In Memory of
Ian Elliott
26. 09. 1932 – 01. 07. 2022
Ray Hopper writes in the August 2022 Newsletter : “Ian joined the Young Wick Players, as we were then, in 1953, after completing his national service with the Royal Sussex Regiment as a PT instructor. His early Wick experiences were strangely parallel to my own 5 years later – we both began our careers in the chemists lab at Portslade Gas Works, we both played hockey for Southwick and we were both persuaded to join the Young Wick by our mothers. I wish I had known all that when he was still alive.
His first appearance with the Young Wick was in Summer in December in January 1954, as Terry Holmes, one of two problem husbands staying in a northeast coast hotel at Christmas. Our production was notable for being directed by the professional actor M E Clifton-James, best known for being Field Marshall Montgomery’s double both in real life and in the subsequent film. The reviewers were not overkind. After noting that the company’s weakness of too few men had been remedied by Ian and Edwin Tupper, one said “they must be congratulated for not making them appear too dull”. They were much kinder in his next role in April 1954, as the disguised secret serviceman Teddy Deakin, in Arnold Ridley’s famous The Ghost Train. This was directed by Betty Gedge who was later to become Mrs Ian Elliott, continuing to fulfil my belief that the Young Wick was a very successful marriage bureau. She apparently encouraged him to take a sports and science scholarship at Loughborough College. However, before leaving, he was in our entry at the end of May for the first ever British Drama League one-act drama festival at the Barn. Young Wick won with Molly Penney’s production of “A Phoenix too Frequent”, a three-hander by Christopher Fry. Ian played the Roman soldier Tegeus Chromis, with the two Betty’s, Gedge and Carpenter, and setting the scene for many more Wick successes in this and other competitive drama festivals.
He came back during the Christmas vacation in 1955 in time to play Joseph, with Betty as Mary, in Molly Penney’s, The Christmas Story. He returned permanently in the summer of 1957 to play Algy in The Importance of Being Earnest in November of that year, whilst also beginning his teaching career as a science master at Ifield in Crawley, then Dorothy Stringer school in Brighton .
April 1958 saw him playing delightfully opposite Betty as Clare and Vinnie Day, parents of four red headed sons, in the American comedy Life with Father, by Clarence Day, directed by Jean Porter. Reviews were excellent, and the production was notable for the gallons of red hair colouring that were used for the four sons.
He and Betty were married later that year, and subsequently produced three children, Mark (1963), Tim(1965) and Jane(1966). Baby Mark just happened to be due on the exact same date as two other “Wick babies”, Charles Porter and Amanda Dawes. The fact that their shared due date was September 1st added to the jocular suggestions that 1962 had culminated in a very special New Years party…
We now come to perhaps the most valuable contribution which Ian made to our company. Since our foundation, we had been led in a benign dictatorship by our beloved founder President Molly Penney. She decided what plays we did, offered her home as our social and rehearsal headquarters, and probably financed most productions as well. We did have a committee structure, with a secretary and treasurer, but it was all a bit informal. However, by 1962, the teenagers of 1950 were in their twenties and wanting more say in things. Molly was also suffering from failing health, so a boisterous 1962 AGM instructed Ross Workman and myself, as committee members, to write a draft constitution to be presented to an Autumn EGM, aiming to modernise the company together with a name change to The Wick Theatre Company, showing we were now fully grown up! Ross trekked up from his house on The Green in Southwick, to mine at the top of the town for some weeks, as we struggled to fulfil our brief, helped in part by the Southwick Players constitution. I remember vividly that we had no large sheets of paper in my house, so our first draft constitution was written on the back of an old piece of wallpaper!
We soon found that we needed someone with more experience and turned to Ian for help. He polished up our draft, got it printed and distributed, and presented it to the 1962 EGM, where it was accepted, and our name changed in time for our November production of Watch it, Sailor. Ian was elected as our first ever Chairman, and successfully piloted us into more or less the company we have become today.
Ian had a very busy 1963 with us. He thought we should try the innovative idea of staging a revue, as we had a number of multi talented members, and devised and directed In F’ra Dig in late January. This was very well received and great fun, so we decided to do another one, Noc’turne, in December. This was less successful, and the experiment was never repeated. In addition, in May, he played the eponymous lead in James Bridie’s Mr. Bolfry, as the Devil accidentally summoned up by the maid of a Free Kirk minister. This delightful production by Bess Blagden showed Ian at his best, as illustrated by the portrait on the production’s Gallery page.
He had two more successful leading roles, firstly in Bess Blagden’s 1965 award winning production of The Queen and the Welshman, by Rosemary Ann Sisson, and then as social climber Fred Midway in 1966’s Semi-Detached, in the part initiated by Laurence Olivier. He also directed for the final time in 1967, Night Must Fall, Emlyn Williams’ well known melodrama. Ian performed a number of backstage roles in this period, finally becoming the company photographer from 1967 to 1969, where he showed himself to be an expert in portrait photography. His last listed work for us was for School for Scandal.
Ian then turned his attention to his political career, being elected as a conservative councillor for Shoreham UDC, later to become Adur DC. He was elected to the West Sussex County Council in 1973, and remained so until 2001. Meanwhile he had left teaching after taking an MA in Educational Policy at Sussex University, and became an advisor for Educational Technology for East Sussex County Council. This sometimes clashed with his Council work, so he took early retirement in 1989, becoming Chairman of West Sussex in 1997, which entailed much travelling throughout Europe. He retired from the Council in 2001 and was honoured and delighted to be appointed as Deputy Lord Lieutenant for West Sussex.
Throughout his political career Ian maintained contact with the Wick, especially through his friendships with Ralph and Betty Dawes and George and Jean Porter, and attending many of our productions. He and Betty especially enjoyed the annual reunions of old Wick members, which we have now christened the “Octo club”, as many of us are in our eighties, and we in turn enjoyed his acerbic wit and colourful reminiscences.
Ian, it was a pleasure to know you for so many years. Rest in Peace old friend!