I first heard of Thomas Round when he came out to Johannesburg in 1964 with a full English company of ‘Lilac Time’ although I probably had heard some of his recordings when Webster Booth presented his Gilbert and Sullivan programme on the SABC in 1962.
I first heard of Thomas Round when he came out to Johannesburg in 1964 with a full English company of ‘Lilac Time’ although I probably had heard some of his recordings when Webster Booth presented his Gilbert and Sullivan series on the SABC in 1962. The company presented this work at the sumptuous His Majesty’s Theatre in Commissioner Street and the company stayed at the New Library Hotel across the road. In those days the New Library Hotel was a decent enough hotel and there were a number of theatres and cinemas in Commissioner Street, one of the main streets in Johannesburg running from East to West through the city.
New Library Hotel, Commissioner Street.His Majesty’s Theatre, Commissioner Street.
Thomas Round had been a principal tenor with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company for a number of years. When Sir Malcolm Sargent was supervising a batch of new recordings of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas I believe that he and Thomas Round had an altercation and in the end, the young tenor at D’Oyly Carte, Philip Potter was chosen to sing those roles.
In 1964 I was still accompanying for Webster Booth when Anne Ziegler had other engagements and, having obtained my singing diplomas, I had started giving singing lessons in their studio in town on days when they were not teaching there. One day, shortly before my 21st birthday, Thomas Round and Marion Studholme, the leading principals in ‘Lilac Time’ arrived at the door of the studio. They had come to collect a score of ‘The Yeomen of the Guard’ and were enquiring about studios to rent in Johannesburg. Presumably the Booths had promised that they could borrow the score when they had given a party to welcome the cast of ‘Lilac Time’ earlier. They were very pleasant indeed and I enjoyed seeing the show a few days later as a birthday treat. Webster had dinner with Tom Round one evening at the Library Hotel.
Early in 1966 I arrived in London and obtained a job at the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music which was then situated in Bedford Square. There I met Margaret W. She had not been there when I first arrived as she had been dressing for D’Oyly Carte for a week during their London season. Her mother had told the Board that Margaret had the ‘flu because she was so keen to work there. She was a few years younger than me and had all the G&S recordings at her home in St Albans. She was also a very great admirer of Thomas Round and when she heard that I had met him in South Africa she persuaded me to go to see ‘Lilac Time’ at the Golder’s Green Hippodrome! There I met Thomas Round again (and his wife this time). They invited me to have a drink with them after the show. Their son had graduated from university earlier that day and they were very proud of him.
Margaret lived in St Albans and eventually I found a music and drama teaching job at Wheathampstead near St Albans. My parents left South Africa and settled in St Albans and I went to live with them there. Thomas Round was living in Watford, close to St Albans and Margaret persuaded me to go with her one afternoon and sit at a bus station opposite his house! He did not put in an appearance much to her disappointment. She, and a number of fellow-fans followed him around to his various engagements. One of them even travelled the length and breadth of the country hoping to have a kind word from the great man when he emerged from the theatre! I went to one of his concerts with Margaret and the ‘gang’ and when he came out of the theatre, he said, ‘Not you lot again!’
I joined the St Albans Operatic Society and sang in several ‘Gilbert and Sullivans for All’ whilst I was there. As Anne mentioned in her comment, they were very pleasant shows with prominent G&S performers and a chorus made up from local operatic societies. Margaret and I were invited by one of her friends in the company to have a meal with the D’Oyly Carte company between shows in one of the towns south of London. I remember Donald Adams and Philip Potter being at the meal.
All so many years ago now but it came back to me when I read Suzanne’s comment in the group in the middle of last night! I would certainly like to read Tom Round’s autobiography some time but as the postal system in South Africa has all-but collapsed and the government plans to close over 200 more post offices, I doubt if I will ever be able to do that. I would like to know what he had to say about meeting Anne and Webster while he was in Johannesburg. He was 13 years younger than Webster, of a different generation.
A member of the Webster Booth-Anne Ziegler Appreciation Group on Facebook suggested that it would be interesting to see various places associated with Webster Booth and Anne Ziegler. Here are places where they stayed during their lifetimes, and photographs of the buildings.
Arbury Road, Nuneaton
Webster Booth’s parents, Edwin Booth and Sarah Webster, were married in 1889. Sarah came from Chilvers Coton, Nuneaton and the address on the wedding certificate was Arbury Road, Nuneaton.
Their first home as a married couple was at 33 Nineveh Road, Handsworth, and it was there that their eldest son, Edgar John Booth was born in 1890.
It is the house with the blue door and is situated round the corner from Soho Road, Handsworth, where Edwin Booth ran a Ladies and Girls hairdressers at 157 Soho Road. The family moved to 157 Soho Road about 1895 and it was there that Webster Booth was born in 1902. It is now the site of a multi-purpose store.
33 Nineveh Road, Handsworth
Webster’s father’s hairdressing shop was originally at 187 Soho Road. It is now the site of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Below: 157 Soho Road, Handsworth. The family moved from Nineveh Road to premises about the hairdressing shop in the mid 1890s.
Anne Ziegler was born Irene Frances Eastwood of 22 June 1910 at Marmion Road, Sefton Park, Liverpool. Marmion Road, Sefton Park
When Webster Booth was 9 years old he was accepted as a chorister at Lincoln Cathedral. Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln (below) Collage and photos: Charles S.P. Jenkins
After Webster’s voice broke, he returned home to Handsworth and attended Aston Commercial School which had opened in 1915, with the idea of becoming an accountant like his older brother, Edwin Norman. Edgar Keey, the father of his first wife, Winifred, was the headmaster there.
Webster Booth married Winifred Keey at the Fulham Registry Office in 1924. They made their home at 43 Prospect Road, Moseley with his older brother and family, where their son Keith was born on 12th June 1925. After Webster returned from a tour to Canada with D’Oyly Carte he decided to leave the company to become a freelance singer. He and his family went to London but in 1930 Winifred deserted Webster and they were divorced in 1931.
43 Prospect Road, Moseley, Birmingham (below)Photo: Michael Collen
43 Prospect Road, Moseley. Photo: Michael Collen.
Webster Booth left the D’Oyly Carte after the tour of Canada, changed his name from Leslie W. Booth, as he had been known in the D’oyly Carte Company, to Webster Booth and went to live in London to try his luck as a freelance singer.
The family lived in Streatham Hill, the old home of Tom Howell, leader of the Opieros Concert Party with whom he sang for several seasons, and – at the time of his divorce from Winifred Keey – he was living in Biggin Hill.
In October 1932 Webster Booth married his second wife, Dorothy Annie Alice Prior, stage name Paddy Prior. Paddy Prior was a soubrette, dancer, mezzo soprano and comedienne who had been on the stage since her late teens. She was born in Chandos Road, Fulham on 4 December 1904. During their marriage – 1932-1938 they lived at 5 Crescent Court, Golders Green Crescent.
In 1934 Irené Frances Eastwood moved to London and changed her name to Anne Ziegler to appear as the top voice in the octet of By Appointment, starring Maggie Teyte. She lived at 72 Lauderdale Mansions, Lauderdale Road, Maida Vale.
Lauderdale Mansions, Maida Vale.
Anne and Webster were married on 5 November 1938, first at Paddington Registry Office, then had their wedding blessed in a special service for divorced persons at St Ethelburga’s Church, Bishopsgate.
Photo: Charles S.P Jenkins
Anne and Webster lived at the same address before and after his divorce from Paddy Prior in 1938 and in 1939 they moved into a bigger flat in the same building.
In 1941 they purchased a big house with a big garden from the theatrical couple, Ernest Butcher and Muriel George. This house was called Crowhurst at 98 Torrington Park, Friern Barnet N12.
Crowhurst, 98 Torrington Park, Friern Barnet N12.
Anne and Webster in the garden at Crowhurst, early 1940s.
Photos of Crowhurst today: Pamela Davies
Crowhurst sitting room today.
When they returned from their concert tour to New Zealand, Australia and South Africa in 1948, they realised that Crowhurst was too big for them to manage at a time when it was difficult to find suitable domestic staff. They decided to buy a smaller house at Frognal Cottage, 102 Frognal, Hampstead NW3.
Listening to one of their new recordings in the sitting room at Frognal Cottage, with Smokey (1950)
Photos of Frognal Cottage today: Pamela Davies.
They sold Frognal Cottage in 1952 and moved to a house nearby at 9 Ellerdale Road, Hampstead, where they remained until they left to settle in South Africa in 1956.
9 Ellerdale Road, Hampstead.
I have created a similar post of the South African and UK residences where Anne and Webster lived from 1956 to 2003.
Listening to their latest recording at home in Frognal Cottage.
When Webster Booth arrived at the television studios to sing Silent Night with the Luton Girls’ Choir, he discovered to his horror that they had rehearsed it in English, though he had planned to sing the original German version. Hurriedly he learned the English words and, to make sure, had them written on a large piece of paper and hung above the camera. Just as the song was starting the paper blew away, and he was left with only an imperfect memory of the words. His wife, Anne Ziegler, crept up to the camera, stood next to it with the music, and mouthed the words to him.
So perfectly did they work together that viewers never noticed anything amiss. This close partnership has existed for the last twelve years, ever since their marriage and joint debut. Both have continued their separate careers as tenor and soprano, but it is as Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth, Singing the Songs you Love, that they are best known.
Some musicians deplore the syrupy sweetness of their repertoire and their flamboyant arrangements, but they are in constant demand at music halls and Sunday concerts, earning from £200 to £400 a week; the 500 gramophone records they have made sell in hundreds of thousands; they keep a Daimler and three servants; and their popularity extends from the working-class housewife who has named her children Anne, Webster, Leslie (Booth’s first name), and Keith (his son’s name) to Queen Mary, who picked out their act as a favourite she wished to hear in her eightieth birthday BBC programme.
Anne and Webster pack for a concert tour. Smokey, their Cairn Terrier, is on the bed!
On the stage they are the handsome, romantic couple who sing duets about love and memories, personifying the timeless happy-ever-after world of the fairy tales. At home, they resume a married life much more like those of their audiences. He is a tall, kindly fifty-year-old, who cheerfully calls his large-sized nose a “conk” and can never make up his mind whether or not to keep a moustache. She is shrewd, gentle and house-proud, likes making her own clothes, and is successfully keeping middle age at bay. She is sensitive about her exact age – forty-one – and it is inked out of articles stuck in her Press-cuttings book.
Sometimes they bicker, like every married couple, “But when we get on the stage we forget all our differences. The best way to make up any husband-and-wife quarrel is to do some work together,” says Booth, in a voice which has never completely lost its Birmingham accent.
Their approach to their work is light-hearted. “We’ve sung most of our songs so many times that it’s practically impossible to make a mistake, and Boo sometimes tries to make me dry up, just for fun.” says Anne, whom “Boo” calls “Lottie.” He whispers awful things under his breath, won’t let go of my hand, makes faces at me, and accidentally-on purpose flips me across the face when he’s gesturing. And I have to keep going as though nothing was wrong.”
The Chappell Grand Piano in the music room at Frognal Cottage, Frognal.
