Pride of Our Alley: The Life of Dame Gracie Fields Volume II; 1939-1979

By Sebastian Lassandro

"What has Gracie Fields got to do with anything?"

—Alan Bennett, The History Boys

In this new in-depth biography of the Queen of Hearts of her generation, discover in great detail the answer to Alan Bennett's question.

From humble beginnings above a fish and chip shop in Rochdale to the beautiful Isle of Capri, follow the complete story of the Queen of the British Music Halls and her seven-decade career. Discover how a mill girl from a Northern English industrial town conquered stage, screen and radio and became Hollywood's highest paid film star of the 1930s.

With hundreds of previously unpublished stories, facts, photographs and interviews, Pride of Our Alley tells the story of Our Gracie Fields for the first time in its honest, factual entirety.

Sebastian Lassandro first heard the music of Gracie Fields when a school student. Over ten years later, he is a now a recognised and renowned expert on his subject and tender of the eternal flame of "Our Gracie."

• Language: English
• Publisher: BearManor Media
• Release date: Apr 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386752967

Book preview

Acknowledgements

With my thanks to:

Ben Ohmart, Daniel and Darlene Swanson, Brian Tedesco, Hazel Provost, Sarah Hodgkinson, Julian Jefferson, Janet Emsley, Richard Farnell, Roy Hudd, Dame Vera Lynn, Barbara Dickson, Tommy Steele, David Steadman, Sue Devaney, the Aza family, Janice and Gary Steel, Carrie Christie, Marianne Mullen, Mervyn Rossini, Laurence Rossini, The Basil Dean Archive at the University of Manchester, Rochdale Link4Life, Dave Haddock, Beryl Down, Dave Jessop, Guy Stansfield, Marisa Macdonald, David Timmins, Melanie Stansfield, Edward Beckerleg, Raymond Dolling, Scott Wallace Baker, Keith Stansfield, Astrid Hoole, Chris Grant, Sarah-Jayne Yallop, David Hornby, Barry Britten, Graham Turner, Tony Lee, Theo Morgan, Adam Endacott, David Hornby, Maurice Warburton, Jim Craig, Michael J Burn, Ben Stock, Jean Chadwick, Karen Lynne, Graham Howes, Lorraine Brook, Alan Duckett, Mark Fox, the British Music Hall Society, the Lady Ratlings, Jackie Settle, David Reed, Adam Borzone, Serena Daroubakhsh and the Jess Yates Estate, the Rochdale Observer, the Manchester Evening News, Cherry Red Media, BBC Radio Manchester, BBC Radio Lancashire, Movietone News, Pathe.

With extra-special thanks to Chris Webster, Shaun Hewitt, and especially, John Taylor.

Without their support, knowledge, and, most importantly, friendship, this book would certainly not have been possible.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders in order to seek permission to print. The author would nevertheless be very happy to hear from any copyright holders unable to be contacted to rectify any omissions in future editions of this book. All information and text in this book is copyrighted to Sebastian Lassandro, hereby identified as the author.

For Auntie Anne,

who inspired my love of real music.

A Memory…

"A grand lad I’m watching all the time

is Tommy Steele. I think he has the

most wonderful personality."

-Gracie Fields, 1960.

The first time I met Our Gracie was on the empty stage of the London Palladium.

We bumped into each other during a rehearsal of the 1957 Royal Command Performance. We were on a break and the theatre stood dark and not a little foreboding.

I’ve come to check the spots. She smiled.

I had no idea what she was talking about.

"It’s them big lights at the top of the last row of the Grand Circle.

I looked up, craning my neck.

Y’see love, she smiled, if you can look the spots in the eye, you can’t miss looking at the whole audience—so nobody feels out of it.

I’ve never forgotten the lesson.

Tommy Steele OBE

Foreword

I was given the most amazing opportunity in 2016. I played Gracie Fields in a play about her extraordinary life at the Coliseum Theatre in Oldham. I have always been a big fan of Gracie. I grew up in Rochdale. Fish and chips, cobbled streets, and Our Gracie!

I loved singing her songs and performing Gracie’s life story. The theatre job was a dream come true. I even had a little trip to Capri to see where she lived and died. Researching her life and finding out more about her, I discovered her incredible personality and her love for the ordinary. She always stayed true to herself and had an extraordinary ability to make people feel very special. She also gave her time and money to a lot of charities.

She was strong, grounded, down to earth, honest, and hysterically funny. Everything I aspire to be! Playing Gracie has certainly been one of the highlights of my career so far… If I could play her for another few years I would be a very content actress. Her songs, her soul, her humour make me very happy.

Sir Gerald du Maurier, a very successful actor manager in London in his day, said to King George V when asked why he chose Gracie for the leading lady in a straight play, I chose her because there is something refreshing and sincere about her. This play is a tragedy, but it takes a great comedienne to play great tragedy.

Thank you so much, Seb, for keeping Gracie’s spirit alive and for dedicating a lot of your valuable time to the Gracie Fields Appreciation Society. You have been a mine of wonderful information regarding Gracie and her life. I love your stories and your enthusiasm, and I can’t wait to read the books!

