An Absolute Fluke!
Somewhat in contrast to the December Newsletter’s comments about the decreasing amount of ‘new’ memorabilia coming to light of late, the last few weeks have, in fact, proven to be quite the opposite and hence this early edition in 2026 – which might well be characterised as containing ‘a couple of surprises’.
The first is that it contains some very unexpected and recently found photographs from two plays; with those from ‘Life with the Girls’ now making a significant addition to the limited memorabilia that we already had for this 1976 production. The other set of photographs that came to light are from ‘Puss in Boots’ and although we already had a good number from this 1974 pantomime, these are all different. As a result, the productions Website Gallery has just about doubled in size!
However, the most unexpected suprise is linked to this feature photograph of Leslie Smith, the Headmaster at Mark House School from 1956 until it’s closure in 1966. The story behind this item might well be described as an ‘absolute fluke’ – as just ‘a bat of an eyelid’ could easily have resulted in a few key words being missed and therefore the loss of making a connection that has given us much more information about what we know about Leslie Smith in his post MarkHouse career and life – including that this photograph of him was taken, at his home in Walthamstow, on his 60th Birthday!