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Entertainment at The Hockett    

 

(01/07/2000)

 

It was a lovely evening for the Thames Valley Hospice' fundraising evening of entertainment at the Hockett on Saturday 1st July to mark the Millennium.  

 

You could bring your own picnic, which you could eat in the magnificent garden of the Hockett or have dinner arranged for you along with wine, champagne and Pimms.

 

The event was so popular that there had to be two performances plus two sittings at dinner!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In the Performers' Marquee the entertainment started off with Val Rice and Friends.  Val has been writing and perfoming since the age of seven when she coerced her teachers into allowing her to run her own touring group throughout the school. A daily spot on Cookham 105 FM in 1997, where she was part of the 'Afternoon Slot' team made people in Cookham realise how gifted she was and then in 1999 she had her own weekly  slot on Cookham Summer FM. She was accompanied by her husband Ian and his original music and Peter Hughes.
Val Rice takes a breather 

 

 

 

 

 

Val was followed by a Barbershop Quartet, made up of David Hazeldine, Richard Sedding, John Stork and Nick Weait, who said that although they were used to singing together it was not usually in that guise or style. They said that they had practised their skills for the evening in the peace of their own bathrooms. Not content with the Marquee they also played in the grounds of The Hockett.
The Barbershop Quartet

The final part of the programme was the Garden Studio, consisting of three outstandingly gifted ladies, who performed a play called Roman Fever in which two women, who are lifelong friends, Elida and Grace, are talking to each other one late afternoon in Rome and start to reminisce over the times they have spent in Rome with their late husbands, however the conversation leads to some long held secrets being revealed.  The play was directed by Sylvia Wimpenny who founded The Garden Studio in 1987. Laura Cullingford played Elida.  Laura trained at RADA and has performed with such famous names as Dame Judi Dench and Rula Lenska.  She has appeared on television productions such as The Avengers, Z Cars and Dr Who. The third member, Jenny Warren, began singing and acting at the age of five as Mary in the kindergarten Nativity play and has not stopped since.

In the Drawing Room there was additional entertainment from the Cantorum Octet, who were accompanied by Anna Markland, a talented pianist, who was winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition in 1982.  There were also guest appearances from Jeremy Andrews and also the local pianist Gillian Salmon.

Marianne Stork, a member of the 

Cantorum Choir

 

In the Sun Room Chris Tyrrell had an exhibition of paintings, water colours, sketches, illustrations and limited edition prints, some of which were for sale.  Chris was also available to talk about his work.

The whole evening was a great success and went a long way in raising funds for the Thames Valley Hospice.  The person who had masterminded the evening was Genevieve Usher, who has been slowly disappearing under a pile of faxes, letters and E-Mails over the last few weeks and says she has honed her begging skills to a fine art.  She says all she wants to do now is sleep for a month.

 

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