Gracie loved the London Palladium and once did a cartwheel on stage after falling madly in love with Boris at the age of 54… Life is wonderful, she said. At any age, at any time, no matter how long you have to wait, it’s all worth it, for all of us, for you, me, everybody … LISTEN … It happens in the end … It all comes true. I’ve played the icon that is Gracie Fields. Life is wonderful! It all comes true!

Thanks, Seb, for all your help and support.

Sue Devaney

Thank you, Gracie!

Thank You for bringing us, for one fleeting but unforgettable moment, the glory that is England.

Thank you for twining us around your fingertips, for catching our emotions as we never suspected they might be caught, and as we should have known they could be.

Thank you for bringing back to many of us a memory of green fields, of lanes that meander among steep hills and valleys shadowed by high, blessed hedges of nightingales and cuckoos.

Thank you for imparting to us the ring that we needed when we sang There’ll Always Be an England, and pardon us if we thought at one time that song was a pleasing but wearing product of the time.

Somehow, Gracie, we didn’t know.

Unnamed Canadian serviceman letter,

Gracie’s own scrapbook, 1940

Introduction

Rising from mill girl to provincial star; West End leading lady to Britain’s darling of the Depression and ultimately Hollywood icon; Gracie Fields conquered every platform of entertainment and rose to become a symbol of the British working classes. Her no airs and graces Lancashire persona of ‘Our Gracie’ became a representative figure of solidarity of the masses and she became the epitome of traditional British values and beliefs.

The young Grace Stansfield cut her teeth in the entertainment business by spending over fourteen years in touring reviews, juvenile shows and low-budget comedy productions. During this time, harsh working conditions, lack of funds and contractual disputes shaped the young Grace into the world-famous ‘Gracie Fields.’ By the time she made her West End debut in 1924 she was already a fully-realised ‘star’ and by the time she made her first recording in 1928, had already been working in the profession for over fifteen years –in a long upward struggle on the road to stardom.

Fuelled by a wide proliferation in variety, cinema, radio and on records, Gracie Fields rose from humble beginnings above her Grandmother’s fish and chip shop in Rochdale, to become the world’s highest paid film star; the first female variety artiste to be awarded the CBE; one of the first million-selling recording artists and the recipient of over 250,000 messages of good will and support following a major illness in July 1939.

By this time, she was recognised worldwide by the intimate ‘Our Gracie’, her image -maintained through a strong working class identity within her film and recording career, ensured that by the outbreak of the Second World War, ‘Our Gracie’ had become a widely recognised metaphor for solidarity and traditional working-class values, presented through comedic and sentimental songs and her persona of an unsophisticated Lancashire mill girl.

However, at the outbreak of the Second World War, all that was about to change…

Gracie’s story has never been told in its entirety. Written in 2019, the fortieth anniversary of her death, this book aims to be the most complete and accurate biography of Britain’s first superstar. Charting Gracie’s extensive and previously untold war career through to her ‘golden years’ on the Isle of Capri, this is Our Gracie’s story told completely for the first time.

My thanks to everyone who has assisted and supported me in the writing of this book, especially my long-suffering family and friends who I have bored senseless for years with talk of ‘that there woman Gracie Fields.’ Special thanks to my Dad, Joe, for driving me to countless museums up and down the country when I was growing up –and taking me to Rochdale for the first time! Most importantly, thanks to my Mum, Christine, for allowing me to fill the house with Gracie treasures; for continually despairing at the postman’s deliveries and for assisting me ably on our many trips to the Isle of Capri.

Sebastian Lassandro

-January 2019

Chapter One

September 1939 - June 1940

‘Coz we’re going to string old Hitler

from the very highest bough

Of the biggest aspidistra in the world!’

- The Biggest Aspidistra in the World (1940),

recorded by Gracie Fields.

With Britain now officially at war with Germany, it looked likely that Gracie’s suggested three-year recuperation was going to be severely cut, looking more likely to be just over a month. The first thing which Gracie did whilst back in England was to arrange for twelve children from London to be evacuated to the orphanage at Peacehaven. With twelve camp beds bought for the children to sleep on, and with twelve hearty appetites to play chef to, Monty was having the time of his life! Wanting to go and entertain the troops, especially with Harry’s Wish Me Luck, Gracie was reported to be down in the dumps in the second week of September when doctors prevented her from going overseas to entertain, even suggesting against radio broadcasts due to her recuperation. On September 25, Jenny and Fred Stansfield left Britain to go and live in the safety of Gracie’s Santa Monica home, leaving Southampton aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam, heading to New York.

Gracie told the Daily Mirror, I don’t know what to do with myself, I’ve got to sit around at home and do nothing. If I was fit and well I should be ready to do anything, and nothing would give me greater happiness than if I could sing to the Tommies to keep them cheerful, but the doctor has said no, and no means no. When I am well you will find me doing something. I am feeling much better, but one day I am up and the next I am down again, and I’m afraid I can’t do much at present. In response to this, hundreds of fans wrote into the Radio Times requesting fifteen minutes of programmes of Gracie records, now that we are not privileged enough to hear the great star herself. Still resting on the 27th of the month, Gracie was approached to make a record at an Army camp with soldiers joining in the choruses to boost morale, which she liked the idea of and agreed to do with Regal Zonophone when she was feeling in good enough shape.

