This is Alice Wareing who married Eric Kettle in 1922 at the Primitive Methodist Church on High Lane.
They lived on Buxton Avenue in Didsbury and during the 1930s performed in local amateur dramatic productions.
I don’t know which group but it will be local to south Manchester and there might be a clue in the picture with contains the word Didsbury, but that might just refer to the photographer.
It is also possible that they were with the Methodist players.
This group performed in the Sunday school beside the church on Manchester Road.
And that stage will soon be no more as the Edge Company who now occupy the old Sunday School are about to modernise the hall.
In time I hope I will be able to find out more.
The picture is one of two which was sent to me by my friend Ann along with a press cutting of Alice and Eric’s marriage.
This is equally fascinating providing those sorts of details which all too often are lost.
So I know who attended the wedding, the outfits of the main participants and the honeymoon destination of the couple.
All of which offers up a revealing insight into the lives of Mr and Mrs Kettle and opens up a shed load of research into the amateur dramatics societies of south Manchester eighty years ago.
Pictures, Alice and Eric Kettle, circa 1930s, courtesy of Ann Love
According to my good friend David a long time member of the Manchester Road Players for whom he has directed many plays the Kettles were members of a society which playe in the hall adjacent to High LANE primitive Methodist Church (now the Buddhist Centre. They wer known as The High Lane Players and David recalls going along to see some of their performances in which his father was taking part. When the Church closed in the mid-1960's the group amalgamated with The Manchester Road Society.
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