Their “Good Luck” Rings
But to sing sentimental songs successfully, it is necessary to be sentimental oneself, and the Booths, whose home is full of pets, conscientiously wear “good luck” rings they gave each other early in their acquaintance.
They met in 1934, when Booth, a recognised singer, was given the part of Faust in the first British colour film ever made. Two hundred girls applied to play Marguerite; among them was a slim blonde who had come from Liverpool three months before to join a musical comedy. Born Irené Eastwood, she had changed her surname to that of her German grandmother, Ziegler, and put her favourite Anne in front. Her looks and her voice got her the job. She fell in love with the leading man, and into a divorce suit, for he was married already.
Until then, his career had been solid without being spectacular. He had sung at concert parties with Arthur Askey, but was discouraged when an old woman got up after a show and loudly complained to her companion: “Yon singer’s not bad when ‘e croons, but when ‘e sings loud ‘e’s ‘orrible.”
Booth’s father, a hairdresser, was relieved when his nine-year-old son won a place in Lincoln Cathedral choir, for it meant a free education. On of the first rules laid down for him there was against going to football matches, in case he injured his voice shouting. “This was a blow for me, because I was mad on football. I played goalie, and when I was fourteen, the Aston Villa coach saw me and offered me a place in the Villa Colts. I couldn’t decide whether to accept, and played truant from my singing lesson to watch them again and make up my mind. Unfortunately – as I thought then – I was spotted at the game and got such a thrashing I dared not take the offer.”
The choirmaster’s methods were none too gentle. He used to push a broken baton into the children’s mouths to force them wide open and push their tongues down. The psychological scar has remained with Booth, and even today, he is unable to have his throat examined, the touch of anything stiff on his tongue making him violently sick.
This was highly inconvenient when, in the opening scene on the first night of The Vagabond King, an actor duelling with him over-enthusiastically hit him across the throat. He was almost knocked out. By the last curtain he could hardly raise a sound. A specialist was sent for, but because of Booth’s inability to allow his larynx to be examined, nothing could be done.
“He kept trying to look down, but I almost bit his fingers off. In the end he just packed his bag and walked out.” It was a week before Booth could sing again.
Audition Was a Failure
Anne was going to be a dancer, but her instep dropped when she was thirteen, and she studied singing instead. When the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company came to Liverpool, she was granted an audition. But the night before, she caught ‘flu and the audition was a miserable failure. In the chorus was Webster Booth, who had become an accountant, but who had gone back to singing later. They did not meet then, however.
“I suppose my disappointment was Fate’s way of paying me back for the fiendish child I had been,” says Anne. “I had always refused to do any work at school, and at home I played such tricks as pretending to faint and clutching the tablecloth as I fell to the ground, bringing all the tea-things with me. I was such a wicked child that my mother kept a riding whip on the dining table between my equally naughty brother and me, to thrash us when we misbehaved.”
The Booth’s schedule is sometimes crammed to bursting point. Recently, in Glasgow, they finished a concert at nine-twenty on Saturday evening and while Anne caught an express to London, Webster caught the train to Preston, in Lancashire, where he had left his car. He arrived there before dawn, slept for two hours and drove nearly 100 miles across country to Ashby-de-la-Zouch for a concert on Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile, in London, Anne packed some bags, and went to Luton to sing in Tom Jones. After his concert, Webster drove to London, and they met in time to sing at the Albert Hall on Sunday evening. After that, they hurried down to Eastbourne, where they started a week’s variety on Monday evening.
Trooped Into Bedroom
“The only way we can carry on is to sleep in the afternoon whenever we can,” explains Anne. This, however, had an awkward consequence when they sang for the British Legion in Motherwell. It was afternoon by the time got there, and they had eaten lunch. But the Legion had arranged a banquet for them, which they attended as briefly as possible before retiring to an adjoining room to rest. “Unfortunately, the people at the luncheon mistook our room for the cloakroom,” says Anne, “and when they finished lunch they all trooped into our bedroom looking for their coats. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.”
She takes a trunkful of crinolines wherever she goes. They have become her trade mark, and one of them had 100 yards of mauve and pink net in it. She has nine in her wardrobe, including one made ten years ago and worn so often that she dare not appear in it again. “People would say it was the only one I had.” She keeps a diary of every engagement, with a not of each dress, so that she does not repeat herself next time she sings at the same place. The crinolines cost from 85 to 240 guineas each.
Her husband wears out three dress suits a year. “It’s the packing that ruins them.” On the maiden voyage of Imperial Star to Australia, water flooded the hold, and all his dress shirts, ties and waistcoats were soaked and dyed by the colours near them. Booth collected all the disinfectant in the ship and soaked them in it. The captain sent a radio message to Teneriffe, the next port, and a laundry was standing by to wash them. This restored their looks, but six weeks later, as he was dressing for a concert, it disintegrated. The next one did the same right through his stock. He had to borrow a shirt before he could sing.
Although they have received 250 guineas for nine minutes’ work – when they travelled to Perth for an all star broadcast cabaret to launch an hotel – their regular fee is £150 for a concert. Cabaret appearances are usually worth £100, and they get a guaranteed minimum of £300 a week on the halls. On top of this are royalties for their gramophone records, which have been as much as £1,000 a year. “But everything costs a lot,” points out ex-accountant Booth. “Our house and secretary and servants run into £50 every week, and our accompanist gets up to £30 a week, plus expenses. And we still have the agent and the Income Tax man.
With Smokey at Frognal Cottage.
For their fees they have to perform so many songs which, however pleasant for the first few times to hear and to sing, become almost sickening after a thousand airings. “Sometimes I feel I’ll go mad if I have to sing We’ll Gather Lilacs or The Keys of Heaven just once more,” confesses Anne. “But at every concert we are bound to get several requests for them and we are servants of the public.”
Sir Henry’s Question
To escape the monotony they have made several forays into grand opera and both have sung in oratorio. But on the one occasion he sang at a Promenade Concert, Booth felt he was insulted by Sir Henry Wood. He and Parry Jones had been asked to sing the tenor parts in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia. and he arrived before Jones. Sir Henry met him and asked, before the whole BBC Chorus, “Are you the stand-in for Parry Jones?” He was so offended that he has stubbornly refused to sing again at the Proms although Sir Henry has since died. “It’s very naughty of him,” says Anne.
As for the future they talk – wistfully, but without conviction – of retiring and settling down in the country. Television is opening up a new field for them and they give it greater attention than the immediate payment warrants.
“Sometimes when we’re feeling particularly pleased with ourselves, we like to think that everyone in Britain has been made a little happier just for a moment sometime by our singing. After all, there’s no harm in being sentimental, is there?”
I am not sure of the origins of Femina and Women’s Life – it may have been a supplement to a newspaper at the time. It should not be confused with the Women’s magazine, Femina, which appeared in the 1980s. The photographs are taken from a rather over-the-top article, written by Fiona Fraser and Bill Brewer.
Husband-and-wife team Fiona Fraser and Bill Brewer visit the Booths of Parktown North.
Theatre Couples at Home – 8
“We met Princess Alexandra and she signed the photograph for us.”
On a rural corner in Parktown North, there is a discreetly wood-fenced corner, over the top of which can just be glimpsed the roof of a charming home. By the wicker gate on an upturned stone is written the address, in which paint, probably by Leslie – otherwise known all over the world, as Webster Booth. We will call him Leslie so there is no confusion!
Leslie Webster Booth. Lyric tenor, Star of musicals, light opera, variety. In great demand for oratorio. Actor, well-known radio personality, film actor, writer, teacher of singing, film star of “The Laughing Lady”. “Waltz Time”, “The Robber Symphony”. Royal Command performer. Dog lover.Anne Ziegler, lyric soprano, Principal Boy, actress, recording and TV star with her partner-husband. Operettas, musicals, producer. Keen gardener, teacher of singing, Royal Command performer.
“You’d never guess that one of the best-known singing acts in the world lived here,” said Fiona to her daughter, Tandi, as Bill heaved the tape recorder from the back seat.
The Brewer trio walked through the wooden gate into a sunken garden, silky with tenderly-tended lawn and disciplined flower beds. A long, lean Leslie left manuscript, records and stop watch on the patio lounge, and came to greet them.
The slim and elegant Anne put down her seething hosepipe reluctantly, signalled the assistant gardener to turn the water off, stripped off her gardening gloves, and joined her guests.
“Coffee or tea?” she asked with Lancashire forthrightness.
Leslie led the way into the sweet coolness of their home. Tandi and her parents were fascinated by the warm sheen of the old and beautiful wood of various pieces of furniture, especially the bric-a-brac cabinet with the tiny treasures fro all over the world on its shelves.
Leslie moved a rocking-chair gently, disclosing a shaggy small dog. “I think you’ll find a plug for the recorder behind the black cat,” he said.
The Brewers regarded the large, somnolent cat with caution. They’d visited quite a few establishments during these interviews.
The coffee and milk were poured out of a lovely pair of silver antique jugs. The Brewer eyes shone enviously. Anne explained, “A present from Marion Rawicz of Rawicz and Landauer.”
The Brewer eyebrows made into interrogation marks. Anne explained, “During the war, they were aliens, and afterwards, Marion wanted to build a house in Hampstead -”
Bill was enchanted. “We used to have a cottage there,” he butted in. “Holly Hill – last cottage on the right-hand side. The only one with a garage. Did you know it?”
“No,” said Anne evenly. “And Marion couldn’t get permission. You had to have a permit for these things. So I went and was rather charming to the Hampstead Town Clerk – “
“We gave a concert for him,” Leslie entered into the conversation. Anne seemed rather relieved. “So we did!” she said. “So we had him with his back to the wall after the concert, and we exerted all our charms – “
“Did you?” breathed Bill.
“She did!” agreed the amiable Leslie.
Anne carried on. “anyhow, through all this, I got a permit for Marion to build his home, which he’s still living in.
“One day, he called on us with a rather curious parcel under his arm. (She now used such a good mittel-European accent, that the Brewers wondered why she didn’t do more radio plays.) “Undt’ee open it, undt say, ‘Anne, is only a leetle zing to say sank you for all vot you ‘aver done.’
“So, enjoy your coffee, because it comes from a happy memory.”
Eton Collar and All
Fiona started. “Let’s have some background stuff, please, Leslie. You started in opera, I believe?”
Leslie shook his head. “I started as a choirboy,” he said. “I was a choirboy at Lincoln Cathedral when I was seven.”
“Thorough little stinker he was, too!” said Anne.
“Yes, I was a shocking little horror in Eton collar and all that stuff! My voice broke when I was thirteen and I went to a commercial school to be trained as an accountant. I didn’t like that much, so I joined D’Oyly Carte – the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company – in the chorus. I was twenty-one when I joined the company, and after being promoted to various parts, I was with them on their first Canadian tour.
“When I returned, I realized there wasn’t much chance of getting anywhere with the D’Oyly-Cartes, so I left and started on concerts. I met Sargent – “
“Sir Malcolm?” breathed Fiona, impressed, looking at a signed photograph of that carnationed beau of conductors.