On September 28, Gracie made her first public appearance when she visited Poole, and so many people crowded to see her at Poole Harbour she had to retire to the harbor office and wait for a police escort. With stars signing up to Basil Dean’s recently formed Entertainment National Service Association, Gracie wanted to do so, although her illness prevented her. Native Lancastrian Eva Turner, from Oldham, had already signed up, and Gracie thought, They’d need me to entertain the troops the same way I did in the First World War.

Based at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, E.N.S.A. was founded at the outbreak of the war by Basil Dean as the voluntary mobilisation of all branches of the profession for the provision of entertainment for the armed forces and munitions workers of a country at war. In Spring 1939, Gracie had agreed to join E.N.S.A.’s Central Committee in a private meeting with Basil Dean, but a week later Bert Aza wrote to Dean, At this time she would rather go about war-work in my own way, much to the disgust and annoyance of Basil Dean, who never really forgave Gracie for this after the years of working together. From there on in the pair had a curt relationship. When war only seemed a possibility as opposed to a likelihood, Gracie turned down Dean’s offer, but eventually in September of that year she committed herself to joining her fellow entertaining artists.

Agreeing there should be a better quality and larger variety in radio entertainment programmes, the government, with the sole aim of boosting morale during the blackout of the Phoney War, reopened closed variety theatres and scheduled new radio broadcasts in October 1939. Gracie’s first broadcast for the BBC was on October 11, and that night in the House of Commons, Sir Samuel Hoare expressed, Gracie Fields is on the air tonight. It is obvious that this debate must end at an early hour to give an opportunity of listening to her. This event did not occur at Gracie’s broadcast on July 30, 1939, as other sources claim. Parliament did not close early, however, as the debate in the House overran, much to the disappointment of the MPs.

In her broadcast of October 11, backed by Billy Cotton and his orchestra, Gracie introduced the patriotic There’ll Always be an England in addition to her usual comedy songs as well as her first live performance of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Clearly in line with the government’s aim to fortify the morale and the spirit of our people, Gracie’s pro-British broadcasts were the starting point of her extensive war career. On the weekend before her official return broadcast, Gracie’s voice was heard on the 307 metres frequency of the BBC’s Northern Irish station, with items which she had never done before on the microphone or records. Gracie declared it a mystery herself, as when she was supposed to be singing songs and making speeches live on the air, she was actually at the local cinema with Monty watching a film. Some of my songs were sung, and I suppose it could be described as pirate broadcast, and I should very much like to know who is responsible. I think somebody is imitating me.

Before her official return broadcast on October 11, which was to be recorded in the parish hall of the secret town in the West Country doubling as the BBC’s headquarters, Gracie was exploring the town with a blue slouch hat pulled over her face and spectacles hiding her eyes so she could pass unrecognised—until she met the troops. As she stood admiring the scenery, a battalion marched past who recognised her. A cry went up and the whole line of troops crowded around Gracie, singing Sing as We Go, much to the horror of Monty. I don’t know about discipline, but they started to sing so I finished it for them. I can tell you my arm ached pretty badly by the time I had finished signing my name. A policeman came along in the end, so I finished up by scribbling my old signature in his notebook. I hope I’ve not signed anyone else’s statement!

During the broadcast, Gracie told her estimated 10 million listeners, The doctors have told me I’ve been a very naughty girl, but being a woman, I got my own way. So many letters came from listeners to me every day asking me to sing and cheer them up, so I couldn’t refuse. I said to myself, ‘Gracie, lass, you can’t be a shirker.’ Gracie sat down at the microphone as she broadcast six of her eleven songs as she was still weak, but the inclusion of nearly all comedy numbers ensured that listeners could forget about the war. During her rendition of The Biggest Aspidistra in the World, Gracie included an extra verse, much to the delight of the listeners, which she would record in 1940 and keep in the song throughout the war:

My brother’s in the Army, he’s in the home defence,

With the biggest aspidistra in the world.

The colonel says, That’s topping, now we’ll start the big advance,

With the biggest aspidistra in the world.

When Goring sees it from afar, he’ll say to his old Frau,

Young Joe has got his blood up—war will soon be over now,

For they’re going to string old Hitler from the very highest bow,

Of the Biggest Aspidistra in the World!

After the premiere of Only Angels have Wings (1939) at the Regal Cinema on October 18, Gracie paid a visit to her doctors on Harley Street. They told her once again it was imperative she take at least six months rest, despite how much she wanted to get on with me knittin’ and do her bit for the war. Work would be the best tonic, but the doctors didn’t agree with her and told her flatly that the British weather was not aiding her recovery, so she planned to leave for Capri at the end of the month and return in May to begin on her next film. Before going to Capri Gracie had hoped to see Pat Kirkwood in her latest West End show, but the doctors advised against it. She told the Daily Express she wasn’t worried what people would think or say, but hated the idea. Going away just now is running out on the old country just when I might be needed. The Daily Express suggested the best Gracie could do her country was to go away and come back fighting fit.

Before she left, however, Gracie performed a show for 600 troops in Chelsea Barracks on October 26, travelling from the capital under the cover of darkness. Far from fit, and aching with rheumatism, Gracie performed for the troops in which she took the opportunity to record some songs to honor her Gramophone contract, with the soldiers joining in. Come to think of it, I’ve got everything cleared up for the first time in 18 years. I’ve no work to do. The next film will not be done until May, I think perhaps I could take a rest. Thinking she would be singing in an Army tent, Gracie came just in a white blouse and a skirt, but when she realised the barracks had its own theatre with tabs, she hurried to a West End costume shop to buy a black evening gown for the performance and a bright mauve handkerchief. She told the audience, If you join in, I’ll speak to you, but if not, I’ll still be happy, as she licked her finger and smacked the cheek of the conductor with it to, start the act off refined, you know.

