TRIBUTE TO MERVYN STOCKBRIDGE GOULD from Gerrie Williams. (stage name Gerrie Raymond in younger days and Leonie Wilde in later ones)

There are very few truly Renaissance Men left in the world, and even fewer genuinely ‘larger than life’ characters. Mervyn was both of these, in spades.

He worked of course in many branches of the theatrical profession….as electrician at The West End’s Palace Theatre; Stage Manager and Lighting Designer at major provincial theatres such as Sunderland Empire…..and at virtually all of the minor theatres too. He was Road Manager for Mike and Bernie Winters, and he even once essayed the role of actor in summer repertory. As Llewellyn and myself were working in some theatre somewhere else at the time, we never saw him play Winston Churchill. However, in his inimitable fashion, he assured us that, “worthy sources” had considered him “not f…ing bad!”

I met him in 1970, (and Llewellyn sort of acquired him as a fixture in our lives when Llew and I married a year later…..the duo of friendship moving seamlessly into a trio). In 1970 I was leading lady in the big Revue Show at the Butlins Theatre in Skegness, where Mervyn happened to be theatre ‘sparks’…..quite literally in that theatre, as the lighting board was a deathtrap and should have been condemned long since. I do not think that Health and Safety would permit the flying sparks these days, particularly since the poor electrician stood habitually in a half inch of water due to a leak in the roof! Mervyn took it all in his stride as he struggled with the antique board, and the 30 ish people onstage grew used to hearing the colourful epithets emanating from the box set high above the O.P wings as the hapless Mervyn thought he was about to turn into a catherine wheel.

The 40 year friendship spiced with shared black Scorpio humour, the same academic interests, and the same intense theatricality of the 3 of us afford a million memories of Merve. It would take an entire book to catalogue even the most magical moments. I remember him once turning up to visit us at some stage door or other, and imperiously demanding entrance , as he was, “Miss Raymond’s personal lighting designer”. This caused some puzzlement for the staff as the lighting choices at this particular gaffe were twofold…..ON or OFF……and oh, that I could have afforded a personal lighting designer!

Having said that, I did actually employ him once in that capacity for a pantomime which I was Directing at the time, (not to mention Choreographing and playing Principal Boy…..smaller Managements liked to get their monies worth in the 1970′s). The Management were stunned by the brilliance of his work, pronouncing him “uniquely gifted”, and then adding, “if a trifle high-handed dear”.

Well, we know that the old lad could be irascible, bombastic and mercurial at times, but he was generous to a fault, consumed by guilt if he had offended, immensely proud of the achievements of his friends and supportive of them at times of crisis in their lives. In short, he was the loyalest of loyal friends, gaining a raft of friends from the theatrical profession, and indeed from all other areas of his life as witness the large number of people who attended his funeral and bombarded websites various with messages and tributes to his memory. In fact, had he been in the congregation at his funeral, he would have said, “not a bad house for a Friday matinee”.

At the funerals of each of my parents, one of my Drama pupils from my sideline teaching practice spoke a poem by Thomas Hardy. After the second of these occasions, Merve……who was loyally in attendance, even though he was suffering from a vicious attack of gout, which he described in torrents of colourful language……said, “the girl who did it at your father’s funeral did it better….nice unadorned speech and splendid sensitivity”. He was right of course. He had an excellent knowledge of, and a fine ear for poetry. One of his running jokes over all those years was to convince me that he was years younger than myself. I totally believed it for a lot of years until he betrayed himself and then screamed with gleeful laughter about the amount of time that he had managed to foster the deception We kept up the joke then, just to amuse him. We would be watching some programme about the Second World War on television and he would opine that the shortage of potatoes must have been difficult for me when arranging meals. I would counter with something like the fact that it didn’t matter too much anyway since it was quite difficult for my mother to force potatoes into my feeding bottle. He would shake and chortle with delight. So even after he had made the observation about the speaking of the poem at my mother’s funeral, and had then said in that wonderfully mocking way of his, “I like that poem, you can do it at mine”…..he still had to add, “if you havn’t long since snuffed it yourself, aged old bat that you are!”

Well, I was quite certain that he would find SOME way to send me notes if he disapproved of my rendition of it at his funeral, but I took a deep breath and said, “darling Merve, this is for you”.

THE GOING

Why did you give no hint that night

That quickly after the morrow’s dawn,

And calmly, as if indifferent quite,

You would close your term here and be gone

Where we could not follow, with wing of swallow

To gain one glimpse of you ever anon.

Never to bid goodbye or lip the softest call

Or utter a wish for a word, while we

Saw morning harden upon the wall,

Unmoved, unknowing, that your great going

Had place that moment, and altered all.

Why then latterly did we not speak,

Did we not think of those days long dead,

And ‘ere your vanishing strive to seek

That time’s renewal?

Well! All’s past amend,

Unchangeable. It must go.

And you could not know

That such swift fleeing, no soul forseeing

Would undo us so.

Addendum:   It was our tradition that Merve came to stay for a week with us at my birthday or his birthday, at Llew’s birthday, and for Xmas/New Year, (as well as once or twice in other parts of the year )once we had semi and then fully retired.

He had apologised for not feeling well enough to come for my birthday this year but would come for his own. In the event, he passed away on my birthday, but not before he had posted off a card and one of his justly famous fruit cakes The fact that he had managed to do that when he was so obviously terribly ill speaks volumes about the worth of the man, and his love of his friends. That gesture more than anything else made me weep inconsolably. Our festive occasions will be unbelievably poorer without the presence of this unique and glorious aforementioned ‘Renaissance Man’.