7th December 2005 Ladies Luncheon
This was the 2005 Christmas and Ladies Lunch meeting, about 100 members, partners and guest assembled at the Cuddington Golf club for this splendid occasion. The menu had an excellent selection of Festival fare and the quality and standard could not be faulted, unfortunately the speed of service left much to be desired and the process exceeded the expected time.
Before the speaker was introduced there was the traditional free raffle for the ladies, which again consumed time, this had been proceeded by the presentation of two Certificates of Excellence to Derek Youell and Bob Sullivan both had more than complied with the terms of this award, namely: -
AWARD of EXCELLENCE - Any member may be awarded a Certificate, generally as an acknowledgement of exceptional services to the Club. This award will be proposed by the Committee and confirmed at any general meeting.
Derek had served as President and had been Social Secretary for many years whilst Bob had been the Club’s Secretary for the best part of ten years.
These awards were presented by the current President David Sharp and both received a suitably framed Certificate (typical unsigned shown left) after a short but well received citation from the President.
David our President then introduced Maggie Stredder whose subject was “Life in Showbiz”. She started by giving details about her early life, she was born in Birkenhead in 1936 hence she was only a few years old at the start of the second world war, but remembers he early life in the air raid shelters where due to the current trend of singing to keep the spirits up found she had a very good singing voice. At this stage she had the membership singing well known WW11 songs. She then gave us a hilarious description of her piano lessons with an excellent teacher but with strange dress and makeup configurations. She tried to persuade her mother to drop the piano lessons for singing lessons without avail. Later she travelled to London for audition of a singing part and on gaining a place; mother had second thoughts about letting her stay alone in London a place of low repute!
So poor Maggie return home and continued he education at the local grammar school, were her mother insisted she learnt shorthand and typing ready for a working life.
At this stage of the proceedings one of the guest's collapsed and medical attention carried out with a final resort of an ambulance to hospital, this interruption curtailed Maggie’s presentation and due to the time constraint etc the committee under David and with permission of the speaker the meeting was abandoned.
Hence the following notes have been obtained from various sources hopefully to cover the rest of Maggie’s presentation.
The Vernon's Girls, Maggie joined the Vernon Girls in 1957, were originally a choir that were put together as part of the social activities of Vernon's Pools, the Liverpool based football pool company. The group's first performances, at old people's homes and similar venues, were made on an amateur, charitable, basis. However, they became so accomplished and sought after that the company set them up professionally in the expectation that they would bring publicity to Vernon's. At this early stage, the singers- and increasingly dancers- simply came from the young women who checked the pools coupons that had been submitted by the company's clients. As the demand for professional engagements grew, the company became increasingly selective and even added talented 'outsiders' to their ranks. However, it is claimed that girls would seek employment with Vernon's simply as a means of breaking into show business.
The Vernon's Girls big break came when Jack Good decided that they were what he needed for his rock and roll show '6-5 Special'. As this was a BBC show and advertising was prohibited, they were fortunate that their association with the pools company did not stand in the way. The producer, Jack Good, instructed Maggie not to remove her glasses during recording and overnight, she became an instantly recognisable celebrity in her own right – known throughout the UK as `the Girl with the glasses`. There were sixteen girls in all with one or two extras standing in the wings as back-up. The group were an immediate success and brought a much needed feminine balance to the TV programme. They went on to do all Jack Good's early musical shows, transferring with him to independent television for 'Oh Boy!' and 'Boy Meets Girl'. In addition to work on concert tours, they were also in great demand as backing singers for many of the stars of the day and appeared on many more records However, the original full troupe later disbanded in the mid 1960’s.
Maggie had left the 16 strong vocal/dance group to form a vocal duo – The Two Tones - working initially on the US Air force bases in Germany before joining the Max Bygraves Show for the summer season in the UK. In 1962, after working on the Val Doonican TV Special, a third voice was added to create a fuller sound and the singing group, The Ladybirds ,was born!
They appeared on almost every light entertainment show on TV – and there were many!
Les Dawson, The Two Ronnie's, Morecambe & Wise, Tommy Cooper, Little & Large, Glen Campbell, Shirley Bassey, Paul Daniels, The Generation Game, Children in Need plus many more.
The Vernon Girls reformed as a trio after being personally invited to appear on the Cliff Richard 30th Anniversary Concert at Wembley Arena playing over the two evenings to an audience of 140,000. Maggie has more recently launched a hugely successful career as an after dinner speaker recalling her wonderful life in show business.
The Probus Club of Ewell are very sorry for the termination of this talk and hope in the not too distant future there will be opportunity to hear first hand Maggie’s illustrious show biz experiences. You may also be pleased that our guest has recovered from his unfortunate collapse and has been discharged from hospital.
Pictures with thanks to Jim Court