4Learning - Secondary - Resources4Learning - Secondary - Resources - History - The Time of My Life

The theatre has played a big role in my life because I was born into it. People went to the theatre in the early days a lot because there was no television.

Clare

I think TV is better than the theatre because you’ve got your remote control and you can turn it to whatever channel you want and watch whatever you want.

Sheila

Teenagers today are very different. In my young days, there was no such thing a teenager - you were young until you were almost 21 and then you were an adult.

Clare

Teenagers have a lot of freedom because they mostly do what they want. They listen to what their friends say more than what they listen to what their parents say.

Sheila

We were very much more under parental control. I remember going out with a boy when I was fifteen and I wouldn’t have dared tell my mother that. At seventeen, my father said to me one day "Are you going out with a boy" and I said well, yes I was, and he said, "Well, I would like to meet him", and of course that would have frightened any boy off today, wouldn’t it?

Clare

So do you like it here?

Sheila

Oh I think it’s lovely here. Whenever we were in the theatre, in the summertime in the afternoons when we were off, we used to come out here and sunbathe - just on a lovely day like it is today

Clare

How did you start off in the theatre?

Sheila

My mother used to be a flying trapeze artist and my father was managing the Empire Theatre in Belfast. And in a way with them being in the theatre we were sort of minor celebrities in a way because there was no television and we were asked to do many things. For example, when I was a young child about nine, ten, eleven I would be asked to come and christen some of the animals in the zoo, which was very nice. And then the war broke out - the Second World War - that was in September, just before my eleventh birthday and lots of children were all evacuated because people were worried about the place being bombed. And of course my mother and father instead of having me being evacuated, sent me off with a circus to travel around the Republic of Ireland because it was neutral during the war.

Clare

Did you not find it strange, working in the circus?

Sheila

Yes, it was strange but it was great fun you know, and I learnt how to walk the tightrope when I was there as well and how to ride horses bareback. So it was really great fun for me - I loved it all.

Clare

So what was the theatre like that you worked at?

Sheila

It was a lovely old theatre with lovely old architecture - sort of Indian style but unfortunately and tragically now Clare, it’s been pulled down. It’s such a tragedy but at least there are two theatres still left in Ireland There’s the Opera House in Belfast and there’s also the Gaiety in Dublin which is a lovely one...

Well Clare, this is really like what the old Empire in Belfast used to be like - the lovely red velvet seats and all that lovely plaster work. It’s a terrible pity they don’t make theatres like that anymore, today? Have you ever been in any of the theatres at all?

Clare

I’ve never been in a theatre.

Sheila

Never been in a theatre. Well then, modern theatres are nothing like this. My very first time to work in a theatre was when I was only twelve and I had the part of a cat in a pantomime called Goodie Two Shoes - a cat called Fleabag. And after that I went back to school again and then came back full time as a dancer at the age of almost fifteen.

Clare

So how much would you have got paid for that kind of work?

Sheila

I got paid thirty shillings a week, which was one pound fifty pence now and it wasn’t very much now really. We, the dancers, we used to have to work the hardest of anybody ‘cause we were on more than anybody else and we were the worst paid .

Clare

And was it a full house when you performed?

Sheila

It was a full house every night. We never had to worry about getting audiences because there was no television in those days, Clare.

Clare

So would you have been famous?

Sheila

Well, perhaps in Belfast.

Clare

Would you be like as famous as Geri Halliwell?

Sheila

No, because you see there’s television now so people know everybody all over the country.

Clare

So how famous would be, like...?

Sheila

Well, if I was going in the street people would say to me, "Hello Sheila, how are you?" like that.

Clare

Would they ask for autographs?

Sheila

Yes, very often we were asked for autographs. We were indeed.

Clare

So you were that famous?

Sheila

Well, you find this all very strange don’t you, in a way?

Clare

It’s strange.

Sheila

You can’t understand this type of theatre and the sort of things we did.

Clare

I can’t understand there was no TV.

Sheila

There was no television.

Clare

If it was during the war, how did people afford to come and watch your performances in the theatre?

Sheila

Well, there was really quite a bit of money about during the war, you know. A lot of the people who were in the forces came and they seemed to have... And the American forces were here as well at the end of the war, and they had a lot of money you know. And what happened was that the Blitz came here in 1941 in Belfast and it was bombed very badly and a lot of people lost their lives and of course it was a very depressing time. After that Blitz came, people hardly came to theatre at all - only two or three came the night after we had the first one, then it built up a little bit. Then my father started doing the show, then producing the show and he started this revue called Come to the Show which ran for many years and people started to come back then you know. And they came more and more and they enjoyed having something to laugh at and we had a very good Company then.

Clare

Did you look much different from what you do now?

Sheila

Oh yes I think I looked a lot different. I had a lot more wrinkles now than I had then, Clare, but I think the thing that was most different was my hair because I had very long hair. What happened was there was a film star who used to wear her hair very long over one eye. The girls were copying her and what happened was this got caught in the machinery sometimes from the girls who worked in the munition factories making ammunition for the war effort. So Veronica Lake was asked to cut hair or wear her hair shorter and everybody in entertainment was asked to do a similar thing ‘cause people would copy what we did. So that was one of the reasons why you see the photographs with me and my hair in the styles that I have.

Clare

Did many young people go to the theatre?

