Family
Jack was a romantic. A story teller and began to believe some of the stories
that had little or no evidence to support them. One was that he could trace
his acting forebears back the Shakespeare. This was based on a victorian print
of an actress called Sarah Jane Woolgar of the Adelphi Theatre, London that
he found in a shop. He had no evidence of being related to her other than
the name [there has since been a lot of research on Woolgars
done and I can see no link ...yet] and as for Shakespeare.. its a nice thought
that he was a family member!
As mentioned on earlier pages Jack was the eldest of three kids and I think wanted to escape his family as soon as he could, he was quite a free spirit and wanted to 'better' himself which he felt he did through education.
His
father died in the late 1950's and his mother eventually came to live with
us before she died. I was very young at the time but recall his relationship
with his mother was quite stormy, which may have been due to his propensity
for whiskey and her for Mackesson and if that ran out, his whiskey!
He married first before the war to Doris Whatmough who he always claimed had
entrapped him into marriage by saying she was pregnant, there was no child
and they separated and divorced.
Meeting and then marrying Liz in 1949 was it seemed a perfect match, though
from very different backrounds and quite opposite in character they both had
a love of the theatre and as they came along their kids. Harvey 1951, Christopher
1953, Sarah 1956 and Timothy 1960.
Harvey never really went for the theatrical life and took another family route, from mum's side, of seafaring, joining the merchant navy as a navigator which Jack liked as he had briefly gone to sea pre war and sailed to Africa. Harvey emigrated to New Zealand in 1972.
Chris
dipped into acting with an episode of Yorkshire TVs Gazette in the
late 60s and therefore gets an entry on IMDb.com
but didn't go off to tread boards but build them. He was a major but un-sung
contributor to the creation of The
Theatre in Chipping Norton and ASM in the first Chippy panto.
Sarah was also in the Harvey mould and finished her theatre career with an
outstanding Mary in the school nativity.
Tim. Well I had a dabble at acting. Baby Dragon in the first Chippy panto.
Clayhanger
and then a radio play. That was it. Took too much attention of the advice
'get another string to your bow' . But have to confess to being very pleased
when my daughter took to acting entirely on her own volition.
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