Haydn Wheeler's Blog

Following the writing of a book titled “A Card From the Jaws Obsession,” an account of my younger self, ‘Jaws’, friends made, and a discovery of ‘The Book of Quint’, and Jaws OB Podcast by Ryan Dacko. This sixty-year-old, and once 11-year-old, came to sit alongside the cast of ‘The Shark Is Broken’ on May 1st, 2025.

On its arrival in the port town of Poole in May, a turn of events, starting in 1975, as that 11-year-old with a visit to the cinema to see Jaws in December of that year, had brought me here.

Now, in being asked to host a Q & A by Nick, a friend of old, linking back to my days playing in a band. Nick, a journalist and author, freelancing his expertise, working for The Lighthouse in Poole, brought my younger self hitched to this older version of me saying yes to his proposition.

A communication via e-mail does not do this proposition, in its acceptance, justice. For, in my astonishment, the penny took a spell to drop. Exchanges via this method are efficient, yes, but this can feel soulless. A significant unexpected proposal had landed on my shores. A use of exclamation marks, sufficed, several, representing my enthusiasm. Excitement, in abundance in 1975, I discovered, had been simmering about ‘Jaws’ for myself, from my rediscovery of watching the film again on its 2022 re-release. Nick, Introducing me to Charles, in our correspondence, ‘The Lighthouse’s Creative Engagement Producer’, set my destination, his guidance on what the evening required taken onboard.

This boyhood excitement, or very good in the 70s, needed taming. In hosting a Q & A, with Ian Shaw, playing his father Robert Shaw, Dan Fredenburgh, as Roy Scheider and Ashley Margolis as Richard Dreyfess, the elation dial needed turning down. A grin on my face, looking across the cast on the night, would, of course, be inappropriate. A permanent cheshire cat smile, although a truth in relating my emotional state on sharing the stage with the cast, would look weird, and off-putting for the actors and audience upon viewing.

Although for authenticity, if a sustained grin had been in need. A tooth lost in an accident in Poole as a young man matches the Robert Shaw, Quint missing tooth. The "do you wanna see something permanent, boom boom" line spoken in the film, whereupon Quint, after removing a capped tooth, matches my missing premolar.

Preparation: an orderly professional manner had to be portrayed on the night. An approach to achieve this appearance took shape in my construction of questions, where a sprinkling of nerves was always present. First port of call, phoning a friend. A sharing of the good news. A seeking of advice on the framing of the questions should start. Dialing the number, a voice answered.

Adrian McKenna, a man that knows a thing or two about Robert Shaw, about his work as an author, playwright, and actor. His insights into Shaw’s work are exceptional. We had become good friends discussing Robert Shaw over the Covid period via the socials. When a chance comes to a nearby venue, my partner and I go to see him play. He is a man of many talents, a musician being one. The music, life, and times of Eddie Cochrain is another passion of his.
Talking frequently of the route to go with ‘The Shark is Broken’ cast in the questioning, we discussed a theatre approach. Speak about the set design, upon cast preparation, the relationship of the film with the play. All splendid topics. All good theatre questions. This was our game plan.

Now, Adrain and I are both very aware of Robert’s novels. Robert Shaw’s talents as a writer are both things we admire, discussing Robert’s novels regularly. This is of note, when applied to myself observing the play, for the first time. Our game plan became a tad more. Well, not a plan at all.

I began thinking of the questions to ask on the night. That night, by the way, on May 1st was an important date in the Jaws universal calendar. For it was on this date in 1974 that the film entourage arrived in Martha’s Vineyard, the film's Amity. In 2025, 51 years later, the ripples touched Poole. To quote Ryan, “the Jaws universe is ever expanding”. Amity, as in Amity Square, is also a location in Poole. The film’s continuing ebb and flow never ceases.

First, the play. A viewing of the performance before my scheduled host appearance. This, being essential for an authenticity on the night, with my questioning. I had reserved seats at The Lighthouse, in fact, for two nights during its opening week, opening night 29th of April and the Q & A night itself. This, of course, although well appreciated, gave me little time to prepare questions related to the production.
Chance would have it. My partner Sheila and I had earlier in the year booked tickets to see the play at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham on April 26th. Wanting to meet up with Mark Fitzgibbons, a Jaws collector and Steph, this meeting in the Regency town was a chance to talk about the Jaws/Robert Shaw event in Westhoughton we had planned for August. Now, also an opportunity for a taking of notes with a closer look at ‘The Shark is Broken’.

Coming at the play with our game plan, but from a history of our discussions with Adrian, our shared acquaintance of Robert’s novels, made its presence known. I can say the lightbulb moment happened at the Everyman Theatre. More precisely, an over-analytic epiphany. Ah, that’s what the play is about. I must tell Adrian. That’s brilliant. I call this sort of revelation of understanding in thinking the “wait till I tell Eddie” moment. Spoken by Cabbie from John Carpenter's film Escape From New York, as Snake Plissken gets in his cab. The excitement shown by Cabbie gives an accurate measure of one’s emotional glee.

This was to be doubled, then trebled when viewing in Poole. For what is personal when observing another’s work is of importance.
When given time to compound that interpretation with several viewings, well, it was getting a bit like my 11-year-old self, with recurring viewings of the film. It’s not really just about a shark, or is it? Doubt, in this case, on meanings related to ‘The Shark is Broken’ was becoming non-existent. Sureness prevailed. The novels of Robert Shaw are ever present, skillfully relayed via the spoken word or tactilely placed in an action.

The performances were as expected excellent, over all three showings. A turn of events in Cheltenham, where Ian had to take care of his voice, had seen his understudy Owen Oldroyed play the Robert Shaw role. Frankly, viewing from the stalls, Owen, could have been Ian. I know, many see the plays’ importance, is the fact that Ian plays his father Robert. But, yes, a role that becomes something extraordinarily special with Ian’s role as his dad and him being also the writer of the play with Joseph Nixon, adds a gravitas. Owen’s convincing performance nevertheless made the role he played enjoyable to watch in relation to the production. As a standalone piece, the play works in the writing. Its performances, when done well by any actor, make the play thrive as a piece of theatre.

Now, the references to Robert’s books, mentioned earlier. A little knowledge of Robert Shaw as the author, when upon watching ‘The Shark is Broken’, had bookish references, levels, connections working overtime in my thoughts. I took one off the mind’s shelf, when appropriate. Bloody hell! It’s all about Robert, the author. Again, in interpretation, we carry our own experiences when digesting another’s story. I was in fear of becoming the biographer, who falls into the trap of falling in love with his subject. Where the overconfidence of understanding lurks in waiting, to be released as an arrogance. Let’s keep a little distance here. A balanced perspective applied. Well, that didn’t last long.
First thoughts on watching came early on. Notepad in hand.

A critique, questions asked, what is art, where it best serves us, and its purpose. The play journeys around this as an open-ended unanswered question in its meaning. What defines good art, storytelling? Validating their professions, fame, a pursuit of by Dreyfuss, is at odds with Shaw’s, where fame is only a side product of little worth attached to one’s work put in. Robert Shaw’s conflict between Richard Dreyfuss and himself centers on Shaw’s perspective. As a writer who prioritizes his acting career to support his family. It’s as the author, where he finds his greatest form of communication.

To himself and the reader, Shaw wrote for both. The play plays on this tug of war within Robert’s relationship with acting. Films that make money are not necessarily his best, yet films that took little at the box office as ‘The Luck of Ginger Godfrey’, where he acted with his wife, Mary Ure, had limited success. The acting profession itself, in ‘The Shark is Broken’, becomes somewhat of a broken industry in the eyes of Robert. He sees himself and Roy Scheider as being of another era, on the cusp of extinction, which with irony, is a film that they are both having a hand in making that would bring that change. Spielberg, as a director, is among those hastening the new upon the industry.

