Annual Enjoyment

Sir: My husband and I subscribe to both This England and Evergreen and such pleasure they have brought to us both. Receiving the This England Annual has been reminiscent of childhood days when we would hope to receive the Annual of our favourite reading throughout the previous year!

The 2017 Annual features the poem “A Song of Kent” by Margaret Owen. This poem was, in fact, set to music by my uncle, Lawrence Beach, and very popularly received, bearing the title Kentish John.

Lawrence Beach became an exceptionally talented musician on a number of different instruments, having enlisted in the Royal Engineers Band in 1907, eventually completing 21 years with the Colours in 1928. In 1923 he was awarded the LRAM for Theatrical Conducting, and his musical career ended as

bandmaster of a voluntary Royal Engineers Band at Aldershot.

Lawrence Beach’s working life ended in 1950 having been sub-postmaster at Hollingbourne village in Kent for 20 years. It is interesting to note that Margaret Owen lived a mere 16 miles or so from Hollingbourne, at Whitstable. — SHIRLEY BEDELLE

(née BEACH), SITTINGBOURNE, KENT.

Sir: Thank you so much for the article on Ivor Novello (“West End Magic”) in the This England Annual 2017. On 23rd April 1943 my fiance and I were engaged and married on 2nd October. To celebrate he took me to see Ivor Novello in The Dancing Years. I have never forgotten the show or Mary Ellis’s wonderful voice. — BERYL

WILLIAMS, BIGGLESWADE,

BEDFORDSHIRE. *Our Annual is proving to be very popular, but it’s not too late to get your copy. See page 86. — Ed.