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INTRODUCTION TO PARTS ONE AND TWO
Director, cast and crew of Journey’s End, the BATS’ last production in 2000
The late Gordon Leonard produced his “short history of the BATS” in our Golden Jubilee Year, 1985. It was circulated among members for a while and then disappeared from view. After Gordon’s untimely death in 1992 it was presumed lost for ever, but it suddenly turned up again in 1999 when it was re-issued in facsimile, and sold to members for £1. As part of the millennium celebrations, I decided to bring our story up to date, originally intending the result to be photocopied. However, it was a splendid opportunity for Behemoth, our colour printer (see 1999), to show off his capabilities, and much of 2001 has been spent transferring my typescript to disk by a team of valiant computer literates. Gordon’s “at [sic] 7.45pm” has undergone the same treatment, and I have used the occasion to make various amendments of a minor nature. I have also added three new paragraphs, denoted by square brackets, taken from Barbara Selby’s account of the early days of the Society which came into our hands shortly before her death in 2001. Gordon did not include this diary in his list of acknowledgements, so evidently he had not seen it himself, although he made use of its information gleaned from other sources. As the events I describe cover our recent and fairly recent past, I have not been able to stand back and observe trends and fashions in our development. I have, therefore, adopted a year-by-year approach, giving an extended form of “Chairman’s Report at the AGM”. Each year has a theme based on what happened and summed up in the title. Then follows a Diary of Events, though they are not necessarily listed in chronological order within each month. The main part of each review is in four parts: the development of the theme; a consideration of our productions; social events and theatre visits; and an exposition of any other matters in which the Society as a whole, or the General Committee in particular, was involved. For the 80s and 90s, unfortunately, some of the minutes of the General Committee have disappeared, so these years are leaner than later ones. Other sources of information have been the Newsletters, of which we now have a virtually complete set going back to 1959, the AGM minutes – especially the Chairman’s reports – the invaluable scrap books compiled by Barbara Selby, and her BATS Diary 1935-45. I am aware this is a history seen mainly from one point of view, covering a period when I have been actively involved in the Society. Productions and events with which I have been associated will, therefore, tend to be more fully dealt with than the rest. In spite of two appeals for information and anecdotes, nothing was forthcoming, but no doubt my accounts will awaken memories among the membership. Any comments, corrections and additions will be welcome in writing, please, and will be incorporated in an addendum which can be incorporated in any future printing. Actors will probably feel hard done by as there are comparatively few mentions of their splendid Hamlets and Hedda Gablers. This is a deliberate policy. Once you start mentioning members of the cast in each production, you have to go on. Do you just say who the principals were each time, and, if so, when does a role cease to be principal? And shouldn’t the Stage Manager and crew also be mentioned? Ideally the cast list for each play should be given in a special appendix – a nice little task to keep someone (else) busy! In the meantime, I have simply given the Director for each presentation to take the credit and the blame, and quoted from the reviews in the local press. As the Bexhill Observer does not have a regular critic, I have not given the age, or the sex, of the reviewers, but the reader can probably remember or even work out who said what. Our thanks should go to all the critics, even when they have been unkind or unjust we think; it is they who keep us on our toes and ensure that we do our best to maintain high standards. In accordance with present-day publishing practice, B.A.T.S., R.D.C. etc have been printed without full stops: BATS, RDC. BATS is used as the name of the Society, an individual member is a BAT and more than one are BATs. The local newspaper, the Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, is referred to by its colloquialisms, the Bexhill Observer and the Observer. Similarly, the De La Warr Pavilion is sometimes the De La Warr and sometimes the Pavilion. My thanks go to the late Gordon Green and the happily still with us Len George for reading the typescript and making helpful comments and suggestions, some of which I have even adopted! Also to the team of typists who transferred my typescript to computer disk, and finally to Peter Bradbury and Behemoth for their efforts in producing this volume. Lastly, I should like to dedicate the ensuing pages to all those who have made this History possible: you, the membership. Eric Stevens ~ January 2001 Picture Editor’s Note: Within the number of pictures I could reasonably include, choices were extraordinarily difficult and I was unable to do justice to all. Apologies if you feel overlooked as a result - I did my best! Sadly, there were a few early plays for which I couldn’t obtain Christian names for all the actors, despite some effort. In these cases, the missing name is represented by a dash. Peter Bradbury ~
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