Leslie carried on with the background. “Yes. He put me into oratorio, and from that I went into grand opera.”
Bill leaped in. “What lead roles did you sing?”
“I didn’t,” Leslie said, rather obscurely. “I was one of the priests in The Magic Flute in the 1938 season with Richard Tauber. The conductor was Beecham. Then I did the tenor part in Rosenkavelier at Covent Garden and Sadlers Wells. Of course, by then, I was recording – “
“And you’d met me, of course,” Anne said, quite gently.
Leslie’s short period of accountancy must have made its impact, because he remembered. “Nineteen-thirty-four was when I met Anne,” he said with certain satisfaction
“Thirty years this month, I’ve put up with this monster,” Anne stated, without rancour.
Fiona looked at the glamorous Anne, and said, “Of course, you were very, very young at the time, weren’t you?”
Anne wasn’t the slightest bit perturbed. “Not all that young,” she said quite happily.
Opening night of Sextet, 1957.
Leslie decided to confess all. “Well, she was younger than me anyway,” he said. “Now let me see – I was playing Faust in the first colour film of that opera, and who was Marguerite but little Annie Ziegler! So that’s how we met. And then we started singing together – “
“And we got married,” Anne said. Then added, rather inconsequently, “Did you know Leslie was married three times?”
Leslie seemed unimpressed. “So what?” he asked.
Bill asked, “Any family?”
Leslie answered. “Yes, I’ve got one son, who’s a farmer in England.”
Anne added, “And a granddaughter, whom we haven’t seen yet, alas.”
Fiona brought them back to their careers. “When did you start singing together?”
Anne answered, “We were married in 1938, Bonfire night – November the Fifth!”
“Fireworks when you married?” murmured Bill.
“And ever since!” came, involuntarily, from Leslie.
Anne agreed sunnily. “Yes! And we started to get well-known when Julius Darewski put us on the map in variety in 1940. We opened at the Hippodrome, Manchester, and we concentrated on working together, and we did, in things like The Vagabond King.”
Fiona became excited. “I saw you in that, and fell in love with Leslie on the spot,” she said with fervour.
Leslie accepted her homage gracefully. “We did recordings, musicals, films together.”
The factual Fiona, of course, wanted to know, “How many records have you made?”
Leslie considered. “I suppose about a hundred and fifty duets, and two or three hundred solos.”
Fiona continued, “A lot of your records were very big sellers individually, weren’t they?”
Leslie’s accountancy course appeared to have failed him. “Yes. We’ll Gather Lilacs – I don’t know how many that sold, but it’s still selling. And Macushla and English Rose – they sold thousands, but I don’t know how many. Anyway, we still get money trickling in from all over the world.
“It’s not like it was, of course, because they’re not making 78s any more, but they’ve put out some re-issues on 45s, and they’re selling very well.” He considered the financial trickle, and said in heartfelt tones, “Thank heaven!”
‘Pretty Little Voice’
Bill considered it was time to learn something about Anne. He said, “Tell us about yourself before you met Leslie.”
Anne did so. “Actually, I wanted to be a pianist. I was a monster at school, and my parents were told that it wasn’t worthwhile my carrying on because I wasn’t interested in anything except music. Oh, I wasn’t expelled or anything, but I was taken away, and I continued with languages and piano.
“Then the organist at our church discovered that I had a ‘pretty little voice’, so I dropped the piano, because I realized that I’d only be adequate as a piano-player.
“I started training as a singer. I sang in a choir, then I sang in the chorus of operas, and my music teacher took me around for odd concerts, as a sort of star pupil.
“Eventually I had to find something to do, because my father lost all his money in the cotton market, and I wanted to support myself.
“So I went to London, and auditioned for the chorus of a musical with Maggie Teyte. That was a complete flop – lasted three weeks and folded up. I had two alternatives – get work in London, or go home.
“A friend introduced me to the woman who used to book the singers for the Lyons Corner House, the Regent Palace and the Strand Palace (where Leslie worked many years before), and that kept me going for three months.”
Fiona had a thought. “Have you always been Anne Ziegler?” she asked.
“No. My name was Irené Eastwood.” She slipped into an authentic North Country accent. “Reet good Lancashire name, Eastwood! Irené, in Greek, means ‘Peace’.”
Leslie said, “That’ll be the day!”
Anne took that in her stride. “I had to change my name when I went into the chorus, because my name had to go into the programme. I’ve always loved the name ‘Anne’, and I thought, ‘Now what do I do about my surname?’
“So I went through the Liverpool directory, and the last name in the book belonged to my father’s cousin who had emigrated from Germany about fiver hundred years earlier, and had drifted from farming in Scotland to farming in Cheshire. So there it was, A to Z – Anne Ziegler!
“And I was lucky, because during the 1930s, Continental singers with foreign names were very popular, and people thought I was Continental! I didn’t trade on it, but it did help!”
Bill commented, “Once Ziegler and Booth got together they travelled the world?”
Leslie said, “Well the only trip we haven’t made is from New Zealand to Vancouver!”
‘Best Country of All!’
Fiona was impressed, naturally. “Having toured the world, what made you decide to settle in South Africa?” she asked.
There was an astonished pause, as the Booths gazed at the Brewers. Then there was a machine-gun barrage of answers.
“It’s the best country of all.”
“Definitely.”
“The sun…”
“The way of living…”
“The spaciousness…”
Bill was intrigued. “Tell us more.”
Leslie did so. “I certainly will! We came out here on a world tour in 1948, on our way to Australia and New Zealand. Someone told us to contact Gladys Dixon at the SABC. So we cabled from the ship to say we were arriving in Cape Town, and had three weeks before we left Durban.
“She cabled back that she had arranged for us to do two broadcasts from Durban, two from Cape Town and two from Johannesburg. Then we rejoined the ship and did our tour.
“Well, when we got home, we talked things over. We didn’t like America or Australia much. We did like New Zealand, but it’s too remote, and the only decent place was South Africa, which we adored.
“Anyway, we didn’t do anything about it, until 1955, when we had a cable from Cape Town Municipality, asking us to do a tour with the Cape Town Orchestra. So we came out, did the tour, and then Percy Tucker of Show Service, asked us to come out again the following January in ’56 and do another tour. We came out and stayed until May.
“Then, when we went home, we found that the public taste for music had radically changed. So we said, ‘What’s there for us – here?’”
Anne said, “We could see the warning light. We could sense the change in entertainment form that was to come.”
Leslie nodded. “Yes. Rock ‘n Roll and all that twangy stuff was on its way. So I said, ‘To blazes with this! I’m too old to start learning to play a guitar. Let’s go back to South Africa!’ We came back in July ’56, and we haven’t been back to England since.”
2022 is the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Royal Choral Society. Webster Booth was associated with the Society from the early 1930s until 1955 when Malcolm Sargent was the conductor of the Society. He had conducted the D’oyly Carte Opera Company in 1926 when Webster was a chorister there and advised him not to consider an operatic career if he did not have a private income to supplement the small salary offered to opera singers. On the advice of Dr Sargent he concentrated on oratorio and undertook a variety of lighter engagements, ranging from concert work, cabaret and musical comedy to recording and radio work.
Sketch of Sir Malcolm by Hilda Wiener.
Despite Sargent’s advice that he should not aspire to Grand Opera, Sargent was obviously impressed with Webster’s voice and saw to it that he was engaged with the Royal Choral Society on many occasions.
The first occasion was at the prestigious Good Friday Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall on 10 April 1936.
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Webster Booth
The Times crit read as follows:
The annual Good Friday performance of the Messiah was given yesterday at the Albert Hall by the Royal Choral Society under their regular conductor, Dr Malcolm Sargent. It followed the customary lines, being given in the usual arrangement as regards orchestral accompaniment and with the usual cuts, except that the tenor soloist, Mr Webster Booth, following the recent precedent, was allowed the aria Thou Shalt Break Them in Part II. He strove to make his solos vivid, and in doing so employed considerable variety of vocal colour. Miss Noel Eadie phrased I Know That My Redeemer Liveth very spaciously, which is not easy to do, and succeeded in sustaining its lines at a slow tempo. The contralto soloist was Miss Margaret Balfour. Of the Messiah solos, those assigned by Handel to the bass singers are the best, and they found an excellent exponent in Mr Robert Easton. His voice is just about the right weight and composition for them, though he was uneasy on one or two of the quick high notes in Why Do the Nations? But his singing of The Trumpet Shall Sound was magnificent: having sounded the note of mystery in the recitative, he declaimed the aria like a clarion to match Mr Richard Walton’s obbligato, played, it may be remarked in passing on a Bach trumpet. The chorus sang with confidence and a sonorous tone. There was a large audience – a fact which shows that the Good Friday concerts meet a public need.
Before Webster Booth was invited to sing in a performance of ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’ by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at the Albert Hall with the Royal Choral Society, he sang in a smaller production of the work with South African soprano, Garda Hall, and Harold Williams on 10 November 1936.
Towards the end of 1936, Webster was invited to sing with the Royal Choral Society again.
19 December 1936
ROYAL CHORAL SOCIETY
Royal Albert Hall, Saturday next at 2.30pm
23 December 1936 – Western Morning News. Christmas Music: A good deal of seasonable music is being heard in London at the moment, one of the most interesting concerts having been the annual one devoted to carols by the Royal Choral Society. Modern research has considerably widened this particular field, and, in addition to the more familiar tunes, we were given motets by such early English composers as Byrd and Weelkes. The soloists were Miss Elsie Suddaby, who also sang a very old song (John Bill’s To Bethlehem Shepherd-brethren Ran); Mr Webster Booth, who confined himself to modern works; and Mr Leon Goossens, whose fine oboe playing of a sonata by Telemann was one of the greatest pleasures of all. Dr Sargent conducted with the mixture of energy and finesse these singers understand so well, and the performance was nearly always on the high level one expects from this distinguished society.
4 March 1937
In 1937 Webster appeared in “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast” by Samuel Coleridge Taylor with the Royal Choral Society at the Royal Albert Hall for the first time. These performances were also given with members of the Royal Choral Society in costume. Before World War Two soloists and chorus were in full costume.
Webster in full regalia for “Hiawatha”.7 – 19th June 1937.
Webster made many further appearances in Hiawatha after that. Malcolm Sargent always chose him to sing in this work. He also recorded Onaway! Awake, Belovedhttps://clyp.it/wkrkfgck
Webster sang in another Good Friday Messiah on 22 March 1940:
March 23 1940 – Royal Choral Society: Messiah. The Royal Choral Society gave its annual Good Friday performance of Messiah yesterday, but not at the Albert Hall or in the afternoon. As Queen’s Hall was taken by the LSO for the B minor Mass in the afternoon, the Kensington society transferred their oratorio to the evening and took the place of the B.B.C. in providing an evening concert in Central London. The performance showed a great advance on their hastily prepared concert at the New Year, and Dr. Sargent had fully restored the choir’s normal efficiency. Indeed, in its new form at half its normal size it sounds more like one of the crack Yorkshire choirs than what we are accustomed to hear in London. The interpretation followed the usual lines, and the soloists were all familiar to oratorio-goers, except Mr. Webster Booth, whom we do not remember having heard before in Messiah. His pleasant tenor voice is light, but by reason of its clarity and decisive delivery is more than adequate to the requirements of the vigorous recitatives and arias in Part II. Miss Suddaby, Miss Brunskill, and Mr. Robert Easton were his colleagues
The 10 May 1941 was a very sad day indeed. It was after this performance that an incendiary bomb destroyed the beautiful Queen’s Hall.