Sheila

Young people but not children, Clare. Young children would interest themselves playing out in the streets and doing that sort of thing.

***

Albert

I’m Albert Haslett, born the 3rd January 1926. I’m 73 years of age. I’ve lived in Belfast all my life. In the thirties when I was a boy, there were toys to be bought but very few people had the money to buy them because that was during the hungry thirties and there was an awful lot of unemployment. Any toys you had, you either made them or you made up games to play. And you played all kinds of silly games. They didn’t sound silly then, they may now but they didn’t then.

That was a stick and piggy and I made that out of a piece of wood. I whittled it off with a pen-knife at each end and I made it pointy. It’s not so hard, it’s just a pen-knife. Now you leave it down like that and you hit the edge of it - bang - see I missed it, you see.

Clare

Do you have to hit it?

Albert

Yes, I’m supposed to run after it and hit it.

Clare

Right.

Albert

See like that, yes.

Clare

Right.

Albert

Now do you want to have a try at it? Put it down and I’ll show you. Now you put it down. Hit it near the point and it will jump up higher. Yes, look at that girl - you’re champion. I would have played this when I was a boy you know, it was round about the early thirties.

Clare

And that was entertainment?

Albert

Yes this was our entertainment. Well, we had a lot of entertainment things. That was one game that we’d have played.

Clare

So you had other games too? And what other games did you play?

Albert

I’ve got one to show you over by the window sill. Those are cigarette cards - you take half of them. There would be a set of birds, cricketers - forty-eight in each set. Sometimes there’s footballers, cars, plants, all kinds of things. But they’re usually in 48 of a set. There’s a number on each one. Now, I put two of mine down - give me two of yours - put them down now. Right go ahead. The idea is to blow them so that they come face up and any one that comes face up, I get. When I miss, when I don’t get any up, it’s your turn. Now go ahead now, you try - give you a bit of a try just to see. Get well down and blow onto it. See what I mean? You’re blowing too hard but it doesn’t matter.

Clare

I got two.

Albert

I know you did. You could play here all day at this.

Clare

So you could. Do you put money on it or anything?

Albert

Oh no you don’t. How would you play for money? I’d never seen money when I was a wee boy. You have always had plenty of money in your pocket...

Clare

Oh I get pocket money.

Albert

Do you get pocket money every week? You’re spoiled then.

Clare

It’s like everybody. Most young people now get pocket money.

Albert

I didn’t get anything like that.

Clare

You never got any pocket money?

Albert

No, I never got any pocket money. The only way I would have got money would have been when I got a bit older about twelve - I helped the man to sell Telegraphs at night and I may have got a couple of coppers at the end of the week off him.

Clare

Where did you live?

Albert

I lived up around the corner here.

Clare

Who lived with you in the house?

Albert

Me and my mother and father and five sisters and four brothers.

Clare

And what was the house like that you lived in?

Albert

It was like this with just two bedrooms.

Clare

Two bedrooms?

Albert

Yes.

Clare

There’s ten of you in the house?

Albert

All the boys slept in the back bedroom and all the girls slept in the front room with the curtain across with my mother and father in the front room beyond.

Albert

You ever gone on one of these?

Clare

No.

Albert

Do you want to try it?

Clare

Right come on.

Albert

This is what I called a guider. Do you want to try it first? Are you ready?

Clare

(Screams) Stop pushing, don’t. Watch. Stop, stop! That’s great.

Albert

Did you like it? When you were younger, had you anything like this?

Clare

I didn’t have anything like this but...

Albert

Or even the cigarette cards?

Clare

I had something like that. They’re called Pogs and they’re the exact same only that you don’t blow Pogs to turn them over, you have another thing and you just flip the Pog over.

Albert

Do you think that you would have enjoyed your younger days better than me? Everything we had, we had to make it...

Clare

I think I would have enjoyed your days because nowadays computers and bikes and things like that are expensive and you made everything, it didn’t cost you a penny.

Albert

You looked after it better.

Clare

People can be under pressure to buy their children...

Clare

During the theatre, you were young and you wore make-up and things like that, you were all good-looking - were there any fellas or anything?

Sheila

Well the thing is we didn’t have much time for boys in a way because we were working whenever they were off. We used to go to entertain the troops. We had a lot of American soldiers over here during the war and a lot of the local boys were very jealous because they took all their girls. We used to go and work cabaret sometimes in the camps. My mother always came with us as a chaperone to make sure that we were well looked after which was probably just as well I would say. But that was the sort of contact we had with boys.

Clare

So you didn’t have any boyfriends?

Sheila

I never had a boyfriend as such. We were working at night when they were usually off.

Clare

I don’t believe you, that you hadn’t had a boyfriend.

Sheila

Well I suppose maybe there was one or two.

Clare

You didn’t have a third one?

Sheila

Not until after I left the theatre. I went with them for a couple of years.

Clare

You’re sure about that?

Sheila

Yes, I’m quite sure.

Clare

You should be on Jerry Springer!

Sheila

What about your career when you leave school. What do you think you’d like to do?

Clare

I’d really like to do acting. It’s a hard job, because there’s a lot of actresses and actors who want to make it big. Everybody has that kind of dream but I think if you keep at it long enough and you’re really determined and have the confidence then I think you’ll succeed.

END