During a singalong medley Gracie put her glasses on to read the words and asked to be excused as she was getting old and didn’t know the words. She winked, whistled, puffed her cheeks till she got red in the face, rolled her eyes, ruffled up her hair, button-holed them all until the sergeant major clasped his thighs and the colonel, in all his glory in the front row, wiped an eye with the back of his hand. Only once did Gracie lean on the piano for support, but quickly pulled herself together and brought the house down with Walter and The Old Lady from Armentieres. Gracie finished the concert of patriotic and comedy songs with a serious version of Smoke gets in Your Eyes. Part of this concert was issued by Regal Zonophone as Gracie with the Troops.

Whilst Gracie was in England, Monty visited America to make sure the Santa Monica house was sorted, as it was likely the pair would go there if Capri was still out of bounds. One day in Genaro’s restaurant, Gracie told Monty about a tree which grew up through the floor of a house in Capri. When Monty made a new entrance for the house in California, he showed Gracie a copperdora tree he had trained to go all around the house. He had taken the idea from the house in Capri as described by Gracie. Trees in the house, then let’s have trees all around inside the house, if it’s trees in the house you like, beautiful trees we shall have, not odd stumps stuck up from the floor. The pair debated whether they could afford the 300 dollars for a little piano, as the removal men unloaded their auction buys and a gardener delivered manure. When presented with both bills, they came to over 600 dollars, twice as much on muck as on the piano we wanted! Monty loved cleanliness, and always stayed at the Ambassador’s Hotel. On one occasion when the pair stayed there the room was filthy and Monty was going around it with his fingers, wanting to call the housekeeper about the state of the room. An army of mops and brooms descended upon the room, and Monty refused to get changed or dressed before it was clean. Gracie was already ready to go out, having not minded the unclean room. He loved polished floors. He would polish them every Monday, which was ‘Polishing Day,’ remembered Gracie.

On October 31, Dr. Horden, Bishop of Blackburn, who Gracie thanked in her broadcast, signed up to become an ARP warden, with his wife signing up to become an ARP ambulance driver. Before going back to Capri, where she would be over Christmas, Gracie threw a Christmas party at her orphanage on November fifth, where she and Monty enjoyed a full day with the children, handing presents out and enjoying a Christmas dinner over a month before the real date. I’m having it just to see their faces when they get the presents. I’m not missing that treat! You see, all my life I have longed for ginger-head twins of my own, but it was not to be. So I borrow other people’s kiddies to play with. Gracie also told the newspapers how she didn’t want to leave England. I have put it off three times already, but I really am going this Wednesday. I’ve been a bit hurt. Some unkind people have asked me if I’m running away from the war. Running away! When I’m longing to go out every night and give concerts for the soldiers, longing to do my bit to help people to laugh and keep courage up. I came back to England, disobeying my doctor, when war broke. I wanted so much to do something, but I simply can’t. What I have done has taxed my strength too much. With her back stuck up with plaster, and wearing flanel next to her skin, Gracie joked, I’m no glamour girl, even though I am blonde. Just listen to me creaking like an old arm chair!

Gracie announced on November ninth she was to stop off in France to do my stuff for the troops, against doctor’s orders. Going over 300 miles out of her way en route home to Capri to make em forget about the war for a bit, Gracie added brightly, Hitler can come along too if he likes. Might help convert him to peaceful ways! It wouldn’t be right to have passed so close without giving the boys a call, would it? After returning to the recording studio for Regal Zonophone for the first time since her operation on November 7th, Gracie, Monty, Mary, and Harry left for France on November tenth and were greeted by a group of autograph hunters at Folkestone as they stayed in a hotel, catching a boat the next day. While here, Gracie purchased a poppy for her coat from Mrs. J. Young, a Canadian who had come to live in Folkestone after her husband had died in the Great War. I shan’t be wanting English money where I’m going, so the poppy day may as well have the lot, told Gracie as she took all her English coins from her pockets and filled the collection jar. On November 11, Gracie was the unannounced surprise guest star at the General Aircraft Limited dinner and concert at the Hearts of Oak Hotel in Ashford, with the menu card for the evening announcing her simply as The Big Surprise.

Her two shows in France were specially organised by the G.H.Q. and presented to the Navy, Army, and Air Force institutes and compered by Sir Seymour Hicks on Tuesday, November 13. This was the first concert to be given overseas by the B.E.F., and Gracie was the first professional variety artist to go overseas and entertain the troops. At 24 hours’ notice, E.N.S.A. provided support acts for Gracie, including Dennis Noble, Tom Webster, the Three Ascots, David Lebank, and Claire Luce, with Hicks complaining that the BBC only broadcast fifteen minutes of Gracie’s appearance. Before leaving from England the entire company had to sign a document swearing they would not give any information away of what they had seen in France whilst out with the B.E.F. When asked by a journalist if she could keep this secret, Gracie replied, Sure. You see, ah’m gormless. I can keep secrets. They go in one ear and out o’t’other.

