A Globe Theatre programme from 1944/45 found in a shop in York.
Images courtesy of Janice Cooney
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A Globe Theatre programme from 1944/45 found in a shop in York.
Images courtesy of Janice Cooney
Picture Stockton Archive 
I also have a Globe theatre programme from during the war. I know it is from during the war because there is an advert inside for the restaurant across the road which is now a chippie next to the parish church. It states in the advert that ‘WE ARE STILL OPEN FOR BUSINESS EVEN DURING BLACKOUT. The good old british spirit eh.
Oh and by the way, on the front of the programme I have it seems they were showing ‘Babes in the wood.
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Now there is a blast from the past, Dave Cochcrane and Ruby Renard, I went to their Dance Studio in Stockton even though having danced since being about ten-eleven and being MC for the Army Cadet Dances at the William Newton School Hall once a month people thought I could dance. They taught me Latin Dancing mainly Tango and Rumba with Ruby and Florence one of the older girls dancing me round saying close up touch my bones, feel the dance, at fifteen my blushing lit up the room.
Ruby to me was quite exotic, she looked like Carmen Miranda the film star only without the fruit bowl on her head, to Rumba with her certainly hit all the buttons. Florence was always at the Palais and would come over for a Latin Dance, she was brilliant and we often got a clear patch of floor in an overcrowded room as people watched, I was sixteen by then but heady stuff indeed, it meant I was never short of partners.
A very happy time and I remember them all for the years of pleasure I got from dancing hitting some iconic dance halls in the process. Hammersmith Palais, Streatham Locarno, Nuffield Club London with Sunday afternoon tea dances when all the showgirls would be there, no shows on a Sunday then so a day off for them, plus the Blackpool Tower Ballroom and the Winter gardens, my Wife and I danced there for many years.
Thanks for the memory, they should write a song about it?
Frank.
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Frank would that have been Florence Benson? If so she was my wife’s mother who used to teach there.
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Jeff, I just knew her as Flo, she was always smartly dressed, walked like a dancer and lived at one time on or near Primrose Hill. My memories are of Dancing with her although some years back I saw a lady walking in the Town thought I know that poise so came alongside it was Flo she looked but no recognition so I said nothing, I wish I had.
A couple of the older girls did the practice with us lads Ruby could not dance with us all at once though now and then Dave would lead me in a new step, that really did make me blush.
I got into it because both my parents won competitions though not together, as I sat mesmerised by the lights live band and the dancing couples in the Co-op Hall Leven Road. Some Lady would get me up to dance in the general dancing which was at that time what we called Old Fashioned dancing, I soaked it up. Going to Cochranes to learn the modern dancing the Tango became a favourite and Flo was an ace at it.
Dancing got me into places I would never have seen, a Banquet at a huge Hotel in Port Said stands out and the Viennese Waltz in the Strauss Hall Vienna where my wife and I did a demonstration Waltz on an empty floor and never found out why? we got a round of applause so did not show the UK up.
If it was Florence your Wife’s Mother I am forever grateful to her.
Frank.
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Jeff, was your father called Leslie and your mother called Olive?
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Yes Geordie they were. Sadly both passed now. How did you know them?.
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Jeff. I didn’t know them personally. However, if you care to pass your email address, via picturestockton team, I will answer your question in more detail.
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Picture Stockton has my email address. They have my permission to forward it to you.
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Picture Stockton have passed on to me your email address and I have sent you a message. Thanks for giving permission.
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