Queen’s Hall, Langham Place before it was destroyed in 1941.
From Wikipedia: On the afternoon of 10 May 1941, there was an Elgar concert at the hall. Sargent conducted the Enigma Variations and The Dream of Gerontius. The soloists were Muriel Brunskill, Webster Booth and Ronald Stear, with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Choral Society. This concert, the last given at the hall, comprised in the view of The Times “performances of real distinction”.[85] That night there was an intensive air raid in which the chamber of the House of Commons and many other buildings were destroyed, and the British Museum and Westminster Abbey were seriously damaged. A single incendiary bomb hit the Queen’s Hall, and the auditorium was completely gutted by fire beyond any hope of replacement. The building was a smouldering ruin in heaps of rubble; the London Philharmonic lost thousands of pounds’ worth of instruments. All that remained intact on the site was a bronze bust of Wood retrieved from the debris. Concerts continued in London at the Royal Albert Hall and other venues. The Proms were relocated to the Albert Hall, which remains their principal venue. In 1951, the Royal Festival Hall was opened and succeeded the Queen’s Hall as the main London venue for symphony concerts other than the Proms.
Webster and his wife, Anne Ziegler had begun singing in Variety around this time and in 1943 they embarked on a number of concerts for Harold Fielding, and took part in two West End musicals. They went on a concert tour of New Zealand and Australia in 1948 so Webster did not have much time to devote to more serious work.
In 1949 he took part in another performance of a concert version of Hiawatha. Dr Sargent had been knighted in 1947 and this performance marked his twenty-first year with the Society.
14th March 1950 – Jubilee of Hiawatha. The Duchess of Kent will attend a special jubilee concert at the Royal Albert Hall on Monday, March 27, at 7.30 p.m. to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the concert, in March, 1900, at which the Royal Choral Society gave the first complete performance of .Hiawatha in the concert version by Coleridge-Taylor. Sir Malcolm Sargent, who has organised the concert, will conduct the performance, which will be given by the Royal Choral Society and the London Symphony Orchestra, and the soloists will be Miss Isobel Baillie, Mr. Webster Booth, Mr. Harold Williams, and Mr. Arnold Greir. The performance is in aid of the voluntary medical department of the Battersea Central Mission. Particulars can be obtained from the superintendent, Rev. J. A. Thompson. 20. York Road, London, SW II.
March 28 1950 – Albert Hall Jubilee Performance of Hiawatha. Sir Malcolm Sargent’s annual gift to the children of the Battersea Central Mission took the form this year of a performance of Hiawatha, which was sung last night by the Royal Choral Society at the Albert Hall in the presence of its president, the Duchess of Kent. The occasion was also the jubilee of Coleridge-Taylor’s Cantata, which was sung for the first time with all three parts complete exactly 50 years ago in this same hall. The work lives by its freshness and spontaneous sincerity. Some of its harmonic progressions may raise a smile, or even a frown, but they belong to its period, and so although they date the work they do not make it out of date. The solo writing is less open to this mild reproach, if reproach it be, than the chorus, and the itching rhythm of the verse irritates less in the solo than in the choral parts. Yet it is, of course, the chorus which is protagonist and happily carries the easy yoke and the light burden of its euphony. The Royal Choral Society, Mr. Webster Booth (in Onaway Awake), Miss Isobel Baillie, and Mr. Harold Williams sang it with frank appreciation of its naive and melodious qualities and without the least self-consciousness, while Sir Malcolm Sargent was as whole-hearted about it as he is about the cause to which last night he wedded it.
20 October 1951, ROYAL ALBERT HALL, Saturday at 2.30 ELIJAH (Mendelssohn) ROYAL CHORAL SOCIETY, with Dorothy Bond, Mary Jarred, Webster Booth, Owen Brannigan, Arnold Greir, London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. Boxes: 3, 15s, 1 17/6. Stalls: 10/6 and 7/6, 6/6 and 5/-. Balcony (reserved) 4/6, (unreserved) 3/6. Orchestra 2/6, Gallery Promenade 2/-. Tickets from Royal Albert Hall (KEN 8212) and usual agents Information about the above concert written on Webster’s Elijah score.
1952 – Preliminary notice. The Royal Choral have given their services to Sir Malcolm Sargent on the occasion of his next birthday. Sir Malcolm is giving this present over to the Medical Department of the Battersea Central Mission. The date is Wednesday 29 April. The programme is The Creation at the Royal Albert Hall, and in addition the following will take part: Elsie Morison, Webster Booth, Norman Walker and the London Symphony Orchestra. Tickets on sale from 19 December.
April 1952 – Royal Albert Hall. Sir Malcolm Sargent’s birthday. Creation, with The Royal Choral Society, Elsie Morison, Webster Booth, Norman Walker and the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Malcolm. The concert in aid of the Medical Department of the Battersea Central Mission.
18 February 1953 – The Dream of Gerontius. Ash Wednesday, Royal Albert Hall:
Gladys Ripley, Webster Booth, Norman Walker, with Arnold Grier at the organ, the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. February 1953 – Times. Royal Choral Society, The Dream of Gerontius. The annual Ash Wednesday performance of The Dream of Gerontius was given last night by the Royal Choral Society at the Albert Hall. The choir and its conductor, Sir Malcolm Sargent, both know and love the work, so that the choral singing had none of the hesitation that appeared in their recent performance of Berlioz’s Te Deum. Yet as a whole it was an unconvincing performance, because Mr Webster Booth proved to be hardly the singer for the part of Gerontius. His voice is too light and his interpretation was curiously tentative, seizing at points of emphasis but not proceeding in intelligible phrases and frankly perplexed by the metaphysics of his colloquy with the Angel. The more generous tones of Mr Norman Walker and Miss Gladys Ripley, both of whom are at home in the two Angel parts did something to provide the impulse that was lacking in a rather emaciated performance. One of the few bad notices Webster received!
6, 9, January 1954 – Messiah. Albert Hall, The Royal Choral Society. Wednesday, Jan 6 at 7.15pm Joan Hammond, Gladys Ripley, James Johnston, Hervey Alan.
Saturday, Jan 9 at 2.30pm Ena Mitchell, Mary Jarred, Webster Booth, Arthur Copley. At the organ: Arnold Greir, London Symphony orchestra, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. For details of any available seats, please apply to the Box Office, Royal Albert Hall (KENsington 8212)
The A and B casts??
1 September 1954 – Hiawatha. Royal Albert Hall, Promenade Concert, Webster and others. From what I have gathered, this performance was cancelled a week beforehand because of poor ticket sales. It still appeared in the programme.
1 September 1954 Promenade Concert 7.30 pm Giuseppe Verdi – Aida – Finale Act 2, Scene 2 Dennis Noble – Amonasro Janet Howe – Amneris Hervey Alan – Ramfis Hervey Alan – King of Egypt Amy Shuard – Aida Webster Booth – Radames BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Choral Society Malcolm Sargent – conductor I assume that this performance from Aida replaced Hiawatha at the last moment. The latter work had been cancelled that year because of lack of bookings
28 April 1955 – Hiawatha. Although last year’s performances, in costume of Coleridge Taylor’s Hiawatha were called off, and similar versions are unlikely in the future, the Royal Choral Society are already practically sold out, and were, in fact some time back, for their one-concert performance at the Festival Hall tomorrow (Friday). Webster Booth will once more sing the tenor role. Jennifer Vyvyan and John Cameron are the other leading singers, and the London Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent, who, incidentally, will celebrate his sixtieth birthday on this occasion. In view of his long association with Hiawatha nothing could be more appropriate.
April 30 1955 – Royal Choral Society. A birthday concert. Malcolm Sargent’s 60th birthday. Sir Malcolm had asked particularly that Webster should sing at this concert.
Sir Malcolm Sargent yesterday celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of his birthday and at least two of the musical organisations with which he has worked for the last part of 30 years offered him their congratulations. The Gramophone Company entertained him at luncheon and presented him with a gold matrix of one of his own recordings. In the evening the Royal Choral Society gave a concert, not in their own Albert Hall, but in the Festival Hall, at which they sang Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha and also made him a presentation. The choir had laid aside wigwam and tomahawk and, soberly garbed in the conventional garments of festivity, they sang the. Cantata as its composer intended, no longer trying to turn a ballad into an opera. They sang it, however, with as much enthusiasm and more precision than when they run or squat in the arena of the Albert Hall. The choir was greatly reduced in size, but even so it was too big for its accommodation and, actually, for musical effect. For the squareness of the music induced by the rhythm of the poem becomes heavy under so much weight of tone – a choir of 100 voices would probably be of the right size for what is in fact a choral ballad. It still has a direct appeal after more than half a century and drew a full house: the appeal is one of simplicity and sincerity, which are enough to fend off the danger of banality. Perhaps the last part does not wholly escape, for it is customary to make cuts in it. It is, however, music that can be sung and played whole-heartedly and it suited the occasion joyfully. Mr. Webster Booth was there for old time’s sake to sing Onaway, Awake Beloved. Miss Jennifer Vyvyan, singing Minnehaha’s death music and the opening solo of Part III, which almost alone retains the wood-note wind of the Wedding Feast, as though for the first time – perhaps it was her first time – brought to it a fine dramatic conviction. Mr. John Cameron brought the resonance of a noble voice to Hiawatha’s song of departure: his vocal line is not always perfectly firm, a complaint that applies to too many of our baritones nowadays, but it is engaging, indeed, impressive, singing. The orchestra was, rightly, in view of its long association with the Royal Choral Society and its conductor, the LSO, which did everything to bring out the fresh colours of the composer’s score in this vivid performance.
13 August 1955 – Henry Wood Promenade Concerts. BBC presents 61st Season, ROYAL ALBERT HALL, TONIGHT at 7.30. Works by Sullivan, Rachmaninov, Dukas, ColeridgeTaylor, Bizet, Quilter-Sargent, Borodin. Soloists: Webster Booth: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast ( Coleridge-Taylor), Song Cycle: To Julia (Quilter) (arr Sargent), Peter Katin (Piano), BBC Choral Society (Chorus Master: Leslie Woodgate), Royal Choral Society, BBC Symphony Orchestra (Leader: Paul Beard). Conductor: Sir Malcolm Sargent. All seats sold. 2000 Promenade, 2/6, available nightly, at doors only. All tickets for the Promenade for the last night (Saturday Sept. 17) have been allotted.
This was the last time that Webster sang with the Royal Choral Society.