Before leaving for France Gracie gave a check for £500 to be distributed between the Royal Chelsea Women’s Hospital, the Lifeboat Institute, St. Dunstan’s, the League of Mercy, and the St. John Ambulance. It was decided she couldn’t go through France and just give one or two sing-songs for the great lads, and offered to do two shows a night for a week. The authorities could not get the staffing for such an event, and Gracie was dissuaded by Monty, who told her that her health was far too delicate. Due to delays in organization, Gracie’s French concert was postponed until November 15, and she was accompanied by an orchestra of soldiers from a Lancashire regiment. With the matinee presented in a French cinema in the forward area of the British zone and the evening show in a theatre, all the seats were obtained by a lottery and the boys made a banner to stretch across the front of the cinema in welcoming Gracie. In later years, it was revealed the concerts were in Douai and Lille, with an extra concert the next day at the Apollo Theatre in Lens. Over the shows, Gracie performed to 5,000 front-line troops, and when she sang I’m Sending a Letter to Santa Clause, she had both the audience and herself in tears. Seeing them all here makes me want to cry, remarked Gracie. I’ll make them laugh a little if I can.

En route to the first show the car got stuck in the French mud, and with Gracie feeling like death, Monty and Mary got out to push it just as a convoy of soldiers were driving past. Amongst the paraphernalia of war, Gracie held herself against the car for support and sang the songs which the troops requested, much to Monty’s annoyance, who thought she was going to get pneumonia from singing in the cold. When the soldiers got the car on the way Gracie began to worry about the upcoming concerts, her first full shows after her illness. In her autobiography she writes, Literally shaking with nerves, not least because I felt so weak that I wondered if my knees, let alone my voice, was going to stand up to all that would be expected of me.

On the way to the afternoon show the concert party were caught in an air raid and had to take shelter—where Gracie gave an impromptu concert to a dozen soldiers who were sheltering with them, and eventually dug the car out of the mud after Gracie had leaned against the back of the truck to sing The Lord’s Prayer.

The show that evening, introduced by Seymour Hicks, was broadcast via radio to soldiers along the front line and also back home to the BBC, where millions of listeners tuned in to hear Gracie behind enemy lines. So popular was the broadcast that Regal Zonophone issued a two-disc record set containing half of Gracie’s section from the show, containing seven of her performed songs from Somewhere in France, and Pathe recorded sections of the performance for their newsreels. The BBC weren’t generally keen on broadcasting E.N.S.A.’s shows, and they initially turned down Walter Macqueen-Pope’s suggestion that Gracie’s concert should be broadcast. Andy Merriment, in Greasepaint and Cordite, tells how Macqueen-Pope rallied to the press to come to his assistance, and the BBC conceded to broadcast just fifteen minutes of the half-hour concert. Basil Dean later remembered, Gracie’s voice over the ether was like a very light piercing the fog of official censorship. It brought the human side of the war home to every listener and afforded one more striking example of the triumph of personality over red tape.

After the show, Gracie returned to the Lancashire barracks and gave another impromptu performance for the 150 troops stationed there from Lancashire. In a black-out concert, she performed mainly her old comedy numbers, including, Fred Fanakapan, A Coople o’Ducks, and Nowt about Owt before returning late into the next morning to her hotel. Basil Dean had gone over to France to watch the first concerts, and later recalled, Gracie walked on stage through a barrage of sound that drowned midway through Seymour’s opening sentence of introduction. She shouted, ‘Now then, lads, there’s no mucking about!’ My throat went dry and I caught myself holding back some tears.

Over the next few days, whilst the British press was enthusiastic and positive for Gracie’s efforts, the Vicar of Eastbourne, Canon F. P. Hughes, wrote into one paper and told, Whilst Gracie is a person of extraordinary goodness and kindness, a number of people were distressed about a part of her broadcast, coming from someone whom people love and always have an admiration for, and how he was unhappy about a particular aside given by Gracie during one of her songs. The sordid jest occurred during I Never Cried so Much in all My Life, as Gracie sings, When up the village street there came the father of her child. She wasn’t married. But he was! Which the troops laughingly roared at. The vicar, however, thought Gracie was stooping unnecessarily low to attract a laugh at a contentious and anti-religious issue. Bert Aza responded to this by saying, If Gracie thinks that she has offended one person in a million she would be very upset about it.

Gracie and her companions arrived back in Naples on November 23 via Rome, where she commented, Coming into Rome after the blackout of London and Paris is like coming into a carnival city. With rheumatism still troubling her, Gracie returned to Capri to spend the winter moving my furniture around the house and getting some rest as the doctor ordered! With sixty days of rest planned for Gracie, by November 25 she had already wired Bert Aza to arrange a series of concerts from Christmas to New Year at the front, and to make the arrangements. Bert got in touch with Basil Dean at E.N.S.A., who helped arrange the concerts and sent out a selection of comedy scripts for Gracie to read through and practice. When some medical circles got hold of this news, doctors from around the country wrote into the tabloid newspapers and claimed Gracie was being treated unfairly, as one good cause after another were clamouring for her services.

