2020

The year started well. I had spent months preparing and was greatly looking forward to a big celebration of my 95th birthday on March 23rd. I was also booked to perform my one-woman show on my birthday which was already sold out. The party was to be on the following day. 100 friends, many travelling from overseas. Early in March it became clear that Coronavirus was here to stay, so I had to cancel everything. I postponed it all to October--alas that had to be cancelled too. Friends have suggested I combine it with celebrations for my 100th birthday!!

Previously I have included in my yearly report many wonderful trips--with photos. This year I have not left my flat. But I have been comfortable, well cared for and never tiring of watching TV. With zooms, skypes, emails and the phone to keep me connected.

On June 30th, my parents' 100th wedding anniversary, Ania and I visited my best friend Helen to celebrate. The glasses from which we are drinking champagne are part of a wedding gift to Mom and Dad 100 years ago. It will be my 50th wedding anniversary on December 23rd.


I had one walk on Wimbledon Common with Ania.



Here are some of my Birthday flowers.

Thanks to Helen, I learned a Shakespeare Sonnet which was filmed on my roof garden and which I will attach. Along with a Tiny Little play , filmed at the time of the cancelled Wimbledon Tennis tournament. Created by Helen and filmed by my wonderful carer Ania, who has also done all my food shopping this year.



I also had reason to write short pieces about my dogs and my Pantomime experiences, which I will attach. I hope I will have more to write about next year.

Dear Rabbi Wittenberg,

I have just finished reading your delightful book THINGS MY DOG HAS TAUGHT ME and loved it. Reading your book gave me a longing to tell the story of dogs in my life to someone, and I could only think of you. I do hope you do not mind.

My maiden name was Thelma Wigoder, my stage name is Thelma Ruby and my married name Thelma Frye. I am 95, brought up in Leeds in an Orthodox Jewish family, now a member of Wimbledon Reform Synagogue. As a child I longed for a dog, but was not allowed by my parents (in every other aspect loving and wonderful parents). One day when I was about 9 my Aunt who lived in Dublin was staying with us, bought a dog in Leeds market and gave it to me. I was overjoyed and called him Jack. My parents told me I could not keep him. That night he was put in an outhouse--the wash house with a huge boiler and a mangle--and all night I listened to him crying. The next morning my brother Geoffrey, 2 years older than I, (Editor in Chief of the Encyclepdia Judaica) was told to take Jack on a lead to my Grandparents, further up Chapeltown Road, where my Aunt Mona lived with her whippet Brownie. She would know what to do with him. Geoffrey returned soon after. "Did you take him?" "No, he slipped his lead and ran off" A little while later there was a scratching at the door--Jack had found his way back. But I still was not allowed to keep him.

Flash forward to when I was 21 and then shared a flat with Aunt Mona, also an actress and unmarried, 10 years younger than my mother. We acquired a Border Collie, very like the cover of your book, called Shep. How we loved him and how clever he was. Mona taught him tricks, like singing, close the door (put a tit-bit on the top so it fell off when he closed the door, and to go further back, said in a tone of voice so when we changed it to "Plus loin" he still went further back. He was so intelligent we did not give him enough care, he went out and was run over and killed.

We replaced him with another Border Collie but there were 2 puppies so adorable we bought them both--Charlie and Jimmie. They grew much bigger than Shep, we called them pit ponies. And chewed so much in puppyhood, they chewed through from one room to another. Then Mona had a serious accident and was in hospital for 3 months, I was rehearsing and performing and going to visit Mona every day from East Sheen to Hampstead, so had to find a home for the dogs.Some time later, I was in rehearsal and a girl came in with an adorable French Poodle puppy. She said there was one left in the litter, which is how our beloved Josephine came to live with us (after Josephine Baker who was French and black). In time we mated her and kept one of the puppies, Gigi.

In 1970, at the age of 45, I married Peter Frye. Before that I lived with a partner for 9 years until he died—Jay. My father never knew and I knew it would break my father's heart if I married him as he was not Jewish. He was a great animal lover--apparently he once had a pig which followed him round like a dog. I shared a house with Aunt Mona at the time and we both had our own flats. When Jay and Josephine met, it was love at first sight, and she spent more time with us than with Mona. Jay was a film maker and was working in Rome--I was with him--when we got news that Josephine had to be put to sleep. We flew straight back to London so that Jay could hold her paw as the vet gave her the final injection. Before that e had kept her alive for an extra year when she developed diabetes and we caught her pee first thing every morning, tested it and injected her.

A little while later, Jay brought home a Wire-haired miniature Dachshund puppy, Candy, who was the love of my life. She and Gigi were inseparable. This was December 1968. In June 1969 Jay died. In my grief, the dogs were a great help. In August I left London for the Edinburgh Festival and Nottingham. The dogs came with me--in those days dogs were allowed in the dressing room. They would sit quietly until they heard over the tannoy that the show was over, when they would be up and ready to give me a huge welcome to the dressing room.

Some time later I was cast as Golde in the first National Tour of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. (I played it 4 times, 3 times with Topol) While we were doing a long season in Manchester, Candy went on heat. I had read that a bitch should have her first mating before she was 2. Candy was about to be 2. "What a shame" I said "She will never be mated" The girl playing Tzeitel the eldest daughter loved Candy and persuaded me I should mate her and they would all help.