In July 1956 he and Anne went to South Africa and he sang in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Sir Malcolm at a concert in Johannesburg a few months later. Sir Malcolm came to South Africa again in 1964. My piano teacher, Sylvia Sullivan, arranged for me to join the SABC choir again so that I could sing in a concert he was conducting. We did Blest Pair of Sirens (Hubert Parry) and the Academic Festival Overture (Brahms) to which he had written a choral harmony for Gaudeamus Igitur. He signed my programme after the concert.
When I was living in the UK I attended the Good Friday Messiah at the Albert Hall in 1967. Sir Malcolm Sargent conducted but he must have been ill with cancer at the time as he died shortly after his sad appearance at the Last Night of the Proms later that year. He was pushed on to the stage in a wheelchair, looking very frail indeed. I will never forget him saying, “I hope to see you all next year – God willing.”
Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth sang to fellow passengers while flying to South Africa. Their duet was We’ll Gather Lilacs, sung at 18,000 feet as they crossed the Zambezi.
I have compiled the following information from newspapers, personal recollections and programmes. The list is far from complete. Please contact me if you can fill in the gaps.
November heading for Johannesburg.
6 November 1955 – Quick Work. Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth, with their accompanist, Arthur Tatler, fly to South Africa on November 6 to fulfill a concert tour in South Africa, Southern and Northern Rhodesia and Kenya. This will indeed be a flying visit for they will fly everywhere in order to fulfill so many engagements in so short a time, as they return to England on December 11, when Webster Booth is due to broadcast for the BBC on December 14, after which he leaves the following day for Huddersfield to sing in the Messiah.
Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth sang to fellow passengers while flying to South Africa. Their duet was We’ll Gather Lilacs, sung at 18,000 feet as they crossed the Zambezi.
ANNE ZIEGLER AND WEBSTER BOOTH, 8 November 1955
Webster and Anne arrived at Jan Smuts airport on 8 November. They had been booked to appear in concerts with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London, also in Durban and Salisbury, Rhodesia. Webster gave a rather bitter interview about the changing times in music with the growth of music that appealed more to teenagers and the rise of television.
ANNE ZIEGLER AND WEBSTER BOOTH, 23 November 1955, City Hall, East London. Recital presented by East London Association of the Arts.
After their concert tour they returned to the UK where Webster had several Messiah engagements to fulfil. Despite his bitter comments on his arrival in Johannesburg, 1955 had been a very busy year for the Booths.
ANNE ZIEGLER AND WEBSTER BOOTH, with Arthur Tatler (piano), City Hall, Johannesburg Tuesday, 31 January 16th and 21 February 1956
City Hall, Benoni, Saturday, (opening Benoni’s Golden Jubilee celebrations) 4th February 1956
City Hall, Pretoria, Wednesday, 8 February 1956
B tour to Bethal, Bloemfontein, Parys (concert on an island on the Vaal River), Kimberley, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban and Pietermaritzburg.
Having tea during the interval of a concert in Bethal during their country tour – their accompanist, Arthur Tatler, Webster and Anne.
10 May 1957, Hobbies Exhibition, East London. The Round Table has engaged Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth to sing (Rand Daily Mail)
THE NIGHT OF A THOUSAND STARS 29 May 1957, Johannesburg. Anne and Webster sang at this concert produced by Cedric Messina and Monte Doyle in aid of the Jimmy Elliott Appeal.
STARLIGHT 13 to 16 November 1957, Prosperity Park, Zoo Lake. All funds in aid of the United Party, Anne, Webster, Maria Pavlou, Eva Tamassy, Gordon Mulholland, Jack Kruger, Charles Castle.
VARIETY UNDER THE STARS 7 March 1958, Joubert Park Open Air Theatre, Anne and Webster and a host of other performers.
1958 snippets
VARIETY PROGRAMME June 1958, Kangalani, home of Eva Harvey (by invitation only!) Anne and Webster, Sini van der Brom, Francois Bouguenon, Eva Harvey.
Variety in the Home – Eva Harvey
GRAND VARIETY SHOW, 27, 28 May 1960, Methodist Church Hall, Roberts Avenue, Kensington, Anne and Webster and other artistes. I (aged 16) attended this show and got their autographs at the interval.
CHRISTMAS CAPERS December 1, 2, 3 1960, Civic Theatre, Bloemfontein, Anne and Webster and local artistes presented by Rotary Club.
CONCERT 30 April 1961, Anne and Webster sang at the Wanderers Club, Johannesburg.
OVER 6OS OLD FOLKS VARIETY SHOW 2 May 1961, City Hall, Durban, Anne and Webster, with Cyril Sugden, Graham Rich.
City Hall, Durban
5 July 1961. Festival Concert, Allen Wilson Beit Hall, Salisbury. Anne and Webster appeared after Webster had adjudicated at Vocal Festival for the Rhodesia Institute of Allied Arts.
SATURDAY NIGHT VARIETY SHOW 1961, Amphitheatre, North Beach, Durban, Anne and Webster and top line variety stars.
GALA BENEFIT SHOW February 1962, Ciros Club, Johannesburg, Anne and Webster appeared in benefit show for the actor, David Beattie, who was suffering from cancer.
CONCERT Mid August 1963, Ficksburg, Anne and Webster, accompanied by Desmond Wright. Webster said that he would have taken me as the accompanist but he didn’t like two women on the stage as it would draw the audience’s attention away from Anne.
1964 Concert tour with SABC Orchestra. Anne and Webster were soloists on this tour.
1965 Concert tour with SABC Orchestra. Anne and Webster were soloists on this tour.
POPULAR CONCERT, 2 October 1966, Johannesburg’s eightieth birthday concert at the City Hall.
GRAND VARIETY CONCERT 15 September 1967, 8.15 pm
POPULAR CONCERTS, December 1967/1968
THE ANNE ZIEGLER AND WEBSTER BOOTH SHOW 26, 27, 28 August 1972, Durban Jewish Club, Anne and Webster accompanied by Jack Dowle, with top supporting artistes.
FAREWELL CONCERT, late 1975, Somerset West
Farewell performance, October 1975.
Anne and Webster had planned to retire from the stage at the end of 1975, but when they returned to England in early 1978 they were in great demand so came out of retirement until Webster’s health broke down in 1983.
They fell in love, although at the time he was married to his second wife, Paddy Prior and had a son, Keith, by his first marriage. Four years later, after his divorce from Paddy in times when divorce was not as common or acceptable as it is today, Anne and Webster were married on Bonfire Night in 1938.
Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth first met during the filming of TheFaust Fantasy in 1934/35
Anne Ziegler, the widow and singing partner of Webster Booth, died in Llandudno, North Wales, on 13 October 2003, at the age of 93. Her death brought an end to an era in British entertainment before and after the Second World War. Her death brings an end to an era for me also.
I was seventeen when I first met them at the end of 1960. They were already middle-aged, in the same age group as my parents, their top-flight stage career in Britain behind them. I was too young to have seen them at the height of their fame, but even then I thought them a shining couple, as I still do over fifty-nine years later.
Although I was too young to have seen them on stage in the days of their great success in the forties and early fifties, I believe their success was due to the wonderful blend of the voices, creating a special, instantly recognisable sound, and their contrasting good looks, she beautifully gowned, he in full evening dress. Above all, they were instantly likeable with charming personalities, and possessed an elusive ability to make people adore them.
In their day, in the thirties, forties and fifties, Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth were stars of stage, screen, radio, concert halls and variety theatres, and made over a thousand 78 rpms, either as duets or solos. Webster was also in demand as tenor soloist in oratorio: Handel’s Messiah, Jephtha, Samson, Acis and Galatea, Judas Maccabbeus, and Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, to mention but a few. Before the Second World War, he had sung Coleridge Taylor’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast in full Native American costume, and in 1955 on the occasion of Sir Malcolm Sargent’s birthday concert, Sir Malcolm requested particularly that he should be the tenor soloist in the same work.
Webster became a Mason, and was a proud member of the Savage Club, where he often sang at their legendary Saturday night entertainments. These entertainments were arranged by Joe Batten, the eminent sound recordist and producer at Columbia Records. When Webster had something important to do he always wore his distinctive striped Savage Club tie to bring him luck. While still in his early thirties, Webster was made a Life Governor of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead.
Webster was also in demand as tenor soloist in oratorio: Handel’s Messiah, Jephtha, Samson, Acis and Galatea, Judas Maccabbeus, and Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, to mention but a few. Before the Second World War, he had sung Coleridge Taylor’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast in full Native American costume, and in 1955 on the occasion of Sir Malcolm Sargent’s birthday concert, Sir Malcolm requested particularly that he should be the tenor soloist in the same work.
By the time he met Anne Ziegler during the filming of the colour film Faust in 1934, he was married to his second wife, Paddy Prior. He had divorced his first wife, Winifred Keey in 1931 after she had deserted him and their small son, and married Paddy Prior, a talented dancer, comedienne and soubrette in October 1932. The couple’s marriage was happy in the beginning and they appeared together in several concert parties, the Piccadilly Revels, Scarboroough in 1933 and Sunshine at Shanklin in 1934.
Shortly after he met Anne Ziegler he took the lead in an ill-fated production of Kurt Weill’s A Kingdom for a Cow at the Savoy Theatre. His leading lady was the well-known French singer Jacqueline Francel. In Anne and Webster’s joint autobiography, Duet, he said that the play was probably ahead of its time in its handling of complex social issues, which made it too heavy for audiences of the day, who expected lighter fare in musicals. Apart from the unusual subject matter, rehearsals were stormy and the direction contradictory, so despite Weill’s pleasing music and a strong cast, the play closed after just three weeks. The London Dramatic Critic from The Scotsman gave the piece a good review, and mentioned that “Mr Webster Booth as the hero also deserves praise for his fine singing”.
Webster and Paddy Prior, his second wife.
Sadly, his marriage did not last after he met Anne. Paddy divorced him, naming Anne as co-respondent. He and Anne were married on Bonfire Night in 1938. Webster Booth soon formed a duet partnership with his wife in addition to his extensive recording, film, oratorio and concert work.
Webster was contracted to HMV for over twenty years and recorded more than a thousand solos, duets, trios and quartets. His lighter recordings include selections from Ivor Novello musicals with Helen Hill, Olive Gilbert and Stuart Robertson; Theatreland at Coronation Time with South African soprano Garda Hall, and Sam Costa; excerpts from Snow White with Nora Savage, conducted by George Scott-Wood, the composer of Shy Serenade. He made many anonymous recordings as a member of the HMV Light Opera Company. He was the “with vocal refrain” on a series of records made with Carlos Santana and his Accordion Band on the Brunswick label, and on a record of Chappell Balladswith Jack Hylton’s band. Carlos Santana was one of the many aliases used by Harry Bidgood. His better known alias was Primo Scala, the leader of another accordion band, but he did many other things like conducting film music and arranging music and while he was still at school he had written the music for his school song.
His recordings of the late nineteen-thirties and nineteen-forties encompassed oratorio, opera and ballads, as well as duets with Anne. Webster’s more serious recordings were often under the baton of Malcolm Sargent, Lawrance Collingwood, Basil Cameron or rwick Braithwaite with the Hallé, the Liverpool Philharmonic or the Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. His recordings with piano accompaniment were nearly always with the eminent accompanist Gerald Moore.
