iKnow North West
Rochdale Accommodation
The Co-operative Museum, Toad Lane
Rochdale Town Hall balcony where Gracie greeted the crowds in Rochdale on 19th May 1937.
Gracie's famous hat displayed at Touchstones in Rochdale.Rochdale Tourist Information Gracie Fields Stansfield Cooperative Co-operative Pioneers Museum UK
There is no doubt that although the Rochdale Co-operative Pioneers come a close second, it's Gracie Fields that is most synonymous with mill-town Rochdale. That famous scene of Gracie on the balcony of Rochdale Town Hall can be seen in the special gallery on Gracie in Touchstones (stupid name!) on The Esplanade, with a little cinema also showing clips from her films and newsreel.
It really is worth exploring in a little depth the life and times of a woman who was once the highest paid British star, and who captivated audiences to the point of adoration. A complex and contradictory character, strongly independent and yet craving a stereotypical role as mother, housewife and dutiful wife - she seemed pulled between the two. First and foremost a workaholