Dressing Up Is Fun: Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt invites us to put on a show and take to the stage.  I have  nothing particularly historical in  my collection, but here is a photograph of my mother dressed up - but for what?   I have no idea!  

I first saw this photograph amongst papers after my mother's death. She is the second figure in from the left - looking very trim and elegant in that boyish costume. 

 

But what are they dressed up for?  There is a  clue on the back - with the name of  a photographer in Stirling (Scotland). That means it was taken  after 1961 when we moved north from England.  

 

I do know that Mum went  to Stirling to take part in some regional events for the Townswomen's Guild - or was it WRI (Women's Rural Institute) -  and these clearly are all women.  Was it a play?  Mum was never interested in acting and I cannot see her delivering lines in a play. But she enjoyed singing and joined a choir wherever we lived.  So  was it a choral performance?    Italian or Spanish, judging by the costumes?  Is that a bride & groom in the centre with the "priest" alongsid?  Gilbert & Sullivan's "Gondoliers" came to mind, but there are no gondolier hats.  I shall never know!  But it shows you are never too old to enjoy dressing up!

 

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My first stage performance  was at a Brownie's concert when, clutching our teddies,  we sang "The Teddy Bear's Picnic". Another year we were dressed in green tights and a green T-shirt,   with green and yellow crepe paper headdresses and collars  to do a group recitation of "Wordswiorth's poem "To  the Daffodils".  The mind boggles at what we looked like!   In those days, no photograph was taken to record this happy scene!

 

Below is a prelude to an outdoor stage performance at the village gala day at Staining, near Blackpool in the 1950's.   But it was raining, so we gathered in the church hall for a photograph.   I am the little one of the junior dancers fifth back on the left.  We were obviously very well trained, all  standing the same way - feet together and skirts held out at the same angle. 

Our dresses were apple greens satin,  with silver cardboard headdresses and our shepherd crooks garlanded with crepe paper flowers. For me, the  worst aspect was the torture the night before of having my hair put into rags, in the hope I would end up with ringlets the next day.   Communities  pulled together to mount these Gala Days and have some fun, withthe  war not long past and Britain living in the age of austerity.   

Move onto the 1960s 

 

High School introduced me to Gilbert & Sullivan (also a favourite of my mother's)   and I was "hooked", singing in most of the operas over the years.  Today G & S has fallen out of favour with young ones, but it was such fun, happy to sing, even better to take part in a production (I always loved playing at dressing up)  and I defy anyone not to feel uplifted afterwards.

 

Here I am in the opening chorus of "Patience" which is a skit on Oscar Wilde and the aesthetic movement.  I am one of the "twenty lovesick maidens" - I am firs ton the right, kneeling down and clutching my cardboard lyre.

 

 

Our affections and affectations change and by the end of the show we have forsaken our medieval drapery  for brighter everyday garb  - mine  (third from the right) was rather a garish red Stuart tartan dress with a bustle and lots of ruffles which I was told to take home and press - a pain to do. 

At University, I joined the  Savoy Opera Group and the annual G & S performances were the highlight of my year.  I loved taking part in them - the dressing up (the girls made their own costumes), the singing and some dancing, plus the camaraderie and friendships built up over intensive rehearsals.   We thought we were great!  Below "Yeoman of the Guard".

 

 I  am one of these "Dainty little fairies, tripping hither, tripping thither" in the opening chorus of the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta "Iolanthe" -Our dresses were in  shades of blue and green chiffon with silver trim at the waist, and of course wings, plus  a cloche hat covered in petals, and heavy eyeshadow.

I was once in a group called "Melody Makers". We joined High School musical productions sitting at the side of the stage as an additional chorus and we dressed the part i.e. men in checked shirts, jeans & cowboy hats, women in flouncy skirts and fancy headwear for " Calamity Jane". One year I took part in a "Come and Sing" event for "My Fair Lady" where there was a prize for the Best "Ascot" stye hat - but sadly I have no photographs of these occasions. 

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Finally two photographs from the collection of my cousin to show that dressing up is fun, whatever your age - both taken at Blackpool, the famous seaside resort, and the entertainment mecca in the north west of England, where I grew up.

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