The timely placement of humor by the three actors lightened the mood for the audience. Shaw, the Shakespearean versed actor, writer, and playwright, in portraying Quint sees Robert’s acting experience aligning well with Quint’s old sea dog character. Both know their profession. Dreyfus’s brashness enveloped in arrogance as the newcomer clashes with Robert’s alcohol fueled accesses of personality; he howl’s at a storm clouds filled sky, while hanging off the upper deck of the Orca in the play, at one point. His own inner battles magnify his dismissal of Richard’s abilities. This has as an air of snobbery, the old hand at odds with this new upstart. Dreyfuss quibbles at Robert’s socialist values. Shaw’s need for money comes shaped as a champagne socialist in meaning weaponised framed jibe. This need to earn a good wage was a necessity. Robert had ten children to support. This reminds us of our many inner contradictions.

Ah, here is my first interpretation. They have brought into the play via this exchange Shaw’s political leanings, Robert’s socialist values, rubbing against his need for money, Shaw’s book ‘The Flag’, broke the surface. That’s clever, blimey.
This play cuts deep, pulling back the curtain, exposing the fragility of being human, our crutches required. Here, with any knowledge of any topic, throws up a question. Was I overthinking their exchange? Is one’s enjoyment enhanced by or made an overcomplicated experience by some knowledge of what is before us in any art? Does it matter? In honesty, with yourself, really? Go with what you see. Eck! Let’s stick with the books.

‘The Flag’, a fictional story, drew inspiration from the red (socialist) vicar of Thaxted, Conrad Noel. Conrad’s disdain for greed taps into the fictional town of Amity’s need for the tourist dollar. Quint’s introduction in the film is as a remedy. The town’s economic survival relies on Quint’s success in killing the shark. Shaw’s ‘The Flag’ brings a comical element into his book, where the characters are a mix of social standings, reacting to each other. As in the book, as in the play, we see both shared themes. An interacting of mixed personalities, around a shared journey to end resolution, their personalities shaped by their pasts, colour that journey. What’s interesting is the way Robert’s book, as in being fiction, plays into the town of Amity, many voices around the village pump reality, while the factual, as in based on Conrad, plays into the greed. Robert’s book, the play, works on several levels.

I’ll make a note of this. If another book reference subtly hid or not in the cast actions or dialogue appears in the performance, we are onto something. A validation. A direct reference. We didn’t have to wait long.
A line said by Richard, where he accuses Robert as antisemitic, brings into the performance a Shaw novel directly. Also, a play directed by Harold Pinter, ‘The Man in the Glass Booth’, is used to highlight Dreyfuss’s intellectual immaturity or a need to strike back at Robert with an accusation. He doesn’t get it or he needs a cutting remark. Either way, the mention is of importance. Robert’s novel portrays its main character, Goldman, a Jew who survived the Nazis. Experiencing survivor's guilt, he battles with his identity, a trait he shares with Quint, surviving the USS Indianapolis sinking. Quint is defined by this moment in his life. Ian Shaw and Joseph Dixion, including this reference to Robert’s novel, merge Robert and Quint. We hear in the play also, Shaw muttering to himself, exiting the Orca, “still trying to figure how much is Quint and much is Robert”.

Ian Shaw, in playing his dad, this inclusion of Robert’s novel has relevance as well. Ian, when asked about playing his father at the Q and A in Poole, he spoke of his father being fearless, where he is not. Yet, in fact, in taking on this role, where emotions run high, he is in fact like his father. Playing one’s father, from a perspective of a now adult but at the period of his dad’s death, as a young child is fearless. Grief never leaves you, it lives with you and becomes a part of you. Robert shares with the Richard and Brody characters the death of his father, while he was a boy by suicide. In our more understanding present, we now recognise his father as a soldier serving in WWI and a later doctor—as having Post Traumatic Stress.

This loss weighed heavily on Robert. Through his storytelling, he channels his emotions, finding a means of communication with himself and the reader via his novels. This is at its most obvious in his second book, ‘The Sun Doctor’, where the main character Doctor Halliday visits Stromness on Orkney, looking for those that knew his father. Reading passages from this book, it’s if you hear Ian and Robert in unison in sentiment when speaking about their dad’s dependence on alcohol.

Ian, as with his father through writing, as in a playwright or Robert as the novelist, brings a relationship with his dad as brothers, working together, speaking of a shared loss of a parent. Ian takes this commonality to the stage, Robert to the page, the ‘The Sun Doctor’ delivers several layers of interest. In his 1963 Hawthornden award-winning novel, Robert appears as a cameo in the novel as himself, observing himself as a character he played. Cast in the Willis Hall written play ‘The Long, And The Short And The Tall’, Robert played a tough, experienced sergeant called ‘Mitch’. In the book, he observes the cast of this play he was a part of in a bar. After overhearing their conversation, he follows the actors and enters a theatre, and as Dr Halliday he watches himself on stage. After watching the performance, and hearing the actors at the bar, he questions himself about the actors’ lack of gravitas shown after their performance about what they had just represented. We see again the questioning of art in meaning, and acting itself is being judged. Are you ever as your character?

Ian, in ‘The Shark is Broken’, explores this very notion of the actor becoming the character further and in its most direct form, as the son’s role being his dad. This throws up a multitude of intriguing questions about the father son relationship, not only as the actor but in a wider societal context.

Throughout the three performances, I became ever more convinced of my observations'. Penning e-mails to Adrian with these books included revelations, how the play by design or in an outer worldly manner, clutched from the expanding Jaws Universe, Ryan subscribes to. The black hole, pulling you in, then throwing out many forms. A kaleidoscope of versions, each as valid as the other. Thank you, Marty Milner.

Scheider all this while brings the moderator into play, he holds the fort'. With the ‘The Shark is Broken’, Roy steers the boat. He sees in the Richard Dreyfuss character an insecurity, which is looking for approval. In Robert, an understanding of each of his own in personality, he’s been around. He knows when to intervene, when not. The Robert and Dreyfuss flare-ups, a dance of managerial skills applied. Robert, strangely, with his animosity attitude towards Richard, becomes a father figure in Richard’s eyes. And it is he who meets Richard on an emotional level of understanding, and what is in need when Dreyfuss suffers a distressing panic attack. He recognises the inner demons playing mischief in one’s mind in another.

All the guards drop between all three when the father figure surfaces. A reflective mood settles between them. An opening up. Each tells their story. The heart of the play sits here. Their reasons for who they are, is in part defined by the father son relationship. This part of the play also has in common the camaraderie and sharing of scars we witness in Jaws. Those that we come in contact with stay with us and can leave scars.

When exiting the theatre in Poole, Adam Clifford, understudy for Dreyfuss and Scheider, was sitting on a chair by the exit. We exchanged a smile, ah a sign perhaps. Speaking with Ian at the stage door, I approached him on his dad's books, the play, the meanings. Overthinking or not. You decide.

Yes, but what of Robert Shaw’s other novels, ‘The Hiding Place’, (see the hiding of booze) ‘Card From Morocco’,? They are all in there. Wait till I tell Adrain.

1984

Writing for the Manchester Evening News, a report on the upcoming screening of the BBC’s adaptation of George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’, titled as an article by a special correspondent, we are told the why of this production and why now. Those who decide what appears on our TV screens wanted to end the year 1954 with something that might have classic proportions. With a cast including Yvonne Mitchell as Julie and Peter Cushing as Winston Smith described as an event in itself, Rudolph Cartier as producer and BBC script writer Nigel Kneale, all working on the project, confirms the BBC’s ending intentions of this classic proportions endeavour. Rudolph and Nigel, both associated with the Quatermass serials, also worked together for a BBC’s production of ‘Wuthering Heights’ in 1953. This saw Yvonne Mitchell playing Cathy opposite Richard Todd as Heathcliff. Seen as a success and a classic interpretation on screen, ‘1984’ followed, and seen in excellent hands.