When back in Capri, Gracie wrote a letter to the Daily Express explaining how much she had enjoyed her time in France. I don’t want any money for this letter. Whatever payment you like to make, send it to the boys here with my love. Detailing one of the most wonderful experiences of my life, entertaining the troops in France, Gracie sugarcoats the harsh conditions of the battlefront, in line with government censorship. The boys were all in such high spirits, and all the time I was in the Army area I never saw a gloomy face. Revisiting this same event in later years, Gracie furthers that. I was feeling like death. Somehow hanging onto the door of the car to prop myself up, I sang, amplifying what she had initially written in 1939 as, I wasn’t feeling too good due to bad ferry crossing.

Gracie’s Christmas concerts were announced on December ninth, and on Christmas Eve Gracie was to be back somewhere in France, supported by Jack Payne’s Band. She left Capri on December 17, giving her a week to get to France for her performance to the troops, which was to be broadcast at 8:40pm on Christmas Eve as an appeal fundraiser for the Watford Peace Memorial Hospital and Voluntary Hospitals in Great Britain. There was a demand for over 40,000 tickets for the troops at her concert in Reims, and tickets were again allocated by a lottery system with the performance broadcast to England and France by the BBC.

After the concert, returning to her billet, Gracie was met by two young airmen who each presented her with a ten-shilling postal order, sent to the lads from their homes for Christmas. Protesting she could not take money off soldiers fighting in France, they themselves protested and insisted Gracie take the postal orders for her orphanage, which made her cry. Gracie told the newspapers after her Christmas broadcast, There was a bit of a crush under the mistletoe. The boys, bless ‘em, embraced me real hearty and have bruised my lip! Mary Davey even took to the stage during Gracie’s Christmas concerts, taking part in a comedy sketch with Gracie. The Daily Mail that Christmas heralded Gracie as, This invalid with the heart of a lion who sacrificed herself for the British forces in the cold of France.

E.N.S.A.’s organisation of the first Christmas concerts was a little less than chaotic, with Jack Payne (who had just completed a three-week tour of France with his dance band) missing four concerts completely due to lack organisation—including the Christmas Day concert with Gracie. Billy Cotton and his band missed concerts due to a bridge collapse, leaving one lorry with the band on one side and the other lorry with their instruments on the opposite side of the river. On Christmas Eve, Gracie broadcast a five-minute appeal on behalf of the Watford Hospital and Voluntary Hospitals around the UK. She spoke personally to the listeners. I don’t suppose there’s a soul listening in tonight who needs to be told that being ill is no picnic. I didn’t, but being well looked after made all the difference though, and such a big difference. And I just hate to think of anybody being ill without having proper attention and care, and lots of people wouldn’t, you know, if it wasn’t for our wonderful voluntary hospitals.

By January 1940, Gracie’s appeal had reached £15,000, almost tripling expectations, and was expected to total around £20,000. The Bank of England specially set aside three rooms and fifteen members of staff to deal with the envelopes, checks, and donations pouring in. One of the stranger donations to the hospital appeal came from Miss Sweatman of The Bakery in Chipping Sodbury. She wrote to Gracie and asked her to accept a pedigree Siamese kitten named Sally on behalf of the hospital appeal. Suggesting the kitten may be auctioned off with the proceeds sent to the fund, Gracie wrote to her, I do feel it is kind of you to offer your Sally on behalf of the hospitals, and I am writing to say how much we would like to have her and adopt your suggestion.

Gracie’s Christmas Day concert managed to go ahead as planned and was broadcast as Behind the lines in a NAAFI variety concert organised by ENSA with Jack Payne and his Band from ‘Somewhere in France.’ Highlights of the concert were later issued as Gracie with the Air Force in two parts on Regal Zonophone, and again the newsreel cameras were there to capture some of the performance. With Harry at the piano, Gracie enters the stage to The Trek Song, Little Grey Home in the West, Fred Fanakapan, My Hero, FDR Jones, Little Sir Echo, Romay, The Biggest Aspidistra, The Bells of St. Mary’s, O Come All Ye Faithful, and Ave Maria. The two new inclusions of Gracie’s repertoire, and popular with the troops and audience, were Goodnight Children, Everywhere and Please Leave My Butter Alone! Following the concerts, Gracie and Monty stayed in France to perform in the run-up to new year.

During the Christmas broadcast Gracie performed the Gabriel Rogers/Harry Phillips song, Goodnight Children, Everywhere. So popular was this, music shops quickly ran out of the sheet music and more had to be printed. In total, an estimated 70,000 copies of the sheet music were sold before Christmas 1939.

Gracie wrote to one newspaper, When it’s all over I’m going to get a ticking off from my doctors. I know it, and can take it. The fact is, they wouldn’t have given me permission to leave Capri if they knew what I was going to do in France. Think I’ve worked harder over there than I ever have in my life. How my voice is standing it I do not know, but touchwood is doing splendidly to date and hopefully will carry through. Really, I had a tough time, and Jack Payne and his boys and girls all work themselves out. Well, Jack starts the show at the theatre, I rush off and go to shows for the boys in out-of-the-way camps, sometimes as far as 20 miles away, but it’ll be worth it. On New Year’s Day, for instance, I did stop and sing to hospitals and camps, it meant going further out to sing and getting stuck in the mud.

