Angela

It was my first job outside of the provinces. My first job in London Town. I knew it wasn’t classy. But it seemed like a step, a diagonal step. if not forward, then a diagonal. I was going to spend a year in “ The Mousetrap.” At the St. Martin’s Theatre. The east end of the West End. One. Nobody said Miss Casewell wasn’t written as a lesbian. I simply chose to play her as someone who had spent far too long on a hockey pitch, Two. The Policeman did it. Three. My career in Agatha Christie plays may now be over. In this year I learned never to rely on anyone for lifts home and I bought an orange Peugeot bike. the extra money I earned bought me a trip round the world when I was done and I met a dear and wonderful man called Peter. Peter Penry Jones was this big polar bear of a Welshman. handsome with a mass of wonderful grey hair that he constantly pushed away from his face with his hand. He had a voice that should be bottled. He wanted to do this job about as much as he wanted to shop in Harrods, but he was pulling his weight for his family. Peter decided to invest in me. I had no idea why. He had no interest in developing his social circle. But to a couple of people every so often, he opened his massive arms and invited in. I don’t know when I started going round to house in Chestnut Road, West Norwood. I don’t remember when it was I started joining them going to the this free form church service down the road on a sunday. I know that a couple of years later I moved in with them for about four months when my flat, that I had bought, was being gutted and rebuilt. I went up to Wales and spent time with Peter, mowing the fields, sitting in that little hut up on the hill at the end of the afternoon, going fishing with his wife’s brother for mackerel off the rocks. And then there was Peter’s wife. Angela. Angela Thorne. Peter was demanding of your intelligence, Angela was demanding of everything else. You could easily get it wrong with Angela. Read the moment incorrectly, say one word too many, Smile when it wasn’t funny, and you were toast. She made me observant of being accurate with my speech, my information. She smacked me down if I repeated unsubstantiated gossip. Her temper was fast and short-lived. Her sense of humour was explosive. Her language was sometimes unexpectedly blue. her loyalty and love were enormous.

She and Peter had met when they were both young actors. She was in Ralph Richardson’s company. The brilliant and beautiful young ingenue. He was in Olivier’s company. The youth brilliant and handsome . He was Welsh from the bones out. She was English with stories of going out to India as a child. Coming back on a boat to go to school. A family that changed shape in a way that must have been challenging as a young girl. She loved her two boys. She didn’t always like the everyday bits of being a housewife. But she adored those boys. She was always keeping track of the life that she wanted. The flat in Marble Arch was one of them. “ if I am going to live in London, I want to live in the centre.” Her career was a prestigious one. I caught the middle and latter part of it. With Alec Guinness, with Stephanie Beacham. In Ayckbourn plays, Playing Maggie Thatcher. In Television dramas, in television comedies.She kept track of her friends. And she had great friendships. She moved fast; in the street, round the house, in her little car. She wasted no time. Had good books on the go. Watched good television. Went to plays worth her while. She wasn’t unkind. She didn’t mean to choose the words she did, but out they came anyway. She had a critical eye and it traveled to her mouth without passing the pause button. One of the times we had tea, she said ,” shall we have biscuits? Or maybe you shouldn’t.” Her Peter left her when he was 70. It was a sad, sad time. For her sons. She said she was very lucky with the people they had married. She had a hoot with her grandchildren, one of whom came to spend the last year living with her whilst she attended a London college. A younger brother and sister, and older brother… nieces, friends ; professional and from way back when. They all had a place. When I last talked to her she said she couldn’t wait for summer so she could attack her garden in Battersea. “ Tidy it up.” She asked me if I knew where I was going to stay when I came back in the summer. “ Darling you know you can come and stay here, if you’re desperate. You know you can, if you’re desperate.” She had the loveliest face, the best hair, she wore fantastic clothes. She adored animals. Her family. The people she chose as friends. she was hilarious intentionally and not. She missed Pete, her Welsh champion, every day. His ashes are under an apple tree in Anglesey. That is where she is going to be too. A sad sort of perfect.