Shown over two nights, the 12th and repeated on the 16th of December 1954, this television screening has reached a legendary status in its reactions, controversy surrounding the broadcast. Those that watched on the night, and the repeat having their say. Before the television screening, broadcasters even issued a public warning, “unsuitable for children and elderly people of a nervous disposition.”

We see headlines speaking of horror, revolting, by some viewers, the BBC switchboard swamped, a motion in Parliament deploying the BBC’s “sadistic tastes” and even a story from the Daily Express that has a header stating, ‘1984, Wife Dies As She Watches’. This revelation loses its shock intention as you read on. A case of while watching, not as the reason for her death, becomes obvious later in the piece. One wonders what her husband thought of the use of his sadly departed wife, being used for effect in a newspaper.

Mostly, though, the newspapers of the day gave positive reviews and viewers such as David, from Woodham, are an example of viewers who praised the production.

“I congratulate the BBC on the first-class TV play 1984.” He continues praising the play, “making us more aware of our responsibility for the future and for our children.”

What about the cast of this newsworthy moment on television? Fortunately, we have Yvonne Mitchell, Peter Cushing, and producer Rudolph Cartier sharing their thoughts on their involvement in this historical TV production, again via the Daily Express.

Rudolph informs us the courage of the BBC staggered him. “From the moment they first proposed it they stuck to their decision through all kinds of difficulties and troubles, and people saying it would be difficult or tricky to put over.”

His remarks on Orwell’s 1984, in its message he says, “For that is what it is- a serious warning, outspoken propaganda against totalitarianism in all such forms, such as Fascism, Nazism, Communism or McCarthyism.” Explained passionately, and adding “if someone had written a novel in 1910 and called it 1954 and forecast extermination camps, slave labour, the horrors of atomic and hydrogen bombs they would probably have been accused of wild exaggeration, and morbid, crooked thinking.”

Yvonne Mitchell comes at her performance as an actress, concerning herself with acting, her interpreting of a role, but here also, we see her expressing her feelings at the rehearsal stage revealing the effect the play had on her when playing Julie.


“Rehearsing ‘1984’ was terrifying. All the things I dread were brought home starkly to me every day. The Totalitarian State where no one can exist as an individual, where no private thought is allowed where one is watched by a TV screen in every moment of one’s life, where men and women dress uniformly, where spying is encouraged, where love is a crime, is a way of life that makes me shake with fear.
There has been enough portent of this in our lifetime to make one recognise that such things are possible. Pray God they are not probable. Getting back after rehearsal to 1984 was each day a breath of relief. I began to appreciate the things I often take for granted: freedom to dress as one wants - even the choice of lunch on a menu card.
Actors very seldom have any strong feelings about the purpose of a play they appear in. We are concerned only with acting, with interpreting. We are nearly all of us constantly non-political animals. We take no sides. We have no axe to grind. But all of us who took part in this TV play were convinced of its importance, were proud to take part in it.”

Peter also shares a similar take on his thoughts concerning his part as Winston Smith. Stating it as a job of work, but also more than that. He adds in his summing up an interesting comparison of writers in their intentions of interpreting the message in the books.

“I was reminded in rehearsing ‘1984’ of Gulliver’s Travels, which Dean Swift wrote as a vicious tirade against governmental abuses. It has now become a children’s classic.
I do not suggest that ‘1984’ will ever become a book for children - but it must be remembered that George Orwell too was campaigning against the possibility of gross abuse of power.”

On a light note, The Sunday Pictorial gives a story regarding a telegram sent by Peter Cushing to his co-star Yvonne Mitchell of good wishes using ‘Newspeak’, A language brought about by 1984’s totalitarian government to limit the range of words, grammar, and vocabulary. Critical thinking curtailed, suppressing our ability to express ourselves in words.

It read: Double-plus-un-bad-luck-ful-ness.

“How many words is that?” Asked the operator, baffled. “One” replied Peter.

Television Interviews with Yvonne Mitchell are short and far between. Yvonne appeared on programmes such as the Book Programme with Robert Robinson, sadly if not swiped, no interviews are yet to be repeated.

An episode of Those British Faces, occasionally shown on television, has in its series a documentary on Yvonne’s films, which touches on her written work. Narrated by Richard Todd, this lifts sections from Yvonne’s own book, Actress.

Luckily, we have interviews via the printed press and magazines, with the bonus of others' books where Yvonne Mitchell appears in the pages of.

It is worth tracking down a copy of Ivor Brown's series of photographic records and critical analysis for a look back at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre of 1953. Titled, 'Shakespeare Memorial Theatre 1951-53,' this book contains some stunning pictures of the cast for productions in 53.

With photography by Angus McBean, pictures inside include portraits and on-stage photographs of Yvonne Mitchell.

But what about Yvonne herself, about her writing?

In an interview for the Express in February 1960, conducted by Margret Stevenson, Yvonne gave some insights into her writing, and authors she admired.

“To enjoy life, one should live in the present.” A passionate reader, authors she admired. Kingsley Amis, William Goulding, Graham Greene. No set time for writing, snatching time where she can. She never writes in the morning.

A more thorough interview by The Scotsman, August 14 1976, Yvonne discussed seeing herself primarily as an actress. Maybe questioned?

The interview starts with a look at Yvonne’s first written work, with her play. On moving to France, the time spent there; she wrote five novels and three children's books. During her pregnancy, she wrote her first novel, which took approximately as long as her pregnancy. A verdict on her own early novels, Yvonne sees as just stories, lacking any sense of urgency or necessity.

This, I would venture to argue, is Yvonne playing her own work down. For as with, for example, her second novel, Looking For Julian, there is most certainly an urgency in Julian the painter. His tortured outlook, desire for recognition, with a family in witness to his struggle, pulls the reader into his mental difficulties. The ending took me by surprise; I never saw it coming..

The interview continues with Yvonne coming to her fifth novel. Here, with this written work, we hear Yvonne, in her own words, quoted.

“But then came my fifth novel, Martha on Sunday, when I suddenly discovered the theme I was going to explore, from then on. It’s the idea that we don't just live one life on one level, or if we do, it's a pretty blinkered life.”

It was the later novels, Martha on Sunday and God is Inexperienced which explores the difference between behaving and being. It was here the critics; we are told, started taking Yvonne as a serious novelist.

Yvonne is most obviously a novelist of talent, not only from her later novels but also from her former work.

Reading her novels in order of publication. I can guarantee you, Yvonne Mitchell, and her ability to put a conflict in its many forms upon the human condition. Her novels evoke emotions.

With seeing herself primarily as an actress, well, maybe not.

“Until a few months ago, I always told myself I was an actress first, but I published a few books. Now I’m wondering if writing will not win in the end. Of course, there is a link between the two.”

On writing. In longhand.

“I'm completely haphazard and quite disorganised, for one thing. I write in the bath, with a sort of board stretched across. I write on envelopes, backs of bills, often forgetting to number them. I think I discovered in my adolescence that if I aimed and planned for something, nothing would happen at all. I’m a creature of muddle.”

Yvonne Mitchell

The acting cast of the 1953 season at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre not only had a talented troupe of actors and actresses but would produce a group of writers. Written publications through the years that followed from Yvonne Mitchell, Robert Shaw, and Micheal Redgrave are substantial. Donald Pleasance, also of that group of Shakespeare actors, wrote a children’s book. Between them, a body of written work which covers playwriting, screenplays, children’s books, novels, and biographies.



I discovered Yvonne Mitchell’s novels and other written works by chance. After revisiting Robert Shaw’s books, his five novels, this brought a fascination on my part in researching Shaw’s background. Somebody I saw principally as an actor when I was young. The film Royal Hunt of the Sun being my introduction to Robert, the actor. This perception of Robert changed through reading first, Shaw’s The Flag, thereafter, the other four books written by him. I saw Robert Shaw as a novelist, playwright, and actor.