At one show on December 28, Jack Payne’s Band had been delayed by bad road conditions, so the show had to go on without them. Improvising something quickly for the lads, Gracie handed Monty, Harry, and Mary the script to the Banktop dinner scene from The Shows the Thing, the Archie Pitt show. Mary, who had never been on the stage before, took the part of Mrs. Banktop, and Gracie again as Victoria, the charlady which had earned her great applause on the London stage. Although the script was dated, the audience of Army personnel enjoyed it just as much as the London audiences did ten years previously, as the company gagged and joked their way through Archie’s script. Even by this stage in 1939 there were calls in certain newspapers for Gracie to be made a dame in the New Year Honors List, but this did not occur for another forty years. The press dubbed her the Modern Florence Nightingale, as her radio appeal from France was still drawing in letters and donations, and by mid-January over 42,000 donations had been received.

Gracie expressed a wish to sing to the men of the Navy, having already sung for the B.E.F. and the R.A.F., so Bert Aza looked into the likelihood of being able to do this when she returned back to England. After spending Christmas entertaining in France, and a total of thirty-five concerts, singing over four hundred songs in ten days, Gracie returned home with the aim for more troop shows, but not after visiting Earl’s Court Circus with Monty and her nephews and nieces. Bert also arranged for Gracie to visit Hollywood to discuss her next film, and so it looked entirely unlikely Gracie was to get the rest which she so desperately needed, as the press lovingly described her as, a gallant, talented, and unselfish lady. The scheduling for a concert for the Navy was arranged for two performances for the Senior Service, to be similarly broadcast by the BBC and issued by Regal Zonophone, as her BEF and RAF concerts had been. Also scheduled to take part in the concert for the Navy were G. H. Elliott, the Four Aces, Jack Radcliffe, Jack Anthony, and Younkman and his Gipsy Orchestra.

Gracie arrived back in England on January fifth after three days of travelling and delays, and told the press waiting for her at the Dorchester Hotel, I’m so tired, I feel I could sleep for a week! But I shall get up tomorrow. It was a joy to sing for the lads, but war-time travelling over there is no picnic.

Travelling to Greenock on the West Coast of Scotland, where the concert for the Navy was to be broadcast on January seventh, from Somewhere in England, Gracie spent the afternoon on a warship where she ate lunch with the admiralty and visited a battleship early in the evening before her broadcast at an unspecified town hall. After the show, Gracie came off stage to meet some of the sailors, and Southampton sailor George Cope blushed when Gracie kissed him and wished him a Happy New Year, as did George Eckart, another sailor from Manchester who presented Gracie with a bunch of carnations, which she split up and gave blooms to the sailors. On her way back from Glasgow the next day Gracie’s train stopped at Crewe, where Mary disembarked with a £5 gift from Gracie to go and visit her mother in Stockport and to come back to Gracie when she’d finished.

Basil Dean personally introduced Gracie at the concert in Scotland for the Navy, something which he had never done before. From somewhere in Britain, here, in this fine municipal building given to us for this occasion, there are crowded, row upon row, hundreds of British Naval officers and men who I think are having a good time. [Cheers] And we, whose proud duty it is to provide these service entertainments, are thrilled in our turn as we listen to the tumultuous music of enjoyment, which gives us a sense that our work for the country is being usefully done. German radio please note [audience cheers]. But, without any variation from [inaudible] in B-flat, that these are the only official ENSA concerts at which Gracie Fields has appeared at home, and the only ones in which she will take part, prior to obeying her doctor’s orders and taking that rest which she has hitherto denied herself. [Applause] So, it seems only right that she should have her wish and conclude a truly remarkable tour of voluntary service for the Army and the Air Force overseas by coming here to sing for the Senior Service. [Applause] As director of entertainment, it is my privilege to make public acknowledgement of the debt that the Navy, Army, and Air Force institutes and ENSA owe to this great personality. [Heckle: ‘Cheers, Gracie!’] Travelling hundreds of miles in bitter weather, she has brought joy and relaxation to many thousands overseas. She would go on doing it for the duration, if it were not that, as the darling herself puts it, ‘time to get on with the old knitting.’ The best propaganda for victory is not words, but is spirit, a spirit of vigilant cheerfulness, and what better doctor of good cheer can there be, but ‘Our Gracie.’ And so we say to her, the services thank you. The whole country thanks you.

Gracie made her last appearance in London on January 11 before leaving the next day for Capri and eventually America. Jenny and Fred had already left to live in Santa Monica, as Jenny’s sight was deteriorating and doctors had advised sunshine would help. They were later joined by Edith and her two children, as well as Dorothy and Michael, who stayed in Gracie’s apartments on Ocean Boulevard which she had bought earlier in the 1930s. They thought it reasonable and safer to be in Santa Monica as opposed to England whilst the war was on, and America was not currently engaged in the hostilities. Betty, Roy, and Tony applied for U.S. naturalisation on September 1, 1939, so it made sense for the rest of the family to be close together whilst Tommy and Duggie Wakefield remained in Britain to entertain troops and to be based at the house in Peacehaven, along with Mary Barratt when she was not travelling with Gracie.

