ENGLISH DANCING GIRLS STRANDED IN GERMANY

Southland Times, Issue 23942, 7 October 1939, Page 13

ENGLISH DANCING GIRLS STRANDED IN GERMANY

“Idiots’ Delight,” the famous war play and film, has come true, as events comparable with those enacted on stage and screen have occurred in real life. In “Idiots’ Delight” a troupe of dancers is marooned, with others, in a mountain hotel somewhere in Europe. War is impending; they hear the march of men, the roar of warplanes; the trains have gone wrong; there are no communications. They are virtually prisoners. This is what actually happened in the closing days of August. Seventeen English chorus girls were in Germany, being members of the last British theatrical company in the country. The British Consul in Leipzig advised them to leave. They changed trains 19 times in Holland and Germany and were marooned for six and a-half hours in the waiting room at Hanover, while outside, men, machine-guns and tanks were on the move.

The troupe in the play were six blondes—noisy, empty-headed. The troupe who arrived from Germany were three blondes, two redheads and 12 brunettes —serious-minded, hard-work-ing and intelligent. “What we have gone through reminds me of ‘ldiots’ Delight,’ ” said Miss Anne Carr, 20-year-old platinum blonde from Wimbledon. “We have had the most terrible time imaginable. We were held up all along by gigantic troop movements.” Miss Doris Whitley, aged 21, a redhead from Woolwich, added, “We were paid about £6 a week on tour, but we were allowed to bring only 10 marks (16/8) out of Germany. I have exactly 4d in my purse.” The girls, however, have had a happier “curtain” than the six blondes in the play, for they are back in England, all except one, Miss Hoy Rogers, of Westcliff-on-Sea, who is recuperating in Leipzig Hospital after an operation for appendicitis. She does not know that her companions have left Germany.