In trying to locate a published copy of Cato Street, a stage play penned by Robert brought my research to an article on Shaw in the Daily Mirror newspaper. The focus of this article was on the cast of 1953 who performed at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. In the company, a young Robert Shaw, described as the most attractive male when looking at men this side of the Atlantic, compared with the USA actors. The actress who made the comment, Yvonne Mitchell. Also in this company of actors was Michael Redgrave.

Knowing Yvonne Mitchell as with Shaw, from her acting career and now knowing Yvonne and Robert shared the stage together, my curiosity led me to look deeper into this connection. I made a discovery of quality and quantity in the written word by Yvonne. As I delved into Yvonne Mitchell’s books, beginning with her initial publication, The Actress, my admiration for her work expanded.

The novels have distinct styles, and diverse settings where the story takes place. Yvonne integrates her acting background experience into her storytelling. This is at its most obvious in A Year in Time and The Family.

Yvonne Mitchell is exceptional in her ability to express what it is to be human in her storytelling. The ever changing through age, events and experiences on the human condition, Yvonne Mitchell skillfully brings to life through her writing word. Complexities created through characters’ interactions with one another, a theme Yvonne writes upon with skill. Wit, sadness, joy, love and knocks we all encounter ourselves, expressed through her words.

Yvonne Mitchell, we know predominantly as an actress. As an author, biographer of Colette and playwright, Yvonne accomplished work in her writing is as engaging for the reader as her screen and theatre performances.

Thankfully, there is still a wealth of Yvonne’s books accessible through secondary sources. My initial exposure to her writing was through her biographical book, The Actress. This introduction, now looking back after reading her later novels, gives the reader some insight into her written characters. The actress at work, stepping into other shoes which then the audience views, connects with. Yvonne, as an author, masterfully brings that also through her novels.



'Actress', a biography of Yvonne's beginnings in acting school and the theatre, also gives us an insight into her first credited film role in Thorold Dickinson’s directed ‘Queen of Spades.’ An interesting piece of information regarding Yvonne and her co-star in the film Edith Evans was told to me by Yvonne Mitchell’s daughter Cordelia Monsey. “Evans said to my mother on their first day working on the film, ‘both new girls together.’” Both Actresses in their first credited film roles. Yvonne had an earlier uncredited part playing a factory worker in the 1941 film ‘Love on the Dole.’

Yvonne Mitchell's personal experience and observations in the world of repertoire, theatre, film, and television are conversation-like in ‘Actress.’ Advice entwined with Yvonne's own stories of touring, bedsits, landladies and, as a stagehand, shifting the scenery, working on the lighting, you get an insider's view of the pre-war, war years and after of Yvonne's working life.

For a spell, Yvonne worked as a Red Cross nurse. From 6.30 in the morning till 6.30 in the evening. Working at Edgware Road tube station. This was all part of Mitchell's life while also pursuing her career in the theatre.

A truly lovely read. Beautifully written, where Yvonne Mitchell takes the lead in her own story with a one-to-one telling with the reader.

As a way into discovering and exploring Yvonne’s later novels, the reading of ‘Actress’ gives the reader a personal introduction to Yvonne herself. Most autobiographies typically conclude at the end of a career or profession, here we start at the early years of Yvonne’s acting. Written at the time as a guide for others in its style, she conveys in her book information to those with an interest in acting, what the world of stage and theatre entails for those entering the profession.

Reading ‘Actress’ now, after its publication in 1957, this is a fascinating book. Theatre, film, becoming a playwright. Yvonne tells her story as a young woman starting out in her chosen profession of acting.



This is the tale of a young man, Karl, a poet who, as a political refugee, left Germany as a boy and now experiences a sense of disconnection from his current home in Hampstead, even though it's his home by adoption.

Having recently witnessed the war in Europe and being forced to flee his homeland. Unexpectedly forced to leave his university education behind, Karl embarks on a journey with his brother across the Polish border.

Spending one night in Dover, both the brothers find themselves in Canada after being mistaken as suspected Nazis.

Finally arriving in England, Karl becomes‌ enamored with Ellen, a promising actress who is steadily gaining recognition in the theatre community.

Yvonne incorporates her theatre expertise in the book, putting her knowledge of the stage and film into fictional settings.

Stephen and Bridget, a couple whose story runs alongside Karl's story, reflect the mirroring of Ellen and Karl, but with an acceptance of their relationship, although reluctantly

Looking at selfishness in all parties involved with underlying snobbery at play, and the power of one over another. Yvonne's novel delves into the emotion of infatuation and where finding one's identity through another has inherent downfalls.

Not receiving reciprocation from the recipient, Karl's affections become a basis for self-discovery with accompanying risks. Karl experiences indifference, although sympathy for Karl by Ellen is present and respect for his poetry. This brings a dilemma for the reader. You wish you could move on to the years where, after a time, an understanding and settling of emotions could bring these two to a better place with each other.






Yvonne's second novel, following ‘The Bed-sitter’, vividly portrays through strong characterization the story of two painters and their families in France, Julian and Gorby, both seeking recognition. Primarily shared through the perspective of the children and Julian's wife, Augusta.

The attitude of the two painters, Gorby's steady natured persona, contradict Julian's more tortured outlook. Yvonne skillfully projects the effect these two painters have on those around them, and the mannerisms and actions this creates in those family members.

The children themselves are a mix of the more upbeat and troubled. As Gorby becomes ever more accepted as a successful painter, Julian counters this with his struggles for acceptance by others in his art and by himself, for he is constantly at odds with his own work.

Yvonne's story of contrasts is in part haunting and very much a human story of reflection on those living with the consequences, highs, lows of another's ambition on loved ones. The darkness Julian spirals into challenges the relationship between Augusta and their children.

‘Bed-Sitter’, Yvonne's debut novel, portrays a tumultuous love story set in an unsettling and unresolved environment. With themes touched on in ‘The Bed-Sitter’. ‘Frame for Julian’ pushes the boundaries further, where we see a conflict in oneself as in Julian, mentally a destructive element surfaces. As you witness Julian grow ever distant to his family, Yvonne takes you to a jaw-dropping ending.





'A Year In Time', is Yvonne Mitchell's third novel. Rachel, a young girl, experiences the loss of her mother and rejection from her stepmother. Losing her father also, Rachel feels abandoned.
Yvonne herself, the author, lost her mother when young. You have a sense Yvonne draws on this awareness of loss and seamlessly adds it into her storytelling through her choice of words with an artistic licence.

The novel revolves around the world of actors. Through her storytelling, Yvonne, who is an actress herself, early on, presents a blend of characters who engage with each other as if they are performing what they genuinely believe to be in Rachel's best interests.

Rachel finds herself in the care of her uncle Oliver and partner Richard after attending a boarding school for a period. Also, an actor, Oliver, encourages Rachel in piano lessons, where she finds a sense of solace. Rachel forms a friendship with her piano teacher, Madame Ortini, that leads to a scheduled performance. As the concert date approaches, Rachel reflects on her motivations and the legacy of her performance.

"Though the date was the point at which she and Madame Ortini were aiming, it had seemed to keep its distance as if it would always be there on the calendar as an incentive. Two days before the date it dawned on Rachel with shock that it would not always be a future one. Very soon it would be mixed with billions of others in the past. She would have to catch at it with both hands, as a bouncing ball; and it might slip and dribble past her, irretrievable."

Rachel's piano playing opens a door into the world of theatre, an opportunity to appear in a play opening in New York, titled The Transfer. With a decision made, a trip by sea to America booked, Rachel boards the ship from Southampton.

The US was also a destination Yvonne herself took by ship, as she had a fear of flying.

Rachel plays a fifteen-year girl called Moffet who is born deaf, and whose father neglects to teach her speech. She is from childhood taught how to play the piano.

A strict director stamping his authority adds a sense of limited perimeters for the actors to expand their input through rehearsals and performance. Difficulties, which included a cut in pay, leaving Rachel unable to pay her hotel bills and being caught between in-house politics, has Rachel questioning her own motivations regarding her input into the production.

