Stratford Caravan 1954

Images from Audrey Carrington. Thank you, Audrey.

Could someone please let the site have an account of this visit?

Back: Valerie Manning
Middle: Audrey Carrington, Margaret Connolly
Front: Joyce Fox

Click on the image for another view with Bill Greasley.

"Thoughts on returning home from Stratford" or "A midsummer night's nightmare"

SCENE 1.
A bog near a caravan site. Thunder and lightning. Enter the H.G.S. party, meeting a man covered in mud.
ONE: - What muddy man is that? He can report as seemest by his plight, of the camp ground the newest state.
TWO: - This is the camp superintendent who, like a good and hardy officer, was here when last I came. - Hail, brave friend! Say unto us thy knowledge of the site as thou didst leave it.
CAMP SUPER:- Doubtfully it stood. For this last week the elements have lashed their fury upon It. But come and enter in. I will show you the way anon.
(Exeunt).

SCENE II.
A smoke-filled restaurant in the Stratford Theatre. A drunkard at a table is loudly singing "On Ilkley Moor B'at 'At". Enter three H.G.S. girls.
1st girl:- Where hast thou been sister?
2nd girl:- Drinking orange squash.
3rd girl:- Sister, where thou?
1st gIrl:- An attendant hath programmes in her lap. To her I went and bought. Look in it here. 'Tis Laurence Harvey! Nothing so becomes a man as a nice hair cut and a white 2-litre sports car.' (She sighs audibly)
2nd girl:- I'll give thee a sigh.
1st girl:- Thou art kind.
3rd girl:- And I another.
1st girl:- I, myself, have all the rest. (Alarum within. The girls quickly make for the door and exit, a look of expectancy on their faces).

SCENE III.
Inside a caravan at 11 a.m. on the morning of the final day. Four bodies are strewn over the beds in deep slumber. They awake one by one, but remain in bed.
1st body:- (Brightly, pretending to have been awake a long time):- Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, that you do lie so late?
2nd body:- Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock.
3rd body gets out of bed and moves to the sink.
3rd body:- O horror, horror, horror. Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!
1st., 2nd., 4th bodies:- What's the matter?
3rd body:- Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. We have no gas. We may neither shave, nor cook.
1st body:- Woe, alas! What! In our caravan?
4th body:- Too cruel anywhere - Dear sir, I prithee, contradict thyself and say it is not so.
3rd body turns on gas tap and attempts to light gas with match. There is only a small flame which gradually fades and, with a 'pop', disappears altogether.
The four bodies groan and sink back into bed.

SCENE 4.
The caravan site. The H.G.S. party are boarding a waiting 'bus. The 'bus moves slowly away through the mud and disappears over the horizon.

Thunder and Lightning etc. ad. lib.

THE END.
W.H. Greasley, U.VIS. Price.