Webster enjoyed telling the story of a particular recording session with Gerald Moore. They had one more song to record before the session ended. The song was Phil, the Fluter’s Ball, and Gerald Moore suggested that they should see how fast he could play it and how fast Webster could sing it with clear diction. This was no problem for the finest accompanist in the world and for a singer who had spent four years performing Gilbert and Sullivan with the D’Oyly Carte Company. His oratorio recordings are particularly fine. The solos in Samson from the moving recitative O loss of sight and the following aria,Total Eclipse, to the fiery Why does the God of Israel sleep?, with its unrelenting Handelian runs, demonstrate how easily he moved from one mood to another, always singing with flawless technique and clear diction.
He made recordings with other distinguished singers of the day in operatic ensembles, such as the quartet from Rigoletto, with Noel Edie, Arnold Matters and Edith Coates, to the trio from Faustwith Joan Cross and Norman Walker. He sang duets with soprano Joan Cross and baritone Dennis Noble from La Bohème and the Miserere from Il Trovatore with Joan Cross. He recorded duets with the baritone Dennis Noble from the Victorian and Edwardian Excelsior and Watchman, what of the night? to the brilliant extended scene in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. He recorded the duet in Madame Butterfly with Australian soprano Joan Hammond.
When Joan Hammond first arrived in England from Australia, she had a sweet lyrical soprano voice. She sang her first Messiahin England with Webster as tenor soloist under the baton of Sir Thomas Beecham. But by the time they recorded the Madame Butterfly duet, several years later, Joan Hammond had become a dramatic soprano and her voice was very much bigger than it had been when she first arrived in England. Joan had to stand much further away from the microphone than Webster in order for the sound engineer to get the balance for the duet right. Webster also sang excerpts from Carmen with the Sadler’s Wells chorus and orchestra, with Dennis Noble, and with Nancy Evans, Anne’s old friend from Liverpool, as Carmen.
At the beginning of the Second World War, he recorded The Lost Chordat the Kingsway Hall in London, accompanied by the organist Herbert Dawson. As they were reaching the end of the song, the All Clear siren sounded, which meant they had to redo the recording to cut out the sound of the siren. There had been no air raids at that early stage of the war so presumably the sirens were being given a trial run. The blitz was yet to come and would destroy Webster’s beloved Queen’s Hall.
ANNE ZIEGLER (1910 – 2003)
Anne was born Irené Frances Eastwood in Liverpool on 22 June 1910. From over two hundred other hopefuls she was chosen for the part of Marguerite for the film, the Faust Fantasy: no doubt her blonde good looks and charming personality counted for nearly as much as her attractive lyric soprano voice. It was in the making of this film, which commenced shooting in December 1934, that she met Webster Booth, playing opposite her as Faust.
During the making of the film they fell in love , although at the time he was married to his second wife, Paddy Prior, and had a son, Keith, by his first marriage to Winifred Keey. Four years later, after his divorce from Paddy in times when divorce was not as common or acceptable as it is today, Anne and Webster were married on Bonfire Night in 1938.
During those intervening four years, Anne was an overnight success on radio in The Chocolate Soldier, sang in a concert party in 1935 called Summer Smiles during the summer season at Ryde, an engagement she did not really enjoy much. There she acquired her first devoted fan, a girl aged 15, who kept in close touch with her for the rest of her life.
She played principal boy in her first pantomime, Mother Goose, at the Empire Theatre, Liverpool, which starred George Formby. In this pantomime she met Babs Wilson-Hill, the principal dancer in the show, who was to remain her closest friend for most of her life. During the 1936 pantomime season she and Babs appeared in another highly successful pantomime, Cinderella, in Edinburgh, this time with the Scottish comedian Will Fyffe as the star attraction.
Anne and Webster were both extremely popular and prolific broadcasters on the BBC, as well as the various European commercial broadcasting stations geared to the British market, such as Radio Lyons, Radio Luxembourg, Radio Normandy and Radio Eireann. Glancing through copies of The Radio Pictorial, commercial radio’s equivalent of The Radio Times, one sees frequent articles about them. Radio stars in the thirties obviously held the equivalent status of pop stars today.
Despite Anne’s success on stage and radio, recording companies had not shown any interest in putting her voice on record. She made a test recording of the Waltz Songfrom Merrie England in 1935, a recording which Webster managed to obtain from HMV. Eventually she did make a few solo recordings and sang in a Noel Coward medley with Joyce Grenfell and Graham Payn, but the bulk of her recordings were duets with Webster. My favourite solo recording of Anne’s is Raymond Loughborough’s ASong in the Night, which she sang on a Pathé film short in 1936.
Webster went to New York with her, hoping to find some stage work of his own, but, despite his great voice, he did not make any impact on the cut-throat American musical world. He attended various auditions in New York as an unknown, while in England he was already an established performer in oratorio, recording, films, and the West End stage. He returned to England, crestfallen at his lack of success, and resumed his numerous engagements. Anne, in the meantime, was hailed as a Broadway star and offered a film contract in Hollywood, with the idea that she would be the successor to Jeanette McDonald. The offer was tempting, but she turned it down to return to England and marry Webster Booth when his divorce from Paddy Prior was made final.
For most of her life Anne maintained that marriage to Webster meant more to her than any Hollywood contract, although in later years she sometimes reflected on what her life would have been like had she accepted the contract and become a Hollywood star.
Even before Webster’s divorce was made final they formed a duet partnership on stage, in addition to their solo work. From April 1938 they were singing together for Clarkson Rose. This is an advert from September of 1938, the month before Webster’s divorce was finalised.
Their first duet recording was made in the year after their marriage in 1939 – If You were the Only Girl in the World, with A Paradise for Two on the flip side. Before this official recording she had sung with him as an anonymous soprano voice in a radio series in 1937 called The Voice of Romance. In this series he too was anonymous, but by this time, most people would have recognised his distinctive voice.
In 1940 they accepted an offer from agent Julius Darewski to join the variety circuit. The money was good and they were well received on the variety halls, always doing their act without the aid of a microphone. If Webster Booth’s voice filled the Albert Hall when he sang the tenor part in Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha in Native American dress under the baton of Malcolm Sargent, the same voice, in harmony with his wife’s, filled the variety theatres from the London Palladium to all points of the United Kingdom.
They were the epitomé of glamour and romance. He was tall, dark and handsome. He was always in immaculate evening attire, she in a range of crinoline gowns, some designed by Norman Hartnell. Their act was interspersed with what seemed like off-the-cuff banter, but every word and move was meticulously planned, and the lighting plot carefully worked out for the most telling impact.
Apart from the usual operatic arias and musical comedy duets, Anne and Webster sang and recorded a number of ballads, arranged as duets, and an interesting and difficult arrangement of Chopin’s famous Nocturne in C sharp minor, arranged by Maurice Besley. As often as not Webster would arrange the duet part himself if none had been written.
Here is a copy of a letter sent from “Madeleine” who was on holiday on the Isle of Wight during the summer of 1934. She sent the letter and photograph
below to her friends Lily and Phil, who must have been
fans of Webster Booth.
Dear Lily and Phil,
Thought you would like a Photograph of Webster. We
went to see Sunshine the night before last – they were
great. The weather up to now has been very fine with a
strong wind blowing. I must say I like the Island very much, and I am enjoying myself very much indeed.
Best love to you both,
Madeleine.
November 1923 Webster made his professional debut in Yeomen of the Guard with D’Oyly Carte in Brighton. He was known as Leslie W. Booth in those early days. The programme above is dated 4 February to 26 July 1924 at the Princes Theatre, London.
8 September 1925.
3 June 1926. Webster is listed as First Yeoman as Leslie W. Booth. D’oyly is spelt incorrectly in this notice!
He began broadcasting in 1927.
December1927.5 January 1928,
6 November 1929
After Webster left D’Oyly Carte, he joined Tom Howells in his Opiero’s Concert Party. Webster is seated back right. Tom Howells is in the middle of the group.
1930 West End Debut at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
Webster Booth as the Duke of Buckingham in his West End Debut 16 April 1930
Webster Booth as the Duke of Buckingham in his West End Debut 16 April 1930 with Lilian Davies.
1933 Scarborough
1 February 1933- Galashiels Concert with Garda Hall and George Baker.
Irené Eastwood in Holst’s The Wandering Scholar in Liverpool (1934)
February 1935 Radio People Anne
The Invader (1934) with Buster Keaton,
1935
5 July 1935. A Kingdom for a Cow with Jacqueline Francell.
1936 The Robber Symphony
The Robber Symphony (film) with Magda Sonja11 December 1935 Samson and Delilah, Hastings Choral union, Whiterock Pavilion.
December 1935
1935 Anne’s first Panto: Mother Goose Liverpool.
Webster’s first Good Friday Messiah – 10 April 1936.
Hallé Messiah 17 December 1936
December 1936
Cinderella in Edinburgh, December 1936 with Will Fyffe.
11 February 1937
Hiawatha, June 1937Hiawatha, June 1937Hiawatha, June 1937
February 1938
Saturday Night Revue film “I love the moon”.
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 1938
November 9 1938
December 17 1938
6 January 1939 concert, WB, Flotsam and Jetsam, Chesterfield
Concert Chesterfield 6 January 1939
Hosiery Workers Concert, The King’s Theatre, Sutton In Ashfield, Nottinghamshire
SUNDAY 19th February 1939
FEAST OF MUSIC AND SONG
For Sunday’s concert the promoters had been fortunate in securing the services of Mr Webster Booth and Miss Anne Ziegler, two popular radio artistes, and they quickly won their way to the hearts of their audience who displayed in no unmistakable manner their great appreciation of the contributions. Then, too, Mr Jim Wright, of Huthwaite, who has also appeared in broadcast programmes, enhanced his reputation as a bass vocalist, whilst another favourite was Master A. Shelton, a Skegby boy vocalist. The instrumental side of the programme was entrusted to the Teversal Colliery Prize Band, under the able direction of Mr T. Parkes, whose fine playing was a feature of the concert. It was truly a feast of song and music, and like Oliver Twist, the audience were anxious for more, with the result that encores were the order of the evening.
APPRECIATIVE AUDIENCE
Miss Ziegler first gave delight with a charming rendering of Edward German’s “Waltz Song,” from ‘Merrie England,’ followed by “Bird of Love Divine,” and “John,” in which her beautiful clear voice charmed everyone. Her other solo contributions were Puccini’s “Musetta’s Song,” (La Boheme) a delightful little light composition “If no one Ever Marries Me,” “Ave Maria,” and a medley of old songs including “Danny Boy,” “Drink To Me Only,” and “Just a Song at Twilight.” The remarkable texture of her voice and her charming personality at once made her very popular with the audience, and it is not exaggerating to say that all would have willingly remained much longer in order to have enjoyed her singing. And the same was equally true of Mr Webster Booth, whose choice of songs was a source of real delight and in each he gave fine and sympathetic interpretations and he generously responded to the inevitable encores. His first group of songs comprised Easthope Martin’s “The Minstrel,” “Morning,” and the serenade “My Eternal Love,” while later he sang “Your Tiny Hand is Frozen,” “Macushla,” “Christopher Robin,” and “Rigoletto. Miss Ziegler and Mr Booth were also associated in duets and rarely, if ever can they have sung to a more appreciative audience, the perfect blend of their numbers being a source of real delight. In the first half of the programme they sang Verdi’s “Miserere” from “Il Trovatore” and “Deep in My Heart” and concluded their appearance with “Bitter Sweet.” “The Keys of Heaven,” and “Paradise For Two.”