A lunchtime conversation between the cast touches on the topic of national isolation, Rachel feeling like a foreigner occasionally than at home. This brief discussion touches on the differences in social hierarchies between America and England. Rachel still hadn't inquired about the meaning of her union card.

Yvonne's character Rachel, through her many experiences and the people she shares those experiences with within the play, becomes an everywhere more realisation where her passion really lives.

Madame Ortini's advice to Rachel before she leaves for America serves as the framework for Yvonne's novel, with the story painted on the canvas.

"Don't be ashamed," she said, "of doing what you want to do, in case someone don't like you. It's time to be ashamed when you do something you DON'T want to do."

An interview with Yvonne Mitchell from 1960 makes for interesting reading. Her return to the UK after leaving a play in the USA titled The Wall.

"And the bullying? Well, for example, we had three dress rehearsals in Philadelphia. We were told the director was incommunicado, and we weren't supposed to see him. Here I was in a strange theatre trying to find my way around in the dark behind the scenes and not supposed to ask any questions. Finally, I said: Look there's danger here-there were no lights on behind the scenes and I was afraid someone might get hurt." Yvonne speaks on the shutting down of anybody that opened their mouth to ask a question, and was told, who do you think you are?"



The mixing of the factual and fictional with dates and names, something Yvonne uses in her books, is at its most obvious in 'The Family.' This story, told through Esther, brings the reader early in the book to a place of loss experienced by Esther around the death of her mother, Madeline. A photograph of Madeline, which sits on a brown cupboard in the sitting-room, is a comfort to Esther, where she visits and speaks to her late mother.

Yvonne herself lost her mother when young. As did Robert Shaw with his father. Yvonne and Robert both delve into the emotional impact of a parent’s loss during childhood, artfully conveyed through a character in their narratives.

Did Yvonne and Robert, while both appearing in the Shakespeare Company productions of 1953, share their stories of loss?
Through the writing process in later life, both writers explore in their novels a loss in childhood, and then its influence in their later life. Robert concentrates on the adult, where his character is now as an adult in all his novels. Taking a retrospective view. Yvonne speaks to you through the child and as an older self in her books.

'The Family' brings into its storyline the family’s connections with business. This was also a reality in Yvonne’s life. Her father was involved in the J. Lyons & Co company. Tea drinking outlets and catering contracts, such as organising the ‘Venice in London’ fair at the Olympia, fiction here is mixed with fact. Yvonne’s father had organised functions in reality at the Olympia.

The opening of the first tea shop in Piccadilly, another example in the book where Yvonne’s knowledge of family history works its way into her writing. Dates, times, and ages come from a place of true occurrences, to be mixed and juggled, reassigned and put into the story, then onto members of the family.

Read by somebody who knows a little of Yvonne Mitchell’s background, The Family brings a curiosity to certain passages. You can’t help but feel you are entering a guessing game put to you by Yvonne. To what extent do the descriptions align with reality? With the use of an artistic licence, she shares her observations and thoughts.

A certainty where a character is plainly based on somebody Yvonne has met, knows well or knew is in the character named Albert, Esther’s father, obviously represents in part Yvonne Mitchell’s father. The joining of Appleby’s the family business at 14 leaves no imagination needed in knowing this is a reference to Bertie Joseph, Yvonne’s father, joining Lyons & Co at fourteen.

In fact, this direct representation as a resource, referenced in Mark Garrnet’s biography of the politician Keith Joseph. The Family in its notes has Yvonne’s novel as a source. Keith Joseph was Yvonne Mitchell’s cousin.

The story behind the story through her paragraphs is, as I’ve mentioned before, a wonderful technique of writing that Yvonne is brilliant at, as is also her questioning aspect. Ruth, from the Dance side of the family tree in her questioning of the family’s lack of visiting others outside of the family homes. This reason for such a limited scope, the same furnishings in their homes put into the context of the now socially mobile element of the family. Moving from the East End of London into dreamed-of West Hampstead then to Carriage Folk had brought about a conformity.

The three sisters, Esther, Barbara, and Helen, all go through their own personal challenges as they grow older. They experience marriage, loss, and mental illness as they grow older. As their father’s illness advances, we see with war (WW2) always in the background the daughter’s duties a complexity of family pressures. Albert, their father’s second wife Betty and her instruction to the sisters concerning their father, adds to the family’s internal friction between the main characters. The Family is Yvonne Mitchell’s story of the unexcepted occuring in certain circles of family members. Within the family, members establish a hierarchical order based on factors such as popularity, cousinship, and second marriage. In her book, Yvonne Mitchell highlights the question of loyalty to others, where personal ambitions come into conflict with family duty and the emotional circumstances of one’s plans in life pursuits. The family members gathered for a meeting in discussion to ask whether Esther is to be allowed to pursue her acting career reflects a hierarchal theme set in Yvonne’s The Family. Yvonne Mitchell is again exceptional in her ability to give you a human story which focuses on the human condition. Complexities created through characters’ interactions with one another, a theme Yvonne writes upon with skill. Wit, sadness, joy, love and knocks we all encounter ourselves, expressed among her words.



The pages of 'Martha On Sunday' by Yvonne Mitchell are brimming with rapid thoughts, enacted scenes, and many characters. Through the consciousness of the actor (or not), we encounter a multitude of scenarios from the stage, domestic life, friends, and cast members on a Sunday. What is from the world of theatre and what is of Martha herself as a woman, is constantly in question. Yvonne puts identity on trial. Who is Martha really? This constant conversation with herself is thoughts aloud to the reader. Martha, in her acting profession, plays many parts where witty interludes quickly visit and depart.

A thought in reply to Miss Treeble, a teacher from Martha's early years while attending Perkins the dog nose injury.

"And anyway, Miss Treeble the great thing to remember is not to cry over milk which hasn't yet been spilt. The planet spins, and somewhere each night through Hamlet dies, Hamlet lives again. Death doesn't come easily to immortals."

'Martha on Sunday' is a departure from Yvonne's earlier writings. We are here in a continuing flow of thought at a pace. Its style initially threw me off, but you quickly get where Yvonne is putting you as the reader. In the stalls, seated, while the performance plays and thereafter.



'God is Inexperienced', Yvonne Mitchell’s 6th novel has the unusual quality of a novel within a novel. Chris is an aspiring writer, living at home. Disillusioned with his routes into employment and the mediocrity of his day-to-day living. Questions and answers arise in him after a trip to an exhibition at the Hayward, looking upon the paintings of Joan Miro.

Chris looks upon Joan’s paintings, and this stirs emotions within him. His prior visits to the Hayward to see Pop Art, in his thoughts, he could do better, came to the forefront of his thinking. Thinking of his father, he realises he was like his father. For things he, Chris, had liked, it said, could have done better. Did Joan experience the same?

Yvonne Mitchell, herself a painter, in these opening chapters, takes you with her characters on a night out with Chris and a young woman he had met at the exhibition.

A concert with a performance by Daniel Barenboim and Jacqueline Dupré at the Festival Hall in the Barbican shared with Claire removes a layer of inhibition that he felt upon himself. The incredible performance leaves him feeling overwhelmed, with no self-awareness in that moment. For the first time in years, things he once looked on in envy had ceased to be.

Chris’s novel developing in his thoughts. Planned scenarios, he forms the ideas and settings where these characters will play out their scenes.

Yvonne then places you at a new beginning, Chris’s novel. As if it were a second act, followed by a third.

In the writer’s hands, the reader partakes in Chris’s formulation. The people inside this fictional story now coming alive and gaining purpose as it is being written. These characters take on a different shape as Chris creates a father figure called Ed, who manipulates his own desires and plans within the story regarding a gifted piano player in his son. This boy is central to Ed's dealings and plans around his son's performances.

