A TRIBUTE TO JEANNETTE AMBLER

I would describe the Jeannette I knew as out-going, warm-hearted and generous.

I knew her as a fellow-member of Wokingham Theatre and, in that context, I knew three more things about her. The first was that she had a deeply-ingrained sense of community; this meant she would always get stuck in and do her share of the chores. That – as everyone knows – is a very important quality.

The second thing I knew about Jeannette was that she didn’t suffer fools gladly. You didn’t have to guess at what she was thinking; she would tell you, almost always using quite short Anglo-Saxon words. By this, I don’t mean to imply that she swore like a trooper – though I suspect she probably could if the situation warranted it – simply that she would invariably express herself in fairly terse terms.

The third and most important thing I knew about Jeannette – certainly in a theatrical context – was that she was a comedian or, more accurately, a comedienne. She was a very funny lady. She had that invaluable, unteachable comic attribute: timing. More than that, she could hold an audience without speaking a word and make them laugh with no more than a glance or the lift of an eyebrow. Incidentally, she had the dirtiest laugh I’ve ever heard emanating from a woman. She was at least in this respect the female equivalent of Sid James.

Jeannette was born in Mitcham, Surrey, in 1930. She was raised in a musical family; her father was a professional musician with his own band. She first appeared on stage at the age of two.

Jeannette and Keith met in Singapore in 1964, where Jeannette was a Welfare Officer with the Malcolm Club, which supported service establishments; Keith was a Squadron Leader navigator flying in English Electric Canberras. It will come as no surprise to learn that Jeannette was a leading light of the Seletar Theatre Club on Singapore’s RAF base.

When Keith retired from the RAF in 1976, he was offered a job at Racal in Wokingham and they made their home here.

I myself first saw Jeannette at Wokingham Theatre in a play called Stepping Out. She played Lynne. In many ways it was the perfect introduction; it brought out the very best in her. It is a play about a tap-dancing class and required everyone on stage to wear a leotard. I think it’s fair to say that Jeannette did not exactly fill out a leotard!

I also think it’s fair to say that Jeannette was at her happiest on stage when dancing, preferably singing and making an audience laugh. It was for this reason that she shared her talents so generously with the East Berks Operatic Society. I believe it’s true to say she appeared in every major EBOS production for the past 30 years. In fact, their last show, “Anything Goes”, was the first in which she was not involved.

Jeannette also shared her time and talent with Bracknell Drama Club and, during the 1980s when Dominic Barber was in charge, with the Community Theatre at South Hill Park.

It would be remiss of me if I was to give the impression that Jeannette was only interested in the glamorous side of show business. At South Hill Park, she and Keith were regularly called upon as stewards for the Wilde Theatre, and at Wokingham, Jeannette took an active part backstage and took it upon herself to organise the Front of House rota.

But there were other things in Jeannette’s life besides the theatre. She and Keith were members of Wokingham Lawn Tennis Club, where they were keen doubles-players, and played most Saturdays and Sundays for 30-odd years.

In addition – though not many people know this outside of Holmes Crescent, Woosehill – Jeannette was an official fund-raiser for the Red Cross. Indeed, only last year, she received an award from that internationally famous charity for 25 years of continuous service. Incidentally, there will be a plate at the door when you leave, and if you would like to make a donation, the money will be given to the Red Cross.

When she first came to Wokingham, Jeannette worked initially as a market researcher but in due course she joined Waitrose in Peach Street and could be found behind the provisions counter until she retired in 1993.

Very properly we come at last to Jeannette’s involvement with this church. As always, Keith and Jeannette immersed themselves comprehensively in the life of the church community. Jeannette was a founder member of the Flower Guild, the group of ladies who take it in turns to provide and arrange the flowers which decorate the church. Indeed, Jeannette was down to provide the flowers for the church last weekend.

The photograph of Jeannette we’ve used on the front of the Order of Service shows her in a not untypical pose in a revue called Boop-a-Doop. At Wokingham Theatre, Jeannette played a wide range of parts but was in her element in revue, music-hall and pantomime. She will long be remembered for playing such parts as Ten Yen Su, the Chinese traffic warden in Aladdin, apparently nude as an Artist’s Model singing “It’s not so bad in the summer time” and, dressed in a gauze tutu, singing “Nobody loves a fairy when she’s 40”.

But my own favourite memory of Jeannette was in a music-hall melodrama in which she played a slightly dishevelled, possibly not-entirely-sober Guardian Angel. For some reason which now escapes me, she took several minutes trying to stand on a chair. I remember that as I watched her, I nearly fell off the one I was sitting on. Maybe that’s what she’s doing right now.

We will all miss Jeannette in our different ways. I feel it was a privilege to have known her and, on one or two occasions, to find myself on stage with her.

Peter Stallwood

29 August 2008

Order of Service – the Order of Service was put together by Ray Carmody. The photograph on the front cover, of Jeannette in Boop-a-Doop in 1980, was provided by Joyce and Beryl Spear.