I found a suitable dog mate in a kennels a little way outside Manchester and took with me the actress playing Yentl, the matchmaker--Miriam Margolyes. They put the 2 dogs into a field to do what nature intended, and Miriam turned to the breeder: "Is she ENJOYING it--it will be her only time, I hope she is enjoying it". The dog was called Guy, so I taught Candy to sing "I'm in love with a wonderful guy". When we got back to the theatre, there was a lovely white bouquet waiting for the bride.

I read everything I could on dog breeding--that she would be due to give birth after 9 weeks and 1 day. That would be good--a Sunday when I had the day off. By that time our tour would be in Bristol and I had rented a cottage in Bath. Afraid the puppies would arrive in the dressing room, Mona came to stay and puppy watch. Candy and Gigi slept on my bed under the quilt. The book told me to put down paper in several places, she would tear it up to make a place to give birth. After he birth she will not leave the babies to out to pee.

Comes the Sunday morning. I lift the quilt and shout out to Mona--"Come quick there's a puppy in the bed" No tearing up paper!! She growls at Gigi, whom we lock away, Tzeitl joins us and we watch the miracle of birth, 4 is a lot for a dog her size--we go downstairs for a coffee, I go up to check--she is just delivering number 5, and then number 6. We make them comfortable in a basket beside the bed, go down and hear the patter of paws on the stairs, she goes out to be clean, runs into the sitting room and licks Gigi to apologise and back up to her babies.

There are many lovely puppy stories as they grew and I took them further on tour to Nottingham and Birmingham, tied up with stories of my romance with Peter. But I will not further engage your patience. Suffice it to say I married Peter and went to live in Israel, having to leave Candy with Mona who already had her kept 2 of Candy’s daughters and her grand-daughter--Lollipop (Popsie), Fleur and Pixie. An artist painted them and I will photograph and attach. Somewhere there are lots of photos of the darling puppies.

Dear Mark,

I have just read CURTAIN UP with Jan's delightful record of her Pantomime experiences. Which has pushed me into sending mine.

The very first time I appeared in a musical was in the Panto CINDERELLA at the New theatre, Hull playing Prince Charming. It was put on by Bert Loman and my Cinderella was Mavis Whyte "The tiddly-winky girl". There were several speciality acts including 2 dogs on their hind legs in a miniature set--the father dog comes home from work--they end up gettinto bed and pulling up the covers, with the owner screaming to them from behind the set in German! The tiddly-winky girl went on to marry Bert Loman.

Another speciality act from abroad was a roller skating couple in Victorian costumes, she in a large crinoline. The act ended with them getting into a carriage pulled by 2 ponies as a flock of white pigeons are released from the back of the circle to land on the carriage roof. Trouble was not all the pigeons reached their destination. 2 shows a day and the evening audience would arrive and be bemused by pigeons flying round the auditorium. I had a quick change booth at the side of the stage and once ran in to find all my costume covered in pigeon dirt...

I did that Panto on a tour the following year. Twice I was in panto at the Palladium. The first time with Charlie Drake, Bernard Bresslaw, Edmund Hockridge and further down the billing, Bruce Forsyth. It was THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, Charlie Drake was the King and I was the Queen. As the Queen I visited the gypsies and had a wonderful number with the boys chorus: "I'm simply wild, wild, wild about the wild, wild music that the wild, wild gypsies play--Hey!..." I even got thrown around by the boys! Our director was Robert Nesbitt, elegantly dressed in a dark suit (except on Sundays when it was grey). When rehearsing in the Palladium he sat in the stalls with a table in front of him, giving directions to the flies, the stage manager etc. quietly into a microphone.

We had a week of full dress rehearsal with full orchestra--a spectacular production. At the first dress rehearsal Val Parnell came to watch. When everyone was dismissed, Mr Nesbitt (we never called him by his first name) said "Thelma, come down to me". I sat next to him, was given a glass of champagne and he said:"Sometimes someone coming from outside sees things more clearly than when we are involved. Mr Parnell said the gypsy song is great, but it as nothing to do with the story and does not belong. He is right and I am going to have to cut it." I grabbed the beautiful handkerchief from his top pocket and burst into tears. He said:"Don't cry, Thelma. It is only a song and I promise to bring you back with a song that is part of the story." AND HE KEPT HIS PROMISE.

2 years later i played the Empress of Morocco in TURN AGAIN WHITTINGTON with Norman Wisdom and Yana. Dick Whittington goes to Morocco and gets great honour when his cat kills an infestation of rats in the Palace. My song was: "What are we going to do about the rats...." Norman Wisdom had no small talk--impossible just to have a little chat. During the run, I did cabaret at Clement Freud's club upstairs the Royal Court Theatre. I stood next to Norman at the curtain call and every night he happily said: "Going off to work now, are you?" The only conversation I ever had with Norman Wisdom!

The following year we took the same production to Manchester, with Bruce Forsyth in the title role. My main memory of that was that at some publicity event, Yana had met and fallen for a French lion tamer. He did not speak English, she did not speak French and I had to interpret: "You are so beautiful" "You are so handsome" etc. etc!! He had a slow journey home, as he had to stop frequently to let the lions out into a field. Last I heard Yana had married a hotel owner on the Channel Isles, and she died young.



The Empress of Morocco

That was the end of my Panto career, but I always jumped on the chance to show my legs!