Whilst still in London, Gracie presented six prizes to the Unity Pools winners at an annual competition. Around this time, Gracie employed a new secretary, Mrs. Agosti, formerly Margaret Finlayson of Liverpool, who was to accompany her on her trip to France, Capri, and onto Hollywood (and who would later marry the Hungarian composer Miklos Rozsa after moving to America in 1940 with Gracie.) Before Gracie left England, she went to the London Hippodrome to see Alice Lloyd in her latest show before setting off to Paris, where she watched Maurice Chevalier at the Casino de Paris. Shortly before they left England the couple also visited Monty’s favourite restaurant, Genaro’s, and an argument ensued at the table. They had been talking about life and death, and Monty said, I don’t know about believing in God, because He condemns you to death the day you are born. The strongly, but privately, religious Gracie remembered, I went for him. I told him he was stupid and that he was a coward. He had recently written in a French newspaper, Gracie is not pretty in the photogenic sense, but she is beautiful in the human sense, and Gracie joked, He’s got me all wrong, because Muma always tells me I’m beautiful!

With Gracie away, on January 29 an application was made on her behalf by her solicitors to make absolute the decree nisi granted to Gracie the previous July, and was obtained on Gracie’s undefended position, granted by Justice Henn Collins on January 29. Responding to press rumours, Gracie announced, I am going to see what it’s like to be free. Monty and I are very great friends and he is on his way here to discuss films, not marriage. I’m sticking to me music.

By the end of January Gracie was back in Capri and packing cases to leave for America, where it was planned she was to marry Monty now that the divorce from Archie had been made absolute. Jenny had written from Santa Monica and asked they hold the wedding over there so she could witness it, with her failing eyesight. Monty had proposed to Gracie over Christmas in France with a large engagement ring cluttered with diamonds—so large Gracie could not bend her finger. After persevering with the ring for a few days she finally told him, I can’t wear it, Monty, it makes me feel like a barmaid. He promptly went out and found a smaller ring, a delicate ring in blue and red with two rows of small, square diamonds, which Gracie wore every day, even through her marriage to Monty. It is rumoured that after Gracie’s death Larry Grayson took possession of this ring.

Gracie, Monty, Mary, and Margaret Agosti arrived in New York on February 15 aboard the Italian liner Rex, having departed from Naples eight days previously. On their visa the party stated as their address in America as the Beverley Wiltshire Hotel in California, with Margaret listing hers as 346 Peck Drive—the home of Fred and Jenny—and under her coat Gracie wore her CBE medal and police badge presented to her the previous year.

On March 13, Grace Stansfield and Mario Bianchi filed notice of the intention to be married at the Los Angeles Marriage License Bureau. Signing under their real names in the hope the press wouldn’t get wind of the marriage was unsuccessful, as someone at the Bureau tipped the press off and the couple were greeted by photographers as they left the application centre. They tore up the license and drove back home to Santa Monica, applying for a license of marriage there, which was granted the following Monday.

Whilst Hitler was meeting up with Mussolini at the Brenner Pass in the Alps on March 18, 1940, in Santa Monica Gracie and Monty were married in a private service held in their home. With scriptwriter Tom Geraghty acting as best man, and Betty as matron of honor, the wedding service at her apartments on Ocean Boulevard was conducted by Municipal Judge Joseph Marichetti, an old friend of Monty’s. Wearing a blue serge dress, white pumps, blue pillbox hat, and carrying a bouquet of orange carnations, Gracie married Monty in front of her family and an audience of guests including Monty’s old friends Alfred Hitchcock, Douglas Fairbanks, and a host of Hollywood’s greatest players. Judge Marichetti remarked during the ceremony, To have the honor to unite my boyhood friend with a life mate whose generous benefactions make her universally loved and respected, is indeed a great privilege. Monty and Gracie planned to have their vows sworn before God at Telescombe Church in Peacehaven when all the family were back in England, as my marriage to Archie had always troubled me and felt like we were going to a bookmaker’s office. This time I didn’t want to be in a bridal veil, but I wanted to make my vows before God. The newly married couple planned a European honeymoon beginning on April seventh, and guests at the wedding received engraved Swan Visofil pens as souvenirs.

In her autobiography, Gracie remembered, We stayed at a little wayside motel for the night. It was quiet and clean, and nobody recognized us. Next day we drove on, but somehow both of us felt a bit isolated, almost lonely. Having grown accustomed to constantly being around crowds since the start of their relationship, married and isolated in America was a strange experience for the couple and they decided to return back to Santa Monica. No sooner had they got home had Basil Dean called and informed Gracie of two ENSA concerts in conjunction with the Téâtre aux Armées, promoting good will between France and England. Gracie agreed to immediately return, leaving for New York on March 26 to be back in England by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, Archie Pitt and Annie Lipman were married in March 1940 after being together for over twenty years. The pair were living in a cottage in Rocombe, Uplyme in the West Country of England after moving away from their home at 46 Willifield Way due to the Blitz. Archie was very unwell by this time, suffering heavily from cancer, and was a well-known figure in the community. One young boy from Uplyme, now well into his eighties, remembers Archie as a nice man, often short of breath, who owned a Jaguar car and sometimes gave me a lift to school. Local research has been conducted by John J. Smith, who now lives in Archie’s old cottage and found a collection of late 1930s vitamin and medicine bottles in the garden, which Archie obviously used to attempt to combat his illness. Mrs. Murison, who lived at Upper Cottage some hundred yards from Archie and Annie, worked as a cook and housekeeper at Little Winters, a large