by Tony Phelps (c.1946)
Tony Phelps writes:
“I met Ronnie on the (non-professional) stage in Oxford in 1946. That was the year when I returned from war service.
Having acted a bit during the war, I joined a drama group calling themselves the Theatre Players, somewhere in East Oxford. Ronnie Barker was a member, and we acted together in a thriller called “A Murder Has Been Arranged” in early 1946.
We then began rehearsing “The Blue Goose”, with Ronnie as a small-town mayor (a part he fitted perfectly even as a 16-year old) and me as a round-the-world yachtsman. Unfortunately I had to leave the cast as I got a job in London before the play could be produced.
I met him only once more, when we bumped into each other in the Charing Cross Road, by which time he had already started in repertory.