Her name in lights!

My childhood friend Barbara Ann, reduced to 'Bobra', came, it might be said, ‘from the wrong side of the tracks’.

She avoided my father but she adored my mother.

My mother was a trained speech and drama teacher, called in those days – an elocution teacher. We lived in an original Victorian house in Pietermaritzburg and she lived with her family around the corner.

One day she spoke directly to my mother, looking her firmly in the eye, which my mother liked. “Mrs Stead please can you teach me to ‘spik naas’. I’ve got sixpence a week to pay you from my pocket money.”

In response my mother started a Friday late afternoon elocution class and opened it to all the kids in the neighbourhood. They poured in.

Bobra stood in the front row in our lounge and her round face went red with the effort of deep breathing and holding a sound to see who could last the longest.
She learned to lower the pitch of her voice from a high pitched whine to something quite attractive. Her stiff skinny plaits quivered as she attempted to follow my mother’s instructions exactly.
She offered her first sixpence behind everyone’s backs and her freckles almost popped off her nose when it was gently put back in her pocket.
She brought a tiny posy one day that my mother put into a little cut glass vase on the piano.

Her role in our Christmas play as the Fairy Godmother had her so excited, she jitterbugged to contain herself.

She sang and danced and did her part with enthusiasm. What a wonderful Christmas it was for all of us.

I visited her home a few times and came away with a heavy heart. Her mother was a highly suspicious, cruel woman who trapped the sparrows who pecked her lettuces, under a trap and systematically wrung their necks.

Bobra showed me with a finger to her lips THE STRAP that hung behind the bathroom door administered by either inebriated parent on many occasions leaving welts on her thin white legs

The front path was a dark red POLISHED straight line from the gate to the front door and Bobra’s mother waggled her bony finger in warning at us kids. Death would be meted out to anyone who put so much as a finger on it, let alone a foot. So when we raced around the house we leapt over the ‘red, woebetide river’ with great energy.

Once, when my 2 sisters and I visited Bobra when she was very ill, her father in his vest and a cigarette in his hand, leered at us through squinty eyes and called us ‘The Stead Bums’. We had been taught to use the word bottom and bum was a rude word that shocked our sensitive souls! We left that house in a hurry.

After a few glorious years of ‘elocution fun’ we moved out into the country and of course the endless evenings of laughter, singing and learning to PROJECT one’s voice, came to an end.
Bobra was in tears.

Something I never forgot, because it made my mother cry, was on her birthday a few months after our departure. We lived in the countryside on the hills outside Pietermaritzburg.

It was a school day, and she was sitting on the wide veranda having tea when she saw this young girl toiling up the long driveway which came from the main road.
Gradually she could identify the figure as Barbara Ann (Bobra was demeaning, my mother said).
The 12 year old was sweating but when she saw my mother walk onto the lawn to meet her, she dropped her bag and her defences and for the first time ever she ran into her arms and my very emotional mother (not given to spontaneous outbursts of affection in those days, stiff upper lip and all,) gave her a long hug.

She had bunked school (my mother assured her that she had done that herself) because she wanted to bring a present and wish her happy birthday in person.

A fresh pot of tea was made, a big slice of the birthday cake for pudding that night after dinner was cut for each of them and Barbara Ann entertained my mother with her stories until tears of laughter were rolling down both their faces.

“I’ve come to tell you that I went for an ,” she struggled over the word, ‘awdishin’, she got out triumphantly. My mother sat back in surprise. “The Rowe theatre in town puts on a play called a ‘panto’ near Christmas,’ she told my mother carefully. “I’ve always wanted to be in it and because you taught me how to,” and she frowned in concentration, ‘to project my voice and speak nicely” she said with clarity and emphasis, “I tried out for a part! Can you believe it Mrs Stead, they gave me one...... a part I mean?
I’m to be one of the naughty kids in the play and I get to say 59 words too Mrs Stead, cause they said I had the biggest voice out of the lot of us. They liked my singing too, I sang that one you taught us……” oh for the wings of a dove”, and I could even get the high notes all by myself. I get to sing alone, a funny song, with a bit of a dance too.”

Bobra got it all out in a rush and sat back in her white wicker chair looking at my mother with gleaming eyes looking like a happy, pretty girl.
“But the thing is this Mrs Stead,” she said earnestly looking at her directly, “I can give two free tickets to someone who wants to come for the last rehearsal, to sort of cheer me on, and I wondered if ,” and she looked at my mother beseechingly……….”my mom won’t come and…..”
“Of course I’ll be there Barbara, boots and all. I’m very excited about the whole thing. Give me the date and the time and Joy and I will be there, yes, to cheer you on. Congratulations my child, it is a most wonderful birthday present. Thank you.”

Why were we not surprised 10 years later to read an account of Barbara Ann Murphy’s advancing stage career in a popular magazine?

Pixabay

When asked in an interview who the person was who had most influenced her in her choice of a career, she said,
“ Mrs Eileen Stead. She was the most generous talented woman who reached out to me as a 9 year old ragamuffin who was desperate to learn to ‘spik naas’. She enriched my life with poetry, plays, music, songs and technique’s that I still use before I appear on stage.”

We gawped at the pictures of this confident, talented, young actress and each of us wiped away a tear, glad to have been part of her life when she was simply known to the gang as Bobra!

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