She taught me how to confront aggression, to look someone in the eye and stand my ground. Anna Scher was a born teacher and her subject was drama. You may not have heard the name but you will certainly know her pupils – most of the Eastenders cast and the Coronation Street boys and girls.
Gerard McCabe, whose acting and direction of the adult pantomime Aladdin at the Waterfront Hall was a great success, remembers Anna coming to the YouthAction NI Rainbow Factory, “Like a flamboyant whirlwind with enough energy and passion to convince any young person that, no matter what, we were going to have fun. She spent a whole weekend with us and returned a second year.” She was genuinely interested in young people working together through drama despite their different backgrounds. Rosie Turner was her pupil and she impressed this young woman who went on to run Belfast Festival at Queens and has recently taken retirement after 20 years heading up the Festival at Canterbury. “I remember her wide smile and her glow, an energy, she had an absolute belief in the power of the arts but she wasn’t to be messed with!” Again Rosie recalls how Anna believed that drama could change young people’s lives for the better. “Joy, confidence and fun made her irresistible.”
Anna Was Special.
She was born into a Jewish Irish family in Cork, as a teenager the family moved to London. She wanted to be an actress but her father wasn’t keen so she became a journalist. Then in 1968 she founded her theatre school and thousands of young people are thankful she did.
I met Anna through the television producer Derek Bailey. He asked if I‘d talk to this drama teacher about travelling to work with children in Rwandan schools. I was just back from there and my answer was Yes absolutely.
I was sitting in the car outside the Irish News offices in Donegall Street when my phone rang. It was Anna. Sometimes you just bond with a stranger – within minutes the stranger became a life long friend and we talked and talked. We discussed Rwanda and before long she did visit and brought joy to those traumatised children. Before the end of the conversation she’d asked me to come to the theatre school’s birthday party in Islington. Again the answer was Yes, absolutely.
What an experience. Not a posh place, rather a well worn church building, a big room, raked wooden seating and an empty floor waiting for action. The audience was as spectacular as the show itself. I was sitting beside Rabbi Julie Neuberger, two steps down was Martin Luther King’s daughter, Gloria Hunniford was there as were ex-pupils, the Kemp brothers of Spandaux ballet, Patsey Palmer Bianca from Easters, Kathy Burke and Linda Robinson Birds of a Feather. Alan Parker cast most of Bugsie Malone from her theatre school.
Her pupils have all benefitted from her influence, many were street children who gained confidence, worked out negative emotions and found a place in society.
Packing A Punch
The outpouring of love for this powerful little woman was evident in November when she died at the age of 78. She actually was a force of nature whose heroes were Anne Frank and Winston Churchill.
Amongst her many awards, in 1999 she received the Peace Person of the Year in Ireland and was chairperson of the International Song Contest for Peace also in Ireland.
She was delighted to come to Belfast and held classes in the Waterfront Hall. We were a motley crew but she wrapped her arms round us all and began to spin her magic.
“There were three words I will not tolerate,” she told us. “The F word, the C word and the Y word used as a derogatory term for Jewish people,” Then we formed partners with one chair between us. One sat on it, the other challenged this and insisted it was their chair and a row broke out. “Look him in the eye,” she said, “ explain how you came to have the chair, argue the point and end up with a mutual understanding.” It was exhilarating exploring attitudes, words and physical stance, challenging your own beliefs. Anything seemed possible.
No wonder that six years after opening the school she had 1000 pupils on the books and 5000 on the waiting list. She took children off the streets and gave them hope and developed their self-esteem. Through improvisation they acted out their problems, found support, made friendships and danced to the joy of performing.
When over work caused her to suffer clinical depression the board running her theatre decided to appoint another director and Anna was totally sidelined, unable to teach, unable to use her name as it belonged to the ‘theatre brand’. So this incorrigible woman moved down the road and opened a theatre in her own inimitable style.
She loved the Zimbabwean proverb: ‘If you can walk you can dance, if you can talk you can sing.’
This little lady from Cork was a mentor who walked the walk, talked the talked and above all, listened.
Funny Business
I wrote a magazine for a housing organisation years ago and some of the comments from customers are amusing and worth recounting when there’s not much to laugh about.
This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broken and we can’t get BBC 2.
I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen
The toilet is blocked and can’t bath the child until it’s cleared
An elderly lady phoned BT’s complaint department. “The cord on my phone is too long, could you pull it back a bit at your end?”
Little boy watching his mum do the washing up. Mum where did you work before you got this job here with us?
So farewell to Havelock House named after Sir Henry Havelock, British general famous for the recapture of Cawnpore during the Indian rebellion of 1857. The building had a proud history from the days as a handkerchief and shirt factory to being Ulster Television, an icon in the television industry. Wrecking balls have forbidden supporters of the building even to take measurements or photo inside before demolition. Boo to curmudgeonly Lotus Property. We have our memories and our friendships but something special, albeit bricks and mortar, will have gone later this week.
Boo also to BBC for cutting daily business news slots in Good Morning Ulster programme. What are they thinking about? At a time when the economy is so in the news and so important locally and internationally why are they going to silence information. Why indeed one wonders? Hopefully a public outcry will change their minds. Who are ‘they’ anyway?
They are messing the public around something shocking
And a sad farewell to BBC’s Linda McAuley who has been championing consumers and airing their views and problems since 1995. Good fortune to her in the future. What a drain there has been of established talent in the last couple of years – and it shows.
And goodbye to David Soul. I met him once at a party in a London Pub and he was charming company, sex on legs as one woman described him, what a night it was and I was so glad I met him.
Escape to Donegal
Christy Gillespie is giving a talk about Glenlough to the Royal Geographical Society on Thursday January the 18th at 7.30 pm in the Elmwood Building, Queens University. You do not need to be a member to attend and there is no cost. A guaranteed enjoyable evening and a sensational book.
When will someone think of suing Fujitsu Limited, Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. The world’s sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the largest in Japan, in 2021, They provided the Horizon soft ware for post offices and can’t be short of a bob or two to recompense the traumatised post masters and mistresses. After all they still have the government’s contract.