With the recent sad death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96, I thought I would examine Webster and Anne’s association with British Royalty over the years.
They first went on the Variety Circuit in 1940, during World War II when Royal Variety Concerts were not held because of security reasons, so it was not until the Victory Royal Variety Concert on 5 November 1945 (their seventh wedding anniversary) that they appeared in one of those illustrious concerts.
6 November 1945 – King and Queen at the Coliseum.
The Royal Variety Performance: The King and Queen were the
guests at the London Coliseum last night of the Variety
Artistes Benevolent Fund and Institution for the first Royal
performance held in aid of the fund since the outbreak of war.
They were accompanied by Princess Elizabeth and Princess
Margaret Rose. As the King, who was in naval uniform,
stepped into the flower-decked box an audience
representative of the light theatre in all its aspects rose and
sang the National Anthem. All was, as nearly as it could be, as
it had been in the old days. The famous globe on the roof of
the Coliseum was alight, and the audience had contrived to
put up a more uniform display of formal evening dress than
has been seen in a theatre for some years, a somewhat
arbitrary putting forward of the hands of the clock on which
more than one comedian commented with more wit than
kindness. The programme was, just as in the old days, as
exact a reflection of the modern music hall at its best as it was
humanly possible to make it.
At the top of the bill was the irrepressible Mr. Tommy
Trinder. who dismissed the orchestra and at once established
the intimacy within which we no longer think of a comedian’s
jokes as being either good or bad: each adds to our
comfortable enjoyment of his personality.
Among other comedians well able to top any ordinary bill were Wilson,
Keppel, and Betty – the two neatly ludicrous gentlemen from
ancient Egypt and the smoothly gliding burlesque of
Cleopatra. Mr. Sid Field presented the literal-minded golfer
whose failure to comprehend the rather queer language of
golfers turns his lesson into a boxing match. Mr. Vic Oliver
struggled with The Unfinished Symphony, gravely
handicapped by a piano so decrepit that he had in the end to
take his tools to it. Mr. Will Hay broke his mind afresh on the
pupils of St. Michael’s, one of them intolerably smart, another
intolerably polysyllabic, and a third intolerably dumb, all
familiar but with the freshness that comes from excellent
timing. Mr. George Doonan was, as usual, the life and soul of
a street corner party, and Mr. Duggie Wakefield and his
confederates became inextricably mixed with the inner tubes
of motor wheels. A corner of the programme between the
comedians, the romantics and the clever ones was agreeably
tenanted by Mr. Maurice Colliano and his troupe of eccentric
dancers.
Mr. Webster Booth and Miss Anne Ziegler, Delya,
and Mr. Jules Adrian and Miss Grace Spero warbled or fiddled
for the romantics; the Nine Avalons took the breath away with
their feats on roller skates; and, for spectacle, there were two
set pieces from The Night and the Mystic, that charmingly
elaborate fiesta, and the Masque of London Town, and an
exciting finale to which theColiseum chorus and corps
de ballet contributed handsomely.
24 May 1947 – Advertiser, Adelaide: Queen Mary at 80 –
Best Loved Figure in the Empire, London 23 May
Queen Mary, the most respected and perhaps the
best-loved figure in Britain, whom the King and the Queen
frequently consult on Royal Family policy, will be eighty on
Monday, and at eighty she remains one of the most energetic,
level-headed and clear-sighted women alive.
Proof of the affection with which the nation regards
her will be shown when a special three-hour radio programme
in commemoration of her birthday will be broadcast next
Friday.
It is expected that the broadcast will break all
previous listening records, even those for Mr Churchill’s
wartime speeches, because it is known that Queen Mary
herself is selecting the items and performers. Moreover, she
will probably visit the theatre at Broadcasting House
performance of a new thriller which Agatha Christie – Queen
Mary’s favourite author of “who-dunnits” – has been specially
commissioned to write.
Queen Mary’s favourite artists include Tommy
Handley and singers Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth, who
will participate in the variety programme, while the musical
programme will consist of items typical of the whole British
Isles. In addition, a special birthday television programme is
being arranged.
Radio Times
On Friday the Light Programme will devote the entire evening
between 7.15 and 10.00 pm to a celebration in honour of the
royal birthday. Listeners will hear a Gala Variety Show which will include such established favourites of radio as Richard Murdoch and Kenneth Horne, Elsie and Doris Waters, Tommy Handley, Anne Ziegler and
Webster Booth, Eric Barker, and Albert Sandler. The celebration will close with a special performance of old-time dance music in Those Were the Days… All the contributions to the evening broadcasts have been approved by Queen Mary.
30 May, 1947 – Broadcast, Gala Variety: Anne and Webster
sang in this broadcast for Queen Mary’s eightieth birthday.
Queen Mary had chosen their act as one of her favourites.
When I had the pleasure of being presented to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, at the end of 1967, she told me that Anne and Webster had been favourite artistes of the late Queen Mary.
Shortly before they left for their tour to New Zealand and Australia they were invited to sing for King George and Queen Elizabeth and their daughter, Princess Margaret.
26 February 1948 – Morning Service in King’s Private
Chapel, Windsor.
Webster Booth and Anne Ziegler had the
honour of singing to the King and Queen and Princess
Margaret last Sunday during the morning Service in their
private chapel adjoining Windsor Royal Lodge. They sang
excerpts from Messiah and a hymn by Vaughan Williams.
They were afterwards presented to their Majesties in Royal
Lodge and spent half an hour chatting with them about their
forthcoming world tour.
4 May 1949 It was the 21st year of Sir Malcolm’s conductorship of The Royal Choral Society. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth and her daughter, Princess Elizabeth were present. Webster and other soloists were presented to them in the interval.
6 May 1949 – Albert Hall Concert. The Royal Choral Society
have made Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha peculiarly their own,
and it was most fitting that this work should be chosen for the
Royal Albert Hall concert last night in honour of Sir Malcolm
Sargent’s 21 years of conductorship of the Society.
The performance was in aid of the Battersea Central
Mission, at the request of Sir Malcolm, and both the Queen
and Princess Elizabeth were present.
On such an occasion the choir could not fail to give
of its best, and one has nothing but praise for its singing.
The soloists – Isobel Baillie, Webster Booth and Harold
Williams – also sang their parts well, although the tenor’s
volume could have been increased for so large a building.
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.
This was the last concert before Anne and Webster went to live in South Africa which had Royal associations.
5 December 1967.
In 1967 I was living in Hertfordshire and working as a teacher of music and drama at Wheathampstead Secondary School. The Queen Mother came to the school to open it formally in December of 1967. I had the honour of being presented to her after the performance of the music group in the library, trained by my colleague Vera Brunskill and myself. Sir David Gilliat, the Queen Mother’s Private secretary, came to the school several months before the Queen’s visit to discuss with us what she would talk about.
The choice was Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth. The Queen told me that she had been very fond of their act and it had been Queen Mary’s favourite act. She had chosen Anne and Webster to sing in her special eightieth birthday performance in 1947.
There was to be yet another Royal connection with Anne and Webster after their return to the UK in 1978. On 29 May 1981 they were invited to sing in a Royal Performance in Blackpool in the presence of Prince Charles, now King Charles III.
By this time Webster was far from well but they both went to sing at this performance along with a number of other older performers.
I know that Princess Alexandra always sent Anne a Christmas card. On the death of the Queen Mother, Anne went into mourning for her, not very long before her own death in October 2003.
After Anne and Webster’s long association with Royalty, I wish King Charles III well in his new role as King of England. Long live the King.
Jean Collen.
WEBSTER BOOTH-ANNE ZIEGLER 