Enid Stamp Taylor
Polyfoto and Enid Stamp Taylor…
This remarkable and previously unpublished set of pictures taken by Polyfoto in the 1930’s show a more unguarded and natural Enid Stamp Taylor and thought to be taken in one of London’s large department stores. They were given to me by Enid’s daughter Robin Anne, and interestly enough there is a corresponding set taken at the same time of Robin Anne herself. Therefore, one must conclude this was a spontaneous gesture during one of Enid’s frequent shopping trips in central London.
Polyfoto were a photographic company that had instore portait studios in many large towns across the country from the 1930’s right up until the mid 70s and enjoyed their own distinctive and notable photographic system which incorporated unperforated 35mm film that in turn produced small square pictures as a contact sheet from which the sitter could choose enlargements a day or two later. However, the system became expensive and dated with the rise of the photo booth
Sadly, these are all that have survived from a sheet of some 40 pictures! – Patrick.
Home Thoughts of Enid Stamp Taylor…
I stood outside The People’s Palace on The Mile End road, one hot July afternoon in 1980. Somehow standing there I could feel her presence on that wintry evening all those years ago. She would have been hesitant, afraid, and yet thrilled. She would have walked up those few enlightening steps, gripped tightly and disapprovingly by her mother. Herbert Marks would have stood beside the pillared archway, smiling, his face lit to the cold night air… Dear Herbert who’s stomach ulcers in time would become the better of him… was the most sweetest of men. They would have entered this great hall arm in arm and performed with an exacting elegance under chandeliers that sparkled like a thousand tiny gems. Here gowns would have been filled with paraded ladies of charm, whilst men squinted through solitary eyeglasses and ordered waiters and drinks around.
In my hand was her silver pendant, it gleamed at me from its loneliness. It had hung around her neck that evening… a heart shaped pendant that opened to a tiny portrait of her… later she had added a picture of her beloved Charles.
The stone steps leading to the terraced balustrade were worn now with the progress of time and footsteps, and the archway of pillared marble, chaffed and pitted by the chilling winter winds that rose from the east of the City… and as I stood there with my thoughts… a shiver ran through my veins.
Enid… And Portmeirion
Enid Stamp Taylor... And friends!
Enid and two cherished companions on holiday at Portmeirion North Wales in the August of 1937. The holiday village of Portmeirion was the setting for the famous TV series of ’The Prisoner’ starring Patrick McGoohan. Enid is pictured snapped by family members ‘The Poritts’… The architect Clough Williams-Ellis was the brainchild behind ‘Portmeirion’ – the Italianate village known as ‘The Xanadu of Wales’… and it’s likely he was a friend to Enid.
The Loxwood Barge…
The Loxwood Barge in the Village of Loxwood
Not far from Enid’s sleeping place in Alfold on the Surrey and Sussex border, is the quaint English village of Loxwood. Here at Loxwood are enjoyable summer barge trips along the canals, and at Yuletide, mulled wine, mince pies and traditional English carols to be savoured from the local public house.
The Gainsborough Film Studios
The Gainsborough Film Studios in Poole Street, Islington London
The Gainsborough Film Studios at Islington North London prior to their redevelopment in 2002. Many famous British films were made here during the 1930’s with many of the stars of that time, including Will Hay, Arthur Askey, The Crazy Gang, and of course Enid Stamp Taylor.
Primrose Hill, London
Primrose Hill in West London
“Climbing up on Salisbury Hill… I can see the City Lights” as Peter Gabriel sang… Well, climbing up on Primrose Hill you can see near-all of London’s skyline features. Primrose Hill is situated in West London and it was here that Enid Stamp Taylor would often take a refreshing walk from her mother’s home in the then named Queens Road.
The Lady of the Rose
Enid Stamp Taylor was born on Sunday the 12th of June 1904 in the agreeable, late Victorian, seaside town of Whitley Bay in the North East corner of England. She was the only daughter of Army Major George Stamp Taylor and his wife Agnes.
Some years later they had a son and named him Robin Geoffrey. But tragically, he died at the very young age of only ten years whilst away from home and at boarding school.
Regretfully, the distraught parents separated in 1918, and Enid and her mother moved to London in order to stay with friends. It was here, that Enid’s interest in the stage began to blossom. She had reluctantly entered a beauty contest and then won the first prize of a part in the chorus line of a top West End show. The quality of her voice and exacting diction soon led her to stage training under Rosina Filippi, and in 1923 she toured in the ‘The Lady of the Rose’. During the thirties and forties, along with her agent Al Parker, she successfully built a powerful film and stage persona.
In 1929 she married the prosperous businessman Sidney Colton, and in 1934 they had their beautiful daughter Robin Anne’. However, two years later the marriage was over and consolation came in the form of another businessman by the name of Louis Jackson, and for a while they lived happily at Catherine Place, Westminster; close to Buckingham Palace.
Sadly, Enid died alone, and during the bitter cold winter that followed the summer of 1945. She had collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage in the bathroom of her Park Lane address and was found by the maid in the early hours of that subsequent terrible Monday morning.
Some of the photographs included from time to time on my weblog pages -because this site is dedicated to words and pictures, a picture is worth a thousand words… come from Robin Anne’s own private collection. They are… those treasured memories that we like to keep as images of a near forgotten world.
And now, she sleeps so prettily, beside the little picturesque church of St. Nicholas in the quiet and charming Surrey village of Alfold, and where now and then… I refresh a single red rose to her memory.