In 1926 Doctor Malcolm Sargent (as he was then) took over as conductor for the London season at the Prince’s Theatre and Leslie considered that period to be one of his happiest and most fulfilling times with the company. It was then when he asked Sargent to listen to his voice and tell him whether he thought he could make it as an opera singer. Sargent told him that if he did not have a private income he should forget about singing in opera as the pay was very poor.
As a young man, Webster Booth was serving articles as an accountant in Birmingham and taking singing lessons in his spare time at the Midland Institute with Dr Richard Wassell, the organist, and choirmaster at St Martin’s Church in the Bull Ring, Birmingham. He was a tenor soloist in the church and fulfilling engagements as tenor soloist in regional oratorio performances as far apart as Wales and Scotland.
Midland Institute, where Webster had lessons with Dr Richard Wassell.
Interior of St Martin’s Church, the Bullring, Birmingham
In 1923 the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company came to Birmingham and he managed to obtain an audition with New Zealander, Harry Norris, the D’Oyly Carte conductor. Harry Norris was impressed with Webster’s voice and on his recommendation, he was summoned to see Rupert D’Oyly Carte in London. He was meant to audit a firm’s books in South Wales. Instead, he decided to throw caution to the wind and went to London for the audition instead. He sang five or six songs to an unreceptive D’Oyly Carte and his general manager, Richard Collett.
‘I became increasingly anxious. It was like singing to two mummies… ”I think he’ll do,” Mr D’Oyly Carte said in a rather pained voice, thinking, no doubt, that here was yet another name one the pay-list. “I should think so, sir,” was the reply. ‘Thus unenthusiastically was I welcomed into the Profession of the Stage.’ (Duet, p. 34)
Although he had been doing well in accountancy, he abandoned his job with little regret to become a professional singer, making his debut with the company as one of the Yeomen in The Yeomen of the Guard at the Theatre Royal, Brighton on 9 September 1923. He was billed as Leslie Booth or Leslie W. Booth.
In 1924 he married Winifred Keey, the daughter of Edgar Keey, his former headmaster at Aston Commercial School. Winifred borrowed £100 from a relative, with no intention of repaying it, and used the money to follow Leslie to London against her parents’ wishes, or possibly, even without their knowledge. They might have approved of the match had Leslie remained a respectable accountant like his elder brother, Norman, but they were against her taking up with a chorus boy in the D’Oyly Carte. Her family had no more to do with her, partly because of her defiance of their wishes and partly because she had borrowed such a large sum of money under false pretences from a member of the family. Because they disowned her they never knew that she and Leslie had married or that she gave birth to a son, and, thinking the worst of her, imagined that she and Leslie were living together in sin.
Winifred and Leslie’s son, Keith was born the year after their marriage on 12 June 1925, and his birth was registered in Birmingham North.
6 August 1925 – Borough, Stratford. Interest remains unabated in the D’Oyly Carte company, now in the second of their two weeks’ engagement at this theatre. On Tuesday The Yeomen of the Guard was staged, and met with the usual enthusiastic reception from an audience who obviously enjoyed every number. Encores were frequent. The entrance of Mr Henry A Lytton as Jack Point was naturally the signal for an outburst of applause, which was fully justified by his consistently fine work in this well-written role. His apt mingling of humour and pathos is amongst the best things he has ever done. As the other strolling singer Miss Winifred Lawson made a distinct success, singing and acting with real talent. Happily cast also were Mr Leo Sheffield as the grim gaoler and Miss Aileen Davies as Phoebe. Miss Bertha Lewis made a capital Dame Carruthers, whose chief song was rendered artistically; and Miss Irene Hill scored as Kate. Mr Sydney Pointer’s agreeable voice helped him to make Colonel Fairfax a prominent figure, and Mr Darrell Fancourt was a strong Sergeant Meryll. Others who shared in the success were Mr Joseph Griffin as Sir Richard, Mr Herbert Aitken as Leonard, and Mr Leslie W. Booth as the First Yeoman. The stage director is still Mr J.M. Gordon and Mr Harry Norris is the touring musical director.
6 September 1925.
In 1926 Doctor Malcolm Sargent (as he was then) took over as conductor for the London season at the Prince’s Theatre and Leslie considered that period to be one of his happiest and most fulfilling times with the company. It was then when he asked Sargent to listen to his voice and tell him whether he thought he could make it as an opera singer. Sargent told him that if he did not have a private income he should forget about singing in opera as the pay was very poor.
Scarborough, 1926. Dr Sargent was conducting the D’Oyly Carte at this time.
Mikado 1926 Souvenier Programme.
18 November 1926 – D’Oyly Carte Canadian Visit. It has been arranged for the D’Oyly Carte principal company to visit Canada at the end of the season at the Princes on December 19. The company will embark for Canada in the steamship Metagama on the 24th. The tour will open in Montreal on January 4. Mr Richard Collett, the general manager of the company, will be in charge of the tour.
After a stay of two weeks in Montreal, the company will proceed to Toronto and thence to Winnipeg, staying in each of these cities for a fortnight. There will also be visits to Lethbridge, Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, and Victoria, the capital of Vancouver Island. The tour will end at Montreal in the middle of May. The Mikado, The Gondoliers, The Yeomen of the Guard, and HMS Pinafore will form the repertory. The leading principals, with the exception of Miss Elsie Griffin, will take part in the tour. Miss Griffin’s place will be filled by Miss Irene Hill. Misses Bertha Lewis, Winifred Lawson, Aileen Davies, Messrs Henry A Lytton, Darrell Fancourt, Leo Sheffield, and Charles Goulding are included in the company. Webster Booth sang Your Tiny Hand is Frozen at the ship’s concert, so impressing principal soprano Winifred Lawson that she was not at all surprised when he soon rose to fame after he left the company. He was particularly impressed when the chorus sang Hail Poetry in the open air when the company visited Chief Big Crow and Chief Starlight in the Sarcee Reserve, Calgary.
Passenger list on return to Liverpool
SS Megantic (White Star) return to Liverpool from Canada, May 1927.
He stayed with the company for four and a half years but made no great advancement from singing in the chorus, small parts and understudying the tenor principal roles. In Duet, his joint autobiography, with Anne Ziegler, he complained that the only way he would advance in the company was to wait patiently to fill “dead men’s shoes”. Despite this observation, he was one of the few singers allowed to record individual songs from the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire without prior approval of the D’Oyly Carte family. His recordings of Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes and A Wand’ring Minstrel under the baton of gifted conductor, a fellow native of Birmingham, Leslie Heward, who died tragically young, remain unsurpassed and are now available on CD.
Leslie was away on tour for fifty weeks of the year and Winifred, left alone with her small son, was estranged from her parents although living in the suburb of Moseley in the same city. Leslie had suspicions that all was not well at home when he arrived home from a tour with D’Oyly Carte to find Keith sitting by himself on the doorstep. Winifred had left her small son to his own devices while she went dancing. Several years later, she suddenly deserted Leslie and his son.
Leslie searched for Winifred in every town where he happened to be singing, but despite desperate attempts to trace her, he never found her, and eventually divorced her in 1931, citing Trevor Davey as co-respondent. Leslie was granted custody of Keith, who decided on his sixth birthday that he never wanted to see his mother again.
After the stability of a regular – if small – salary from D’Oyly Carte, he was now a freelance performer with a small son to support and no regular money to his name. In the D’Oyly Carte Company he was known as Leslie W. Booth, but now he adopted his middle name and became known as Webster Booth on stage, although his family and close friends continued to call him Leslie for the rest of his life. One of his boyhood nicknames was Jammy, and he once signed a photograph “Yours sincerely, Kingy”!
26 May 1939 – Gilbert and Sullivan The scheme of the London Music Festival is designed to embrace all the chief musical activities of the metropolis and it was proper that the popular concerts given by Mr Ernest Makower at the London Museum should have their place in it. The concert given on Wednesday evening was an unusual one, though Mr Makower never keeps to any beaten path in his selection of music for performance. It was felt that no English festival would be really complete if Gilbert and Sullivan was not represented in it. So, with the permission of Mr D’Oyly Carte, Dr Sargent arranged a programme of selections from the famous comic operas. In a preliminary talk, Dr Sargent apologised for going against Sullivan’s expressed wish that his operatic music should not be performed in concert form.
But no excuse was necessary to justify the admirable singing of the extracts by Miss Irene Eisinger, Mr Webster Booth, and Mr George Baker. We do not often hear Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes so well sung in a theatre. Miss Eisinger’s songs reminded us that Sullivan’s heroines descended at no great distance from Mozart’s soubrettes, whom we are accustomed to hearing her sing so delightfully. It was good too to hear the music played by the Boyd Neel orchestra, whose contributions included the delightful patchwork overture, Un Ballo and the Iolanthe overture. There was, as usual, a large and enthusiastic audience.
1953 – The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (film). Robert Morley, Ian Wallace, Owen Brannigan, Harold Williams and voices of Webster Booth, Elsie Morrison, John Cameron. Webster was annoyed at the billing he was given in this film. He did not appear in it but his voice was dubbed for Colonel Fairfax in the scene from The Yeomen of the Guard and in the final section singing an echoing version of A Wand’ring Minstrel. The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan
January 1962 When the copyright on Gilbert’s words was lifted at the end of 1961 Webster was asked to present a Gilbert and Sullivan series of programmes on the English Service of the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
1963 Only a few weeks before The Johannesburg Operatic Society was due to open with The Yeomen of the Guard the committee decided that they needed a stronger Colonel Fairfax than the person originally cast in the role. Webster (aged 61) was asked to take over what is essentially the juvenile lead. He was a great success in the role.
14 June 1963 (from my 5-year diary)
4 to 14 April 1973 – The Mikado, Guild Theatre, East London, The East London Light Operatic Society, Pamela Emslie, Colin Carney, Bernie Lee, Leigh Evans, Irene McCarthy, Jim Hagerty and Jimmy Nicholas, produced by Webster Booth. The musical director was Jean Fowler.
I had moved to East London at the beginning of 1973 and joined the show at the last minute. I had a very happy reunion with Webster after seven years apart.
Me, June Evans and her son, Neil in Webster’s production of “Mikado”.
Christening of Leslie Webster Booth at St James’ Church, Handsworth. The date is 15 April 1912, but I wonder if this is a misprint and that it actually took place in April 1902.
