My Good Old Days

Tim Quinn takes us behind the scenes of Leeds City Varieties

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It is now well over 55 years since I first trod the boards at the world-famous Leeds City Varieties Music Hall. Even though time plods on relentlessly, the memories of those days appear more vivid with each passing decade.

Uncovering these old photos brings the period and its strange cast of unlikely characters back to brimming life. I was a mere boy at the time. In the words of Julie Andrews, I was 16 going on 17.

I'd turned up at the stage door in search of life after circus and school days. Greeted by a man dressed as the Wicked Wolf who was rehearsing for the upcoming pantomime of Red Riding Hood, I felt instantly at home when he asked me to do him a favour by nipping up to the green room to see if I could find his missing tail. Hired by Wally, the stage manager with boot-black polished thinning hair and a never-ending cigarette drooping from the left side of his mouth, I was guided up to the limes box at the very top of the gods.

This box was exactly that. Nine feet by nine feet with a clogged airconditioning fan and two mighty Edwardian lime spotlights. These monstrosities were worked by firing up two carbon rods with enough voltage to bring Frankenstein to life. I was to operate No 2 lime while No 1 was in the hands of Pop, a man who looked as if he was the same age as the limes themselves. It was hot in the box. Red hot, especially after two or three shows a day. Pop would often fall asleep on the job, causing his lime to black out the stage at crucial moments in the comedy or tragedy taking place below.