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poliphilo Doone turned up in my dreams- not the woman herself but just her name. It was attached (in the dream) to someone rather different.
As a first name it is possibly unique. And I have remembered it right. It's Doone (as in Lorna). It may have been a stage name because Doone was a dancer. A professional dancer- who performed in Monte Carlo- where she met Leonide Massine- and in the chorus line of the London production of My Fair Lady.
She lived next door when I was in my teens. She had a husband called Gervaise. My parents didn't care for him, though they had them both over to dinner once; they thought he was a bit of a wide boy. They might even have used the word "spiv".
I looked Doone and Gervais up on line. and found a brief notice of their marriage. After that Gervaise fades from the record, even though he is described as a writer. Maybe he did write but never published. Doone, though, carries on. She had three children after the time I knew her, one called Lorna (of course), one who became a businessman and a third who is currently rector of a parish in Bexhill- just up the road from here. This parsonical son is the kind of Christian who thinks Tai Chi is of the devil. Doone herself went on to become a mainstay of a local community theatre. She was alive in 2013- and will have turned 90 if she's still around.
Doone matters to me because she was one of the few adults to take notice of me at a time when I was isolated and lonely. Also because she involved me briefly in am dram and gifted me with the role that represents the peak of my acting career- having me deliver Jacques speech on the Seven Ages of Man- that great essay on Mutability- from the stage of the village hall. I can still- though now positioned somewhere between the fifth and sixth age- recite most of it by heart.
As a first name it is possibly unique. And I have remembered it right. It's Doone (as in Lorna). It may have been a stage name because Doone was a dancer. A professional dancer- who performed in Monte Carlo- where she met Leonide Massine- and in the chorus line of the London production of My Fair Lady.
She lived next door when I was in my teens. She had a husband called Gervaise. My parents didn't care for him, though they had them both over to dinner once; they thought he was a bit of a wide boy. They might even have used the word "spiv".
I looked Doone and Gervais up on line. and found a brief notice of their marriage. After that Gervaise fades from the record, even though he is described as a writer. Maybe he did write but never published. Doone, though, carries on. She had three children after the time I knew her, one called Lorna (of course), one who became a businessman and a third who is currently rector of a parish in Bexhill- just up the road from here. This parsonical son is the kind of Christian who thinks Tai Chi is of the devil. Doone herself went on to become a mainstay of a local community theatre. She was alive in 2013- and will have turned 90 if she's still around.
Doone matters to me because she was one of the few adults to take notice of me at a time when I was isolated and lonely. Also because she involved me briefly in am dram and gifted me with the role that represents the peak of my acting career- having me deliver Jacques speech on the Seven Ages of Man- that great essay on Mutability- from the stage of the village hall. I can still- though now positioned somewhere between the fifth and sixth age- recite most of it by heart.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-14 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-14 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-15 05:05 am (UTC)That's lovely. I'm glad she was there and I hope she still is.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-15 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-15 06:05 pm (UTC)I've read a lot of Rendell but not that one....