Hi Gail I'm glad you delurked and sent your first post. Speaking for myself, I can honestly say that this is the friendliest list I've ever been on, no matter how much or little you post, and your contribution is very much valued. I've made a number of friends through this list that I chat with regularly both on- and off-list, so come on in, the water's fine! :-) Although I am fascinated by the genealogical side of things and want to trace my roots as far as I reasonably can, I have to confess that it's still not my main passion (sorry Pam ;-). I guess if I had to put a label on it, what I'm interested in is the historical aspect of the theatre. This works two "ways": my Dad was in his seventies when I was born, and died when I was only 14. He had a lot of life before I was around, even before my Mum was around, and I want to find out as much about it as I can and put it in context. Going in the other "direction", my Dad was one of life's collectors (a habit I've inherited), and left an awful lot of memorabilia. If that can be used in any way, either to help people trace their ancestors or just to give someone an impression of what theatre life was like, then I'm happy. I think your website is great! I shall go back to it and have a closer look another time, but the few bits that I read on a first look were fascinating. I especially liked the page on circus slang, which I wasn't surprised to find had a lot of Polari terms in it. Although I never heard him use it myself, my Dad was apparently quite fluent in Polari. Your experiences as a child sound absolutely fascinating. Anyway, I'll shut up now. Just wanted to say "hi". All the best -- Neal ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gail Neville" <rollerbalancer@yahoo.com.au> To: <THEATRE-UK-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2003 11:51 PM Subject: [THEATRE-UK] Re: THEATRE-UK-D Digest V03 #83 > Hello, everyone, I have been lurking for a while - since this is a genealogy list I wasn't sure if I would have anything to contribute, but Neal and Ann's posts about travellers' education seems to be something I can offer some insight on - I was born a traveller in Ireland and later moved to the UK with my parents when I was 7. My parents did a sharpshooting variety act called Little Beaver and Maree, and before WWII my father was a family member of the Kavanagh-McCourt touring theatre company in Ireland. I grew up `on the road' and was unable to attend school regularly in the 50s. To avoid having to attend schools a week or two at a time, my parents enrolled me in a correspondence school and I did my lessons in theatre dressing rooms most of the time. Can't say I got a great education ( I still don't know what algebra is) but I learned to read and write very well, because my father's theory was, I could teach myself anything I wanted to know if I could read. > My website is at http://www.geocities.com/rollerbalancer > My background, as you see, is more variety (Vaudeville) and circus than acting, although my parents still toured with a portable theatre when I was a little girl in Ireland. The show was half variety, half melodrama (Murder in the Red Barn, Little Grey Home in the West) and the family my parents partnered with were called Hope. I made my stage debut at about three or four in one of their plays. > > Gail Kavanagh > > > > > > --------------------------------- > Yahoo! Search > - Looking for more? Try the new Yahoo! Search >