PEOPLE WHO MATTERED IN ESSEX AND BEYOND

• This book is available as an audiobook124 pages, illustrated
• Ian Henry Publishing, 2006
• £9.95 RRP
• This book is now out of print. Please contact Dee Gordon if you are interested in purchasing it
• The unabridged audio CD is available from the RNIB Talking Book Service – To request a copy, call 0303 123 9999, RNIB Ref 407866

♦ “Fascinating stories”
(Southend Times)

By the 1920s cinema organists were less in demand, but they evolved as a cheap alternative for a full orchestra. By 1925, Ena was playing at the Strand Cinema in Southend and the Kingsway in Hadleigh (no longer in existence) and also played at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff on Sea and the Palace Hotel in Southend. She moved on to the New Gallery in Regent Street, London, and the Tivoli in the Strand, London. Talking pictures meant that Ena entertained cinemagoers between films rather than during them as her father had done. Her style gradually became flamboyant – in dress and demeanour. It seems that organists really were the pop stars of the inter war years. She also did music hall work, and even played at Balmoral for George V and Queen Mary in 1932.

While working at the Gaumont in Camden Town, London, in 1940, a bomb destroyed the organ, and she moved to the safer environs of the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool, replacing the famous Reginald Dixon on his radio broadcasts when he left for the R.A.F. Ena apparently played here every night until the end of the war, returning to London in 1945, to cinemas making room for Cinemascope at the expense of organs such as the Wurlitzer. Her signature tune was Let’s All Go Down the Strand, later replaced by Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.

Her fame was such that she was featured in a 1956 episode of The Goon Show – The Mighty Wurlitzer. Between 1957 and 1962 Ena visited South Africa to entertain the Italian workers building the Kariba dam. She was also responsible for composing many short pieces of light music (including Bagatelle) and recorded a few albums.

Luckily for her, by the 1960s the Hammond organ was widely available and she was able to play the new smaller instrument at Joe Lyons’s in Tottenham Court Road and at the pub she owned with her husband. She was not averse to including such material as Can’t Buy Me Love and Hey, Jude in her repertoire. From 1969, she reached new audiences through Radio 2 with The Organist Entertains. Ena even appeared as a guest in a couple of episodes of television’s Upstairs Downstairs and as herself in the 1992 film of Chaplin. Sister Florence became musical director at the National Film Theatre and died at the age of 94.

Ena continued performing until the age of 93, and survived two husbands, Reginald and James.

Sources:
Southend Standard 20.08.04
www.telegraph.co.uk
www.capslockoff.blogspot.com
www.madcornishproject.co.uk