money, so why should she want to change things? She thought they had become legendary figures when she saw a piece about them in the local press: ‘Stella and Sadie Raven are now household names throughout the whole of Lancaster.’ It also went on to say that Stella was renowned for her fashion sense and Sadie for her gentle personality.
One morning, during this busy period, Stella declared that she had discovered the opportunity for them to make sensational progress. She’d seen in a theatrical paper, The Stage, that there was to be a talent contest held in the north, called ‘The North-West, Go as You Please Show’.
The first prize wasn’t money – it was far better than that. If you won you were given a full week’s work at your nearest main theatre. For the girls that would mean the Winter Gardens, Morecambe.
The first instalment of the competition took place at the Alhambra Theatre, Morecambe, where they had to win the local heat. If successful, they would then go to the Hippodrome, at Ardwick Green, Manchester, for the second heat. This was followed by the semi-finals in Liverpool (no theatre confirmed as yet, due to disputes between various managements) and would conclude back in Manchester at the Palace Theatre. Stella entered them for it at once. ‘It won’t be easy for the others with us performing,’ she said confidently – maybe too confidently.
‘It’s a bit scary, though,’ said Sadie. ‘They’ll be some awful good ’uns having a go, Stella.’
She ignored Sadie’s reservations. If she took any notice of her sister they’d be permanently out of work.
On the day of the first local heat Sadie just managed to overcome a severe bout of nerves and Stella gave one of her most perfunctory performances. She’d made the classic mistake of having her mind already on the stage at the Palace, Manchester. They came second. An Irish pub tenor won the first heat, singing, ‘Mother Macrea’, followed by ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’. He was awful but – and this is the part Stella couldn’t comprehend – the public liked him. He was a short, fat man, well into his forties, who didn’t touch upon many right notes. But the public liked him. ‘Better luck to us next time,’ was Sadie’s only remark as the theatre emptied.
‘How on earth could they have liked him?’ cried Stella, gazing up at the heavens in stunned disbelief. ‘How could a garden gnome come in first? Did you see that orange doormat he wore on his head?’
‘I think that was a wig,’ said Tommy, keeping his distance as Stella was looking positively volatile.
‘Course it was a ruddy wig, which makes it all the more stupid that he won.’
‘Well, I thought he was quite good,’ said Sadie, very generously.
‘But Sadie, dear,’ she said with frustration in her emotion-filled voice: ‘if he was only “quite good”, as you say, and he went and won the thing, and we came in second, does that make us not quite as good as quite good?’ Sadie was confused. She never had understood Stella’s logic.
Tommy stood several feet away with his hands dug deep into his pockets and a look of bemusement on his pallid face. ‘I’ll bet you he won’t get past the next round,’ said Stella. ‘In Manchester they’ve seen real pros, real talent. They have four or five number-one theatres in Manchester and so they know real talent, I’ll stake my life on it.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to go as far as that,’ said Sadie, seriously.
Stella studied her sister despairingly before saying, ‘And neither one of you is to go backstage and wish that big idiot luck for the next round.’ She turned on Tommy, who had moved even further away. ‘You hear that, Tommy Moran?’
He swung round with an angelic expression upon his face. ‘What was that?’
‘You heard me.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Come on, there’s nothing here for us any more. Let’s go home and tell our folks the worst.’
Once on the tram Stella managed to calm herself considerably. ‘I’ll give him this,’ she said, preparing to offer her first piece of praise for the tenor singer: ‘He knew exactly what the audience wanted. He sang the right numbers for the occasion.’
There was a glimmer in her eyes as if she was registering her own words as she spoke them. ‘Yes, that’s the secret, isn’t it? You give them what they want; not what you want.’
‘I think that’s quite so,’ said Tommy, bravely. ‘“Live and learn” is what my old man taught me.’
‘What’s he got to do with the business?’ she said, hurtfully. Tommy cowered and stared out of the window.
‘Don’t be mean on him,’ defended Sadie. ‘It’s not Tommy’s fault.’
‘I know, I am sorry. I just can’t believe we’re out of the stupid competition.’
Within two days Stella had a plan. They would go to Preston, put their names down at the theatre there and re-enter the competition. They could use their Aunt Alice’s name and address to avoid recognition. She lived in Garston, which was nearer to Preston than Lancaster. ‘But only by about two yards,’ Tommy pointed out. She was very pleased with herself, and even more pleased when Tommy revealed that he had a relation in Preston itself, and that they could use her address.
After an awkward journey they reached Preston, did their performance using Tommy’s relation’s name and address – and came in third. They were beaten out of second place by a young man who did the worst impression of Charlie Chaplin Stella had ever seen. ‘I didn’t even realise he was supposed to be Charlie Chaplin,’ declared Sadie. He, in turn, was beaten out of first place by a crippled accordionist and his dog that howled to all his tunes, hitting the right notes more often than his owner.
Stella asked Tommy if he had any relatives in Blackburn, but both he and Sadie were quite adamant that, as far as this particular competition was concerned, they were finished.
Stella was almost frantic from the lack of worthwhile work there was about during the ensuing period. The one thing that gnawed away at her mind more consistently than anything else was the question, would they ever really make it big? Both of them were now members of the Variety Artists’ Federation union, and they read the papers and periodicals appertaining to any form of entertainment. All Stella wanted was for them to have just one good job in the business so they could prove their worth.
Sadie had lost much of her enthusiasm since the big competition. She didn’t in any way blame her sister for their failure, but felt that, having put all her faith and trust in her for so long with such poor results, she’d be better off spending more of her time at the cake shop, doing an honest day’s work. She was also falling more and more in love with Tommy Moran by the second, and in recent years he hadn’t stopped being in love with her for a moment. In fact, if the truth had been known, his main reason for continuing to participate in their work as travelling chaperone was to now gradually save towards buying an engagement ring. He knew they were both too young for marriage as yet, ‘but there’s no harm in saving,’ he would keep telling himself.
What neither of them realised was that Stella was so blinded by her ambition to succeed that she hadn’t noticed their blossoming love. They’d wrongly assumed that she simply wasn’t interested.
The next two years were traumatic ones for Stella but not too unpleasant for Sadie. Work had come in fits and starts, and when they did work it was received with little remark or enthusiasm. One night, when her sister was already asleep, Stella lay wide-awake in