The publishing industry and world of agents make an appearance as if by cameo regarding Chris among the pages. An insider’s take with a dose of dry wit and imagination in telling through Chris?

Yvonne Mitchell, as a writer, has brought another new dynamic to her storytelling. Having read several of her previous books. Here again, a unique way to approach a novel and bring something unexpected to the reader skillfully executed.


'But Answer Came There None', a book title taken from a line from Lewis Caroll's Walrus and the Carpenter and the last novel to be written by Yvonne Mitchell. Contains among its pages some of the strongest descriptive paragraphs I've read in her written works. Through evocative storytelling, this book's themes of death, heaven, and hell set in a geriatric ward are powerfully haunting.

I often come away from reading Yvonne's novels with a sense there is a twin meaning, the humorous and serious in her passages. One of Yvonne's exceptional skills in her writing is this doubling up of meaning.

This novel has a different feel than her previous books. You have a sense of unease as the reader in approaching some passages. A description of a vacuum cleaner, for example, gives you the chills. It may seem like a mundane, uninteresting device. Its purpose is to clean, and that's exactly what it does. Yvonne here is spectacular in her description, bringing the machine's torturous one-note sound as it vacuums early mornings on the ward, into a vivid, haunting machine, "motes into the voracious belly bag of the central life-swallower." This is one of many reflective written passages where the picking up of the normal becomes distorted into the eerily disturbing.

It is also a book of questions about the unknown put, then challenged in reply. The desire to read more of the authors' work once you start is addictive. There is happily a broad selection of Yvonne Mitchell's novels available still, through secondhand source suppliers. I keep a copy of her Fables on the coffee table, which is a terrific way to read a little of Yvonne's writings when wanting a quick read of her work.



This gem of a book is becoming ever scarcer to find. Published by the Mid Northumberland Art Group with illustrations by Bert Hollander a French artist, the limited-edition numbered Yvonne Mitchell signed copies titled 'Fables', are based in the tradition of Aesop.

The inside flyleaf introduction describes this book as fables for adults but without morals, which is how I read these tales of symbolism with something of the dysfunctional in the characters portrayed.

Yvonne Mitchell injects a humorous, you know what's coming element in some characters' predicaments. Making you smile at the conclusion of, for example, The Kind King.

'Fables' published just two years before Yvonne's death in 1979 is another avenue in direction, adding to Mitchell's diverse scope and skill as a writer. You could easily see a second series of Fables by Yvonne in her later years. We know Yvonne Mitchell had been working on a biography of the Redgrave family, which has yet been unpublished.

If 'Fables' is to be one of Yvonne Mitchell's last published works, it is a testament to Yvonne's diverse grasp on her ability to bring the reader in via another literary style of writing. We have a vast collection of Mitchell's words to explore, ranging from novels to biographies and children's books.

Fables, a book that is best kept in view as you go about your daily duties.

A quick fix of Yvonne's Fables' writings has that return dip back into pull ingredient in spades.

Colette: A Taste for Life

The early 1970s not only saw Yvonne Mitchell with her biography of Colette, 'A Taste For Life,' published but also her own one woman shows touring the country, Colette. Colette’s Cheri, a five-part serialisation drama on BBC2, where Yvonne Mitchell plays Colette’s heroine Lea in the book adaptation, appeared on our television screens. A Radio Times written feature from April 1973 tells of Yvonne Mitchell visiting locations in France with Russell Miller. Maurice Goudeket Colette’s third husband and Colette de Jouvenel Colette’s only child both speak to Yvonne and give insights into the life of Colette.

Yvonne was asked to write a biography of 'Colette' after her performance as Lea in Claude Whatman's directed BBC2 serial series, Cheri. Interviewed in 1979, Yvonne Mitchell spoke of visits to France researching her subject.

"I sort of snooped around St Sauveur,' she recalls. It was easy to get the feel of her-she was a woman of the earth, immersed in the most basic things from the earth: plants, insects, birds, anything that lived. This absorption began in childhood; she had a basically very happy childhood with a really wonderful mother, Sido. Her mother would stop her skipping to say, "Look at that little bird in the tree." She was taught to observe the tiniest things. She used to get up early and walk about two miles to be the first to uncover the first primrose of the day and to see the snail waking up."

From Colette’s upbringing, her close relationship with her mother Sido and father Jules-Joseph Colette. A later marriage to Willy, Yvonne, goes into detail of the hours Colette spent locked in a room by Willy, having to write as one of Willy’s ghost writers. The novelist, actress, journalism, and through the world wars. The chapters of Colette’s biography follow a course of significant figures that influenced Colette in her writing.

Yvonne Mitchell’s 'A Taste For Life' wonderfully combines the depth of a well-researched book with a storytelling writing style. You not only come away from reading with a feeling of an insight into Colette as the person, but Yvonne’s own understanding of her subject. Brought to life through her own beautifully written passages, adds a flow, a rhythm to each paragraph. Added extracts from Colette’s novels, works alongside Yvonne’s words.

Yvonne, the novelist, provides us with more than just an account, a storyteller’s skill, with a reading audience in mind. With many illustrations and photographs throughout the book, this biography of Colette is a fitting companion to Colette’s many books. For those that saw Yvonne play Colette on stage, I can only imagine.

In Yvonne’s biography of Colette, we get a flavour of what was a performance. Both Colette and Yvonne knew the theatre, and the written word intimately.

An intriguing insight into Yvonne's writing process when writing this biography of Colette, is spoken of again in an interview with Yvonne in 1979. "I could not write unless I was in bed with the curtains drawn and the light on and with a scarf around my neck. Colette, too used to have the curtains drawn and a scarf round her neck when she was writing, which was strange for a woman so attached to air and earth. I suppose being an actress, it was like playing a part in the theatre-the part had taken me over."

Yvonne Mitchell

The same sky: A play in three acts

Yvonne Mitchell's strong work ethic involved not only authoring novels but also crafting a play. During joblessness and the belief that she may never work again, she opted to live with her sister. Yvonne, having no clue how to start, adopted a template that someone had previously created.

Building on the themes of Romeo and Juliet, an original setting, a set of characters were explored. The Same Sky tells the tale of a conflict between a Jewish family and their daughter's romance with a non-Jewish person. This is a story about a young couple from two different families, whose love for each other is tested by the tensions arising from their contrasting religious backgrounds.

Opposed to the couple's marriage and marrying outside the faith. Their families putting barriers between the lovers. This story reflected what Yvonne had heard from her sister while working at a children's play centre. She witnessed an animosity in some young children between the faiths.

Set at the outbreak of WWII. The play directly confronted the prejudices of various beliefs. Yvonne knew it would be hard to get produced, to be picked up, but was determined not to allow her work to be constrained by commercial considerations.

In her own words, knowing work was scarce, she wrote as a need for something to do. Was this her downplaying her reasons for writing? As something to do.? Or a direct commentary. Her own witnessing of a prejudice, and a reflection of where that can lead to, in a family setting, or for the generality.

With a three-year cap from being written and to the stage. Yvonne would finally see her play on the stage. 1950 saw the Nottingham Playhouse put on a performance. What followed was more theatre productions and radio broadcasts.

Cathy Away

First, finding a copy of ‘Cathy Away’ is difficult. After reading Yvonne Mitchell’s novels, I was keen to read her books written for children. Finding a copy for sale via a well-known bidding site, a bid placed, a winning bid and a copy in my possession. Yvonne also published another Cathy book called "Cathy at Home." This book is extremely rare. Luckily, I could source a picture of this second book directly via Cordelia Monsey, Yvonne’s daughter. Who kindly sent me pictures while she was in France. Cathy’s destination, as would have it in the book.


When reading 'Cathy Away', you immediately become immersed in Cathy's thoughts. From her initial apprehension of spending her first time away from home and staying with her cousins, the Swann's in France. Yvonne employs a technique in her novels, both for adults and children, where the main protagonist describes the characters, introducing them to the reader.

