
Squaring the Triangle
written by Bill Duncalfe, and
Gaslight
, a West End play in which she had taken the role of Mrs Manningham in 1939 and 1941 before joining the WAAF. She also kept colleagues amused on more informal occasions with her memorable performances of the popular ‘Egyptian Dance’ in the mess, when she used her natural skills of mimicry. A dancer with a more classical background was Frederick Ashton, although there is no evidence of him being involved with the Medmenham theatrical productions.

Out of the Blue
was a revue of singing, dancing and a number of short sketches staged by twelve Medmenham women and had a particularly eye-catching programme, designed and drawn by one of the illustrators. The cast included several singers, Sarah Churchill, model maker Helroise Hawkins and the ATS PI, Margaret Hodgson. The only men performing on stage were ‘Kenneth and George’ who played duets on two pianos. Revues were also popular in the Central Photographic Interpretation Command set up in Delhi in 1942 where the RAF Players came into being.

Margaret Price was assistant entertainments officer at Medmenham for a while:

Entertainments were mostly dances at Henley Town Hall, which I think were open to all ranks and members of other units in the vicinity, RAF, Army etc. We had our own dance band at Medmenham consisting of both British and Americans. There was also an RAF man, Alan Potts, who entertained between the dances – he was an excellent ‘Carmen Miranda’ in full costume, complete with a tall headdress made of fruit. Other events in our Mess such as Halloween were staged by the American officers and the decorations were amazing for war time – they seemed to find the impossible. There were two officers, George Reynolds RAF and Stanley Lashmer-Parsons RNVR, who would play syncopated music together in the Mess and entertain us for hours.
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Flight Lieutenant Edward Wood was entertainments officer for eighteen months and in that time he recorded fifty-six dances, forty ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) film shows, six ENSA concerts, three RAF gang shows and four visits by the RAF Griller String Quartet, one of which was led by Malcolm Sargent in person. Gala and fancy dress dances held in the officers’ mess became substantial social occasions when the US personnel came to Medmenham, and on one occasion Major Glenn Miller conducted his famous band there. Another unforgettable visit, arranged by Ken Bandy, was from the famous Windmill Theatre Dancers, although it appears that the majority of the audience in the camp theatre were WAAFs.

A Halloween party organised by the Americans.

A poster advertising an exhibition of photographs at RAF Medmenham.

A photographic exhibition was held in February 1943 containing nearly 200 entries, which were judged by the well-known photographer Marcus Adam FRPS. Some months later, an arts and handwork exhibition was organised that included a large number of paintings executed by men and women of the Model-Making Section who were already artists of renown. They also decorated the camp theatre, as well as the officers’ and sergeants’ messes with giant murals.

On Sunday 16 May 1943, RAF Medmenham presented a concert in the Odeon Theatre, Marlow, as part of the town’s ‘Wings for Victory’ week, a fundraising scheme to encourage civilians to put their money into government bonds. The concert was arranged and produced by Edward Wood and Sarah Churchill, who had persuaded some stars from London to visit and perform alongside the home-grown talent of army, navy and air force personnel.

The compere for the concert was Vic Oliver, Sarah’s husband, for although they were living separate lives by this time, they were still on good terms. The Lynx RAF Medmenham Dance Band conducted by Stanley Lashmer-Parsons RNVR got the proceedings off to a tuneful start, followed by a song duet by two WAAFs. Next on the piano were Reynolds and Lashmer-Parsons, the nimble-fingered duo who entertained in the mess. ‘A Spot of Magic’ followed, presented by Lieutenant Davies of the Royal Engineers, after which LAC Noke performed an instrumental novelty on the double bass. Flying Officer McCormac gave a tenor solo from
Merrie England
and Sergeant Silverton was next on with ‘Lightning Caricatures’. The first half of the concert ended with a song tableau by seven airwomen.

During the interval Group Captain Peter Stewart, the officer commanding (OC) RAF Medmenham, gave a short address before the second half started with the band playing ‘Tunes from the Films’. The first visitor from the London stage was a film actress, Sylvia Saetre, followed by Jack and Daphne Barker, a husband and wife duo who had appeared in West End musicals. Vic Oliver entertained with his amusing mix of song, dance and humour, then the thirty-five members of the RAF Medmenham choir sang more pieces from
Merrie England
with the audience joining in the singing of
Jerusalem
. The concert ended with
God Save the King
.