A Rochester Reminiscence by Sybil Thorndike (1882-1976)
Actress Dame Sybil Thorndike-Casson, whose stage career lasted from 1904 to 1969, reflects on a childhood as daughter of a Minor Canon of the Cathedral. Extract from The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 1966.
As one grows old, I find one goes back more and more to the happenings of one's early childhood. The smells of trees, moorland, sea, cathedrals, are all a vivid reminder of one's youthful days when one was so alive to these things, although not consciously, as in age: and it is very exciting to travel back and go again through experiences which one forgets in middle age, but which in later years spring strongly to life.
Rochester in my youth comes to me now in great waves of nostalgia--no, better than nostalgia--in happy rememberings. To see the beginnings of what, in later life, became one's vocation is enlightening, and I am continually now hearing echoes from long ago which make me aware of time passing and lessons learnt.
First, the Cathedral, which dominated our lives, everything being somehow influenced by the daily round of sung Mattins and Evensong, and bells gay or doleful as the occasion demanded. My first feeling of drama came from Cathedral ritual; it was thrilling for me and my brother Russell to see the choir come in all regular and pompous, to see one's friends in ordinary life turned into lay-clerks that one could not even smile at in all their choral make-up. And greatest thrill of all to see our buddies, the vergers, heading processions of clergy, and doing all their routines with precision and not a look at us to show what pals they were, and then the Minor Canons, Canons and Dean, the best performers in this beautiful play. Our own father we thought looked superb_-he always acted well in a pro-cession, but from my remembrance the dignitaries were an impressive lot... Precentor Livett with his lovely classical face, Mr. Nash with that fine head, Canon Jelf looking the saint he was, Canon Burrows and Canon Cheyne, every flicker on their faces showing the great scholars they were- and to crown all, Dean Hole with the lion head and voice of magic. As I write, I can feel the thrill of their entry and the sound and echo of the music, so that it was natural for Russell and me to stage our first plays on the pattern of the ritual in our Cathedral, which to this day I find more impressive than even the most elaborate ritual of the Anglo-Catholic. One of the nuns of Stanmore Abbey in a brilliant book on the Benedictines states that their order of ritual is finely exemplified in the ritual of the Anglican Cathedrals, so this must have persisted somehow, some-where, even through the bleakness of the Reformation.
We made plays in all our spare time, though, excepting for Aladdin at the Victoria Hall, we never saw a real theatre till taken to the Chatham Opera House at the age of 8 and 6 respectively to see The Private Secretary.
At this performance we nearly had to be taken out we laughed so immoderately, and both had violent hiccups and disturbed the audience around us. A new world of absurdity was opened to us. Hitherto, plays had been processions and solemnities and bowings and genuflec-tions, but here was something so staggeringly new that comedy, henceforth mingled with horrors, was to be our main theatre in the cellar of our home. The kitchen, too, was a fine place in which to perform with an audience of servants who applauded and hailed us as geniuses--the smaller parts being effectively played by hot-water cans and boots and shoes, who were excellent puppets. Gradually though, the Church took possession and our marked talents were seized to do performances in mission rooms and gardens of the dignitaries. To our chagrin we were not allowed to perform our best work of horrors and murders, or even ecclesiastical pro-cessions, but were forced to do something the ordinary church-going audiences would like--this we found very boring of the church-going audiences, but it laid The seed in us both for doing things later on "to shock the audience into awareness' of a more thrilling life!
Drama was alive tho' in Rochester- to my thinking as alive, if not more so, than lots of companies I see now, amateur and professional. But the Church dominated all, and any effort to bring more blood and thunder and contemporary life of the most villainous into our plays was promtly squashed as unsuitable, We felt even as children that every sort of life should be depicted in our theatre, and indeed, as an old actress now, I feel more and more that need in the theatre today. It is often said that the theatre should keep before our eyes and minds the more pleasant or amusing side of life, but the theatre is wider and more enlightening than this. It should be as it were a microscope turning a fierce light on to a portion of life that ordinarily one cannot see - the fierce light of the microscope being a quickened imagination enabling us to study and review with understanding, lives of which perhaps we can know little. This surely should help us with charity to learn about, and perhaps even love, fellow humans. This burning light may be satire, comedy, tragedy, farce--no matter as long as we can recognize ourselves even in the most unlikely or unloveable characters. The theatre in its ideal manifestation should show us ourselves- show us our kinship with all crea-tures. The theatre--was it Aristotle who said it?--is a purge of pity and terror every sort of happening that comes to mankind should have its answering sympathy or understanding in our inmost being. A microscope 15 a good simile, for it enlarges and brings into focus things we are too blind to see with our ordinary eyes. A better simile it is than the "mirror up to nature"-with apologies to Mr. Shakespeare--tho', of course, the mirrors of Elizabethan days were not exact reproduc-tions-distortions rather, so let's go for the theatre as microscope.
The theatre and Church worked together in early days, plays being performed in the crypts for the "edification of the faithful" by monks and others fitted to perform. These performances were by no means strait-laced, as one knows when one studies the old Mysteries. I think we are now coming back to the old idea of plays for the faithful--plays to convert and edify, and our plays now are liker to the early Church performances than any written after the Reformation.
So as my brother and I always say and occasionally my husband--Hurrah for Cathedrals and the bringing up of children in the Precincts and may the theatre that sprang from the Church increase in usefulness and joyousness.
Dame Sybil Thorndike
The Friends of Rochester Cathedral were founded to help finance the maintenance of the fabric and grounds. The Friends’ annual reports have become a trove of articles on the fabric and history of the cathedral.
Canons, colleagues, volunteers and staff have shared their memories and reflections in many forms over the years.