Identifying with Cathy and her worries early in the book, in questioning her sleeping arrangements if she accepted her aunties invitation. We relate to our own experiences when growing up. Fears of the unknown and being unsure are all part of our childhood. Cathy’s security comes via her teddy. This security represented by teddy develops later in the book, where a selfless act occurs.

Cathy’s descriptions of her mother and father when asking them for advice on accepting this trip abroad are analytical and bring a child's honesty to her decision making.

Although this is not always the case and self questioning is a part of Cathy’s thinking. Questioning and being critical of herself, Cathy places questions on herself in her behaviour.

When describing Mr Swann’s paintings, Cathy goes from seeing his work as a meaningless mess but later sees there was meaning in what he did. Explained, as she was “not understanding enough to see it.” Not being clever enough. This is Cathy's reasoning.

Yvonne masterfully separates herself from the adult and immerses into the child's perspective of witnessing those who share her life's happenings on holiday. Bringing, as in Cathy’s age of 11, a curiosity associated with being young. This is all wonderfully told to the reader in a diary-like format of each day merging into the next.

When in France, Cathy’s adventures with her relatives are plentiful. Just like our own recollections of extended holidays, Cathy becomes completely immersed with her cousin's activities in the out-of-school August break. Exploring the cellar below the house, a trip to the circus where a monkey gets loose and later an accident on a bike. These are all encompassed with Cathy’s thoughts and her judgement applied to her cousin's activities.

Now on reading this book and knowing about Yvonne’s novels. The bike accident incident near the end of the book had me thinking a jaw dropping unseen moment was coming.

I loved this book. It reminds you of a time in your own life where play, adventure, and shared experiences with friends and cousins, in Cathy's case, combined with the long summer break, were adventurous.

Yvonne Mitchell’s adult novels, the biography of Colette and play writing. Her ability to write and master that writing in its many forms. Her children's book ‘Cathy Away’ is a part of.

Cathy At Home

‘Cathy At Home,’ a book I took as a book too far. Never able to source a reference to, let alone own and complete my collection of Yvonne Mitchell’s books. In being able to read. Not to be so. As referenced in ‘Cathy Away,’ I had luckily required a picture of the cover via Cordelia, Cathy’s story told from home I had accepted as a loss cause. This changed.

A story in itself, much like Cathy’s daily experiences with the Swann family. I came to read this book as of a time before, in a Dickens like serialization. Via instalments, Cordelia generously sent me chapters of the book as photographs. Over several weeks pages would arrive via my email, where the anticipation of another arrival brought a sense of excitement to my weekly in-box.

This episode's delivery of Yvonne’s book created for me an attachment to this book different from her others, where the characters' adventures told within became comforting, a time to immerse in and enjoy. Sat by the window looking onto Wentworth Avenue, as the daylight faded outside, set a temperature like feel around the book. Set in the winter months reflected what I was witnessing outside as November drew ever more near. Although it was autumn, the air carried a chill.

Cathy is now at home in London, four months on from time spent holidaying in France with the Swann family through summer in ‘Cathy Away’. With a reversal of location and set in the winter months, we now see the Swann family, Jimmy, Louise, Lenora and their actress mother Joey visiting Cathy. Cathy’s mother and their lodger, Godfrey, a saxophone player. D, Cathy’s father, has to go to fly to New York on business. This is also the case with the Swann’s, where their father is not with them, staying in France preparing for an art exhibition.

Each character of the Swann’s from ‘Cathy Away,’ Cathy gives us a list of descriptions of those belonging to each family, hers and the Swann’s. Creating lists is something that occurs in both books. A list of who wants what and what gifts purchased around the Christmas period by Cathy show again the orderly applied, a list made. As in our own lives, the ordinary turns into the unorderly all by itself. List or no list. Cathy’s father D, for example, in his sudden rush for his plane, Cathy rationalises her disappointment in watching her father leave.

“Life is often like this I find. Something new happens, like the Swanns coming to stay with us - you prepare yourself for it, it begins and then suddenly something you weren’t expecting occurs and you have to adjust yourself again.”

A thread of the ordinary we witness in Cathy’s life turning to the unexpected is a theme through ‘Cathy Away’ and ‘Cathy at Home.’

Jimmy’s attachment to a wart - hog and concerns about a kinkajou at London Zoo, leading to an all out search for a missing person, a trip to see Joey acting on a film set where a walk on part for the children by the director suggested, are all of examples of the ordinary turning into anything but.

Cathy’s initial worries on the Swann’s finding their visit to London and staying at her home dull compared to their home in the sun with olive trees and the sea nearby soon evaporate as events take over.

Yvonne, in her description of characters when applied to the situations they find themselves, exposes each of their personalities. When the unplanned for happens, those that had caused the occurrence, those that react and bring a worry upon others, Cathy is our commentator. I found myself in both camps, cause, effect and acting on. You side with Jimmy, in his need to end the suffering he was witnessing, but also the need for boundaries placed on Jimmy, Louise and Lenora in their adventures. Each of the children, in how they think and react, impulse, cautious, caring emotions are all at work within the group.

The Cathy books by Yvonne Mitchell appeal to the young and the adult alike. Each in transporting you into the events and experiences had by Cathy, but also entices to the surface, alongside Cathy’s present, your own recollections of a past younger self. Of old, at school, where in description Cathy’s cousins could very well be any grouping of children exploring in one another's company. Each of us becomes shaped by those we kept company with. Cathy invites us to share her time spent with her cousins, the Swann’s.

While talking to Cordelia about her mother's Cathy books, she brought up a crossover, which is common in Yvonne's stories that mix fact with fiction. Visiting the zoo and going to the film studios were both experiences she had when young.

The acting cast of the 1953 season at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre not only had a talented troupe of actors and actresses but would produce a talented group of writers. Written publications through the years that followed with Yvonne Mitchell, Robert Shaw, and Michael Redgrave are substantial. Donald Pleasance, also of that group of Shakespeare actors, wrote a children’s book. Between them, a body of written work which covers playwriting, screenplays, children’s books, novels, and biographies.



I first discovered Yvonne Mitchell’s novels and other written works via another actor, Robert Shaw. After reading Robert Shaw’s books, his five novels, a fascination then followed in researching Shaw’s background. Somebody I saw principally as an actor when I was young. 'The Royal Hunt of the Sun', the film being my introduction to Robert, the actor. This perception of Robert changed through reading first, Shaw’s 'The Flag', thereafter, his other four books wrote by him. I now saw Robert Shaw as a novelist, playwright, and actor.

While searching for a printed version of 'Cato Street', a play written by Robert, my research led me to an article about Shaw in the Daily Mirror newspaper. The focus of this article was on the cast of 1953, who performed Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. In the company, a young Robert Shaw, described as the most attractive male when looking at men this side of the Atlantic, compared with USA actors. The actress who made the comment, Yvonne Mitchell. Also in this company of actors was Michael Redgrave.

Knowing Yvonne Mitchell as with Shaw, from her acting career and now knowing Yvonne and Robert shared the stage together, my curiosity led me to look deeper into this connection. I made a discovery of quality and quantity in the written word by Yvonne. As I delved into Yvonne Mitchell’s books, beginning with her initial publication, 'Actress', my admiration for her work grew.

The novels have distinct styles, and diverse settings where the story takes place. Yvonne integrates her acting background into her storytelling with the characters, especially in 'A Year in Time' and 'The Bedsitter'. The theme of seeking a sense of identity, where one can find acceptance, is prominent in both novels.

Yvonne’s second novel, 'A Frame For Julian' centres around the protagonist’s powerful desire for recognition. What effect this has on those close to Julian, his family, friends, and Julian himself brings the story to a climactic conclusion.

