Stella

‘Oh, good. Mr Bland said you’d come highly recommended.’

Sadie put the suitcases down. She felt as though her arms had been elongated. ‘Please step this way,’ requested the Reverend with a gentle swaying motion of the hand. ‘Mr Barnes is at the rear.’

Wondering who Mr Barnes was, the girls headed for the rear of the building.

‘Hello, kids. I’m Joey Barnes. I do compering. I’ve done plenty afore, so don’t go fretting that I’ll make a right fool of myself . . . or yourselves.’

‘Your names?’ enquired the Reverend. Stella spoke at Joey Barnes.

‘Just say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, you’re about to be entertained by the fabulous Raven Sisters, with their own brand of song and dance and high-class comedy.” ’

‘The Raving Sisters?’ laughed Joey Barnes.

‘No. Raven. R.A.V.E.N. That’s Raven.’

The Reverend started to blush and moved awkwardly from one foot to the other. ‘Er, like the bird, perhaps?’ he offered, hoping he was right. Stella nodded. Sadie remained silent, with head hung even lower than before. Joey Barnes couldn’t help but notice it.

‘Is there owt wrong with her neck?’ he whispered to Stella. ‘It isn’t broken or anything, is it?’

‘It’s called fear,’ she explained, at which Sadie dropped it even lower which would have seemed impossible until she actually did it. Then Sadie asked, ‘Could someone show me to the dressing-room, please?’

The Reverend looked to the compere for advice, and he in turn looked at Stella and said, ‘I’m afraid you’re standing in it.’

‘Don’t worry, my child,’ said the Reverend, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘Once we get started, no one will disturb you here.’

The curtain burst open and a middle-aged man bounded in with the sort of expression that said this wasn’t the first time he had worked at the Mission. ‘Evening, Vicar. Watcha, Joey. Sorry I’m late, the bus was running late.’ He glanced at the girls. ‘Hello, ’ello. Who picked these dainty little flowers from the Garden of Eden, then?’ The Reverend blushed again, as he so often would.

‘These young ladies are on our show tonight, Mr Rodgers.’

He offered his right hand. ‘I’m Rodgers, alias Magico the Master Magician.’ Stella told him who they were, emphasising the word Raven.

Magico took Barnes to one side to discuss his act and a fragile old man wavered up to them from behind the curtain. The girls both jumped with fright. It was like watching the walking dead. ‘This is our pianist, Mr Baxter,’ said the Reverend, feeling that there needed to be an explanation.

Without saying anything the old man reached forward and gently pulled the music sheets from Stella’s grasp. Having studied them from behind half-moon glasses for a while, he said, ‘Sorry, girls, I don’t do any of these.’

‘But it’s all there for you,’ said Stella. ‘All you have got to do is read it.’

‘I only play by ear,’ he said, indignantly.

‘Only by ear?’ she repeated, dumbfoundedly.

‘Let’s go home to Mam and Dad,’ suggested Sadie, who must have got to know every inch of the stage floor by now.

‘So what you’re saying is that you can’t play any of our music?’ said Stella.

The old man didn’t like this forthright young woman’s attitude at all. ‘Don’t you shout at me, Miss Wonderful,’ he croaked. ‘I once played with G. H. Elliot.’ And with that, and a body that tremored so much it seemed on the brink of falling apart, he shimmied over to join Barnes and Magico.

Eventually, in the old showbiz tradition, the show went on. Magico succeeded in making the audience disappear – most of them to the toilet. Joey Barnes, because the pipe smoke had blanketed the stage, walked straight over the edge, struggled back on, and then introduced the girls as the Crow Sisters.

Mr Baxter played all the songs he knew and none of the ones the girls had rehearsed to. Of all the free concerts put on at the Mission, it was the first where booing had been heard.

Stella stormed out at the end in a raging temper, stating that she would never work there again – not even if they paid her. And Sadie, who did manage to finally lift her head for the briefest of moments, left in floods of tears.

Reflecting on the affair and the injustice of it all in the comfort of their home, Sadie categorically stated that her brief flirtation with showbusiness was at an end. The same humiliation had had the reverse effect on Stella. It made her more keen to succeed, and more motivated about improving the act and finding the right places to play. The Mission was merely a hiccup on her way to becoming a great performer, one day to be idolised by the public. At least, that was how she intended looking at it.

There were two important things she’d learnt from this unfortunate experience: always make sure that the piano-player was capable of playing their music and that the compere said their names right.