Leslie Webster Booth was born on 21 January 1902 in a three storey home above his father’s ladies hairdressing business at 157 Soho Road, Handsworth, Birmingham. He was the youngest son of Edwin Booth and his wife Sarah (née Webster) in a family of three sons and three daughters. Edwin was a hairdresser, who had served in the Royal Staffordshire Regiment as a Barber Surgeon. Sarah was from Chilvers Coton, Nuneaton, where her parents and later she and her sister, Hannah, had been handloom silk weavers. Her brother, William Thomas Webster was a partner in Foster and Webster, a successful gentlemen’s outfitters with branches throughout the Midlands. Sarah’s brother eventually left the firm, but it continues to this day under the name of Foster Brothers.
Leslie was the youngest of six children and his eldest sister, Doris, (known as Nellie), played as big a part in his upbringing as his mother. All three sisters doted on their young brother, who, from an early age, possessed a singing voice of outstanding quality. The family held musical evenings at home and delighted in their father’s robust rendition of The Veteran’s Song, while his mother and sisters were moved to tears when young Leslie sang the mournful ballad, Valé in his beautiful treble voice.
Webster sang in the choir at St James, Handsworth as a young boy.
At nine years of age Leslie’s voice elevated him from St James’ Church choir in Edwardian Handsworth to the choir stalls of Lincoln Cathedral as a chorister under the direction of Dr George Bennett. Dr Bennett was a fine musician, but a stern taskmaster, who insisted that choristers sang with flat tongues: he was not averse to flattening an errant tongue with his ever-ready broken baton. Just as today’s Cathedral choristers are disciplined hard-working musicians of the highest order, so they were in the first decades of the twentieth century also. Christmas holidays for the choristers commenced only after they had completed the Christmas Eve services to Dr Bennett’s satisfaction.
Lincoln Cathedral. Webster was a chorister there from the age of 9 until his voice broke.
Lincoln was a good training ground for young Leslie Booth. Although he did not make great progress on the piano and thus did not advance to learning the organ, an instrument he longed to play. The Willis organ at Lincoln Cathedral had been opened in 1898, eleven years before Leslie went to Lincoln, and is still considered as one of the finest organs in England. Leslie did, however, learn to sight-read vocal lines with ease. This ability stood him in good stead as a professional singer, especially at recording sessions.
When he went to HMV studios for a recording session he would be given six to eight songs to record at a time. These he would sight-read and record in one or two takes. After the session the songs would soon be forgotten: a different approach to recording from today’s pop singers who seem to spend months recording their new “album”! Years later, people often appeared before him clutching one of his old records, assuring him of their great attachment to the particular song, but he often had no recollection of making it in the first place.
After his voice broke at the age of thirteen, he returned to the family home in Birmingham to study accountancy at Aston Commercial School. He was set for the steady job of accountant like Uncle Jim, his father’s brother, but at fifteen, when his voice had settled, he began his vocal studies as a tenor with Dr Richard Wassall, the musical director at the Midland Institute in Birmingham. Leslie was an avid supporter of West Bromwich Albion football team and was goalie in the Aston Commercial School team. He was a promising enough goalie to be offered a place with the Aston Villa Colts, but this idea did not meet with his headmaster’s approval. Despite his accountancy studies, he secretly dreamed of the more glamorous callings of football and singing. Luckily for the world, singing eventually won.
The headmaster was Edgar Keey, father of his first wife, Winifred.
With his great natural vocal gifts, his striking good looks and winning personality, performing came easily to him. He sang duets with Uncle Jim’s daughter, his cousin Lily Booth, a promising mezzo-soprano, and soon he was also singing at concerts and oratorio performances all over the Midlands and Wales. By this time he was a tall, imposing young man, who realised that appearance and stage presence were nearly as important to a professional singer as an exceptional voice. Although he had perfect diction in song, he felt it necessary to take elocution lessons with the Shakespearian actor Sir Robert Atkins, the founder of the Open Air Theatre at Regents Park, to smooth the Brummy intonation from his speech.
His adult voice was a distinctive lyric tenor, with an exceptionally wide range and a baritonal quality on the lower notes. His diction was clear and lacked the idiosyncratic pronunciation and bleating quality of many of his contemporaries, which marked them as refined English singers, not quite able to compete with their more virile Italian and German counterparts. In my opinion, Heddle Nash and David Lloyd were the only two British tenors of Webster Booth’s generation who had comparable voices.
At twenty-one, Leslie auditioned for the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company and was immediately accepted after a London audition. Although he had been doing well in accountancy, he abandoned his job with little regret to become a professional singer, making his debut with the company in The Yeomen of the Guard at the Theatre Royal, Brighton on 9 September 1923. He stayed with the company for four years, but made no great advancement from the chorus and small parts. In Duet, his joint autobiography, with Anne Ziegler, he complained that the only way one could advance in the company was to wait to fill “dead men’s shoes”. Despite this observation, he was one of the few singers allowed to record individual songs from the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire without the prior approval of the D’Oyly Carte family.
His recordings of Take a pair of sparkling eyes and A Wand’ring Minstrel under the baton of the gifted conductor Leslie Heward, who died tragically young, remain unsurpassed and are now available on CD. He went with the D’Oyly Carte Company on a memorable and successful tour of Canada. Winifred Lawson, the principal soprano, heard him singing Your Tiny Hand is Frozen from La Bohème at the ship’s concert and was deeply impressed with the beauty of his voice. She was not surprised when he left the company soon after its return to England, to eventually become a deserved success in his own right.
In 1924 he had married Winifred Keey, the daughter of Edgar Keey, his headmaster at Aston Commercial School. Winifred borrowed £100 from a relative, with no intention of repaying it, and used the money to follow Leslie to London against her parents’ wishes, or possibly without their knowledge. They might have approved of the match had Leslie remained a respectable accountant like his elder brother, Norman, but they were against her taking up with a chorus boy in the D’Oyly Carte. Her family would have no more to do with her, annoyed at her, partly because of her defiance of their wishes and partly because she had borrowed such a large sum of money under false pretences from a member of the family. Because they disowned her they never knew that she and Leslie had married or that she gave birth to a son and imagined that she and Leslie were living together in sin.
Winifred and Leslie’s son, Keith was born the year after their marriage on 12 June 1925, and his birth was registered in Birmingham North. Leslie was on tour for fifty weeks of the year and Winifred, left alone with her small son, was estranged from her parents although living in the suburb of Moseley in the same city. After several years she suddenly deserted Leslie and his son. He had suspicions that all was not well at home when he came home from a tour with D’Oyly Carte to find Keith sitting by himself on the doorstep. Winifred had left her small son to his own devices while she went dancing.
Leslie searched for Winifred in every town where he was singing, but despite his desperate attempts to trace her, he never found her, and eventually divorced her in 1931, citing Trevor Davey as co-respondent. Leslie was granted custody of Keith, who never saw his mother again after his sixth birthday.
After the stability of a regular – if small – salary from D’Oyly Carte, he was now a freelance performer with a small son to support and no regular money to his name. In the D’Oyly Carte Company he was known as Leslie W. Booth, but now he adopted his middle name, and became Webster Booth on stage, although his family and close friends continued to call him Leslie for the rest of his life. One of his boyhood nicknames was Jammy and he once signed a photograph “Yours sincerely, Kingy“!
During this precarious period of his life before he achieved fame and stability in the profession, Webster joined Tom Howell’s Opieros, a concert party with a difference, as some of its members sang operatic excerpts while others were comedians and light entertainers found in the usual concert party. Tom Howell was a baritone from Swansea and he and Webster often sang duets together in the shows. For several years Webster toured all over the country with the Opieros during the summer season, performing on piers and in municipal parks. H Baynton-Power was the Opieros’ excellent accompanist.
In winter Webster sang in cabaret at various large Lyons’ restaurants and cafés, at many Masonic concerts and staff dinners, often with the pianist Gladys Vernon as his accompanist. Gladys Vernon was to marry another well-known tenor, Walter Midgeley.
During the winter seasons of 1927 and 1928, he and Tom Howell appeared in Fred Melville pantomimes at Brixton. The first pantomime in 1927 was St George and the Dragon. St George was played by principal boy, Vera Wright, while Webster played King Arthur. 1928’s pantomime at the Brixton Theatre was a freely adapted version of Babes in the Wood. Once again Vera Wright played principal boy, this time in the role of Robin Hood.
Webster made his West End debut as the Duke of Buckingham in Rudolph Friml’s The Three Musketeers at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1930. The leading role of D’Artagnan was taken by Dennis King, an actor and singer Webster greatly admired for his great energy. Other distinguished cast members were Lilian Davies, Marie Ney, Adrienne Brune and Raymond Newell. Unfortunately, Webster could only appear in this show for three months as he had already signed a contract for a Blackpool summer show for Ernest Butcher. Despite Sir Alfred Butt’s best efforts to get him released from this contract, Ernest Butcher would not budge. Webster’s part was taken over by the well-known Yorkshire tenor, Robert Naylor. When Webster set off sadly and reluctantly to fulfill his engagement on the Central Pier, Blackpool, his one consolation was that he could continue singing Queen of My Heart, one of the hits from The Three Musketeers with which he had scored such a success on the West End.
With Lilian Davies in “The Three Musketeers”.
Webster met his second wife, Dorothy Annie Alice Prior (stage name Paddy Prior) in the early nineteen-thirties. He was singing One Alone at a Concert Artistes Association concert and happened to notice her sitting in the audience. Paddy Prior was born in Fulham in 1905, the daughter of Hubert Prior, an ironmonger, and his wife, Annie Jane (née Henderson). Paddy went on the professional stage while still in her teens. She was a light comedienne, dancer, and a soubrette with a charming mezzo-soprano voice and appeared on television in its early days in The Ridgeway Revue with Philip Ridgeway and Hermione Gingold. By the time she met Webster she was a veteran of many concert parties, musicals and pantomimes, and always received good reviews for her work. Despite her talent she had periods of unemployment and placed occasional advertisements in The Stage, such as this one in April 1926, which read as follows:
In 1931 Webster divorced Winifred, citing her affair with Trevor Davey and on 10 October 1932, he married Paddy at Fulham Registry Office, where he had married Winifred Keey in 1924. Around the same time, Winifred married James L. Haig at the Lambeth Registry Office. Webster and Paddy went to Newquay for their honeymoon.
Webster sang for several seasons in Papa Pinder’s Sunshine concert party at the Sunshine Theatre, Shanklin on the Isle of Wight.
In 1933 he and Paddy appeared together for the summer season in The Piccadilly Revels Concert Party at Scarborough. The following year, Webster managed to arrange for Paddy to obtain an engagement with him in the Sunshine show. Appearing on the same bill with them was Arthur Askey, and he and Webster became great friends. After hearing Webster sing To Anthea by J L Hatton at one of the shows, the Askeys decided to name their baby daughter Anthea…
1935
18 November 1926 – D’Oyly Carte Canadian Visit. It has been arranged for the D’Oyly Carte principal company to visit Canada at the end of the season at the Princes on December 19. The company will embark for Canada in the steamship Metagama on the 24th. The tour will open in Montreal on January 4. Mr Richard Collett, the general manager of the company, will be in charge of the tour.
WEBSTER BOOTH-ANNE ZIEGLER 