Delving into the human condition is a prominent point explored in many of Yvonne’s novels. You come away after reading Yvonne’s books with a sense of a double meaning in some of her passages. A talent for humour and the seriousness combined is a quality quite extraordinary that Yvonne excels at. This is done with great skill in her novel, 'But Answer Came There None'. Description and questioning of interpretation of what witnessed by an 80-year-old lady as she lies in a geriatric ward is a powerful piece of writing.

The mixing of the factual and fictional with dates and names, something Yvonne uses in her books, is at its most obvious in The Family. This story, told through Esther, brings the reader early in the book to a place of loss experienced by Esther around the death of her mother, Madeline. A photograph of Madeline, which sits on a brown cupboard in the sitting-room, is a comfort to Esther, where she visits and speaks to her late mother.
Yvonne herself lost her mother when young. As did Robert Shaw with his father. Yvonne and Robert both delve into the emotional impact of a parent’s loss during childhood, artfully conveyed through a character in their narratives.

Did Yvonne and Robert, while both appearing in the Shakespeare Company productions of 1953, share their stories of loss?
Through the writing process in later life, both writers explore in their novels a loss in childhood, and then its influence in their later life. Robert concentrates on the adult, where his character is now as an adult in all his novels. Taking a retrospective view. Yvonne speaks to you through the child and as an older self in her books.

'The Family' brings into its storyline the family’s connections with business. This was also a reality in Yvonne’s life. Her father was involved in the J. Lyons & Co company. Tea drinking outlets and catering contracts, such as organising the ‘Venice in London’ fair at the Olympia, fiction here is mixed with fact. Yvonne’s father had organised functions in reality at Olympia.

The opening of the first tea shop in Piccadilly, another example in the book where Yvonne’s knowledge of family history works its way into her writing. Dates, times, and ages come from a place of true occurrences, to be mixed and juggled, reassigned, and put into the story, then onto members of the family.

Read by somebody who knows a little of Yvonne Mitchell’s background, 'The Family' brings a curiosity to certain passages. You can’t help but feel you are entering a guessing game put to you by Yvonne. To what extent do the descriptions align with reality? With the use of an artistic licence, she shares her observations and thoughts.

A certainty where a character is plainly based on somebody Yvonne has met, knows well, or knew is in the character Albert, Esther’s father, obviously represents in part Yvonne Mitchell’s father. The joining of Appleby’s the family business at 14 leaves no imagination needed in knowing this is a reference to Bertie Joseph, Yvonne’s father, joining Lyons & Co at fourteen.

In fact, this direct representation as a resource, referenced in Mark Garnett’s biography of the politician Keith Joseph. The Family in its notes has Yvonne’s novel as a source. Keith Joseph was Yvonne Mitchell’s cousin.


The story behind the story through her paragraphs is, as I’ve mentioned before, a wonderful technique of writing that Yvonne is brilliant at, as is also her questioning aspect. Ruth, from the Dance side of the family tree in her questioning of the family’s lack of visiting others outside of the family homes. This reason for such a limited scope, the same furnishing in their homes, put to the now socially upwardly mobile element of the family. Moving from the East End of London into dreamed-of West Hampstead then to Carriage Folk had brought about a conformity.

Yvonne Mitchell is exceptional in her ability to express what it is to be human in her storytelling. The ever-changing emotions, events, and experiences in being human, Yvonne Mitchell skillfully exhibits through her writing word. Complexities created through characters’ interactions with one another, a theme Yvonne writes upon with skill. Wit, sadness, joy, love and knocks we all encounter ourselves, expressed through her words.

Yvonne Mitchell, we know as an actress. As an author, biographer with Colette and playwright, Yvonne accomplished work in her writing is as engaging for the reader as her screen and theatre performances.

Thankfully, there is still a wealth of Yvonne’s books accessible through secondary sources. My initial exposure to her writing was through her biographical book, 'Actress'. This introduction, now looking back after reading her later novels, gives the reader some insight into her written characters. The actress at work, stepping into other shoes which then the audience views, connects with. Yvonne, as an author, masterfully brings that connection to the reader also through her novels.

Yvonne Mitchell

Yvonne Mitchell

Considering the connection between the word association and Clubmen, it is important to delve into the naming process of this group called Clubmen. What do we mean by Clubmen? Carrying Clubs?

This is often the stated reason the name is associated with The Clubmen. Closer examination, a recalibration. Clubmen, literally in meaning Club, as in association.

What's the evidence? Let's look at a letter penned by a leading captain from the Somerset Clubmen Humphrey Willis. While imprisoned in a jail in Weymouth in July 1646 and writing on why the expressing of the reason for his imprisonment to the Committee of the County of Somerset not stated. Quote,

“ I hope we shall once more live under and be steered by the ancient and fundamental Laws of the Kingdom. Gent being honest, I cannot but use down right dealing and therefore may very well be termed a Clubmen;. You may, if you please, smile at the homelessness of the title. But i assure you, do but consider awhile, and you may easily find, they are not so odious as another sort of people in the land are come, come through you despise us, and trample us as dung under your feet, yet if you would look off your own too much admired selves, you might apprehend that the Club, I mean of Somerset hath done good and faithful service.”




Further in the letter, Quote.

“What shall I say? All my desire is, that you would be charitably conceited of the honest Club.”

Agreeing with Mr Green.
Clubmen 1645: neutralism in a revolution

A Mr. Hunt and a Mr. Green of the Somerset Archaeological And Natural History Society
argued a point at their annual evening meeting in 1877. Who were and why the name of as a
body of people? The minutes of the meeting make for colourful reading. Mr Hunt, who talks
of The Clubmen as "a rude sort who carried clubs", asked of Mr Green, "by what authority
did he have for saying that the name ‘Clubmen’ derived from their associating, clubbing
together for a mutual protection?"
Mr Green argues his belief in the word Clubmen as an association, can be seen in the accounts of the meetings recorded, and in reply of by Royalists and Parliamentarian commanders who came into contact with Clubmen alike. He talks of The Prince of Wales in Wells Somerset and his encounter with "received a petition from some thousands of Clubmen, most in arms."
This is disapproved of with public meetings frowned on, and it an unwarrantable course of assembling together. Further in a description is given "they gave passes to their associates,
and they have rules and orders they worked under ''.
Looking at the arrest of Mr Dale in 1645 by troops while he was returning from Wincanton
and near Salisbury, we encounter the accusation of him being a spy. His reply asserted, "he is
no such thing but a Clubmen, no other end to this association but then to defend themselves
from plunder."

Examining the word Clubmen in the description, as did Mr Green, we can also see a blurring
of who the naming of this tag pinned on resides. Was it those that only wrote declarations
from 1645? Those that came together in the form of local militia only in defence against what
was being put upon them from the first stirrings of Civil War? Or those that were not in either
army but were seen by both warring sides as a group with a voice, and as such, needed a
name to put into reporting and observing, maybe recruiting? Carrying of clubs? All of the
above?

Studying where this term club arrived from maybe helps. An early 12th-Century description link can be found in the Swedish and Danish similarly spelt word Klubba. This is derived from the Germanic word klumbon, literally meaning clump. Here is the first time the word is associated with mass. The weighty end of a club is as such a mass. Now let us jump back to the description when implied to The Clubmen. In reports by both Warring sides, we see those involved in the club business, a club army even, just the word club used by Humphrey Willis
himself when writing from Weymouth; he talks of those being in the honest club.
The forming of association, a mutual league in our own defence, are all descriptions The
Clubmen used themselves.

Now we see the word club as belonging to a mass, which can link into the organising of a
commonly associated phrase: ‘belonging to’. A term that carries weight in how others look
upon you. As we see belonging to and us such under, no matter how loosely, a set of rules.
Rules, views of, cause defines the club.
The body of writings by The Clubmen occurred in their writing declarations, petitions of
1645. These are a set of desires and resolutions with a wanting of control, order in their own lives aimed at those causing chaos upon them. Hence, those causing said chaos bring order
upon themselves and a community living under rules.
Haydn Wheeler