It took nearly two weeks of kindness mixed with animal cunning for her to persuade Sadie to make a return to the dancing classes. By making Sadie understand her own importance to their act, and the fruitlessness of embarrass-ment, outrage, and humiliation, by the third week she had her making suggestions for an act of her own.

When they came to the time when they felt the act was as polished and presentable as it could ever be, Stella made it her job to find them a public gathering to perform it to.

She kept alert to any opportunities, and, at the very low fee of nothing, she managed to fix them a job in the very high-class venue of the County Hotel, Lancaster.

It was for a firm of brewers, and drink was top of the bill. She got them the job because the previously booked double-act had had a major bust-up and was consequently cancelled.

They did very well that night. They were bright and young, and the audience were drunk enough to enjoy two young teenagers cavorting about in costumes they couldn’t envisage their wives in. They did well enough to be given a pound to split by a very drunk landlord, whose wife never forgave him.

Over the next twelve months their act blossomed like summer flowers, as did their figures. They were tall, easy movers, with natural blonde hair. Unsurprisingly, the only thing of importance to Stella was the act, and Sadie was willing to go along with this, for, as yet, she had no other interests or distractions.

Chapter Three

At weekends Tommy joined the girls at their various venues. He enjoyed helping out wherever he could. He was a strong boy, and his prominent muscles kept over-enthusiastic male admirers under control.

He was employed at the Lancil factory, making – or rather assisting in the making of – oilcloth.

He had become Sadie’s all-time favourite hero, and secretly they had shared kisses, as long as he promised to do it romantically, like in the films she had seen. Tommy went along with this. He went along with anything that kept her happy.

Towards the latter part of 1932 they were working the cream of anything that was going, even as far afield as Preston, and had twice worked Manchester.

Their post-office savings books had never looked healthier. Sadie had managed to save nearly every penny she had earned – after giving her mother an allowance. Stella had spent most of her earnings on clothing and on the act, realising that they wouldn’t progress without spending on themselves. Fashion was an important part of their song and dance act, and Stella didn’t want anyone thinking they were cheap and scruffy. Anyway, it was far easier for Sadie to save as she had kept her job going at the cake shop.

Tommy received a flat salary of five shillings every time he worked with them. It didn’t matter how large or small the date was; five shillings he received. Half of this went into his own post-office savings account, the rest he spent on treating himself.

Unlike the girls, he didn’t have to pay anything to his parents towards his keep: it had always been that way. Now and again he’d go to the market and buy in a load of vegetables as a gesture of his gratitude, and by doing it this way he guaranteed that his dad wouldn’t blow it all at the pub.

Sadie was quite content to drift through life without any changes. After all, she had never had so much money, so why should she want to change things? She thought they had become legendary figures when she saw a piece about them in the local press: ‘Stella and Sadie Raven are now household names throughout the whole of Lancaster.’ It also went on to say that Stella was renowned for her fashion sense and Sadie for her gentle personality.

One morning, during this busy period, Stella declared that she had discovered the opportunity for them to make sensational progress. She’d seen in a theatrical paper, The Stage, that there was to be a talent contest held in the north, called ‘The North-West, Go as You Please Show’.

The first prize wasn’t money – it was far better than that. If you won you were given a full week’s work at your nearest main theatre. For the girls that would mean the Winter Gardens, Morecambe.

The first instalment of the competition took place at the Alhambra Theatre, Morecambe, where they had to win the local heat. If successful, they would then go to the Hippodrome, at Ardwick Green, Manchester, for the second heat. This was followed by the semi-finals in Liverpool (no theatre confirmed as yet, due to disputes between various managements) and would conclude back in Manchester at the Palace Theatre. Stella entered them for it at once. ‘It won’t be easy for the others with us performing,’ she said confidently – maybe too confidently.

‘It’s a bit scary, though,’ said Sadie. ‘They’ll be some awful good ’uns having a go, Stella.’

She ignored Sadie’s reservations. If she took any notice of her sister they’d be permanently out of work.

On the day of the first local heat Sadie just managed to overcome a severe bout of nerves and Stella gave one of her most perfunctory performances. She’d made the classic mistake of having her mind already on the stage at the Palace, Manchester. They came second. An Irish pub tenor won the first heat, singing, ‘Mother Macrea’, followed by ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’. He was awful but – and this is the part Stella couldn’t comprehend – the public liked him. He was a short, fat man, well into his forties, who didn’t touch upon many right notes. But the public liked him. ‘Better luck to us next time,’ was Sadie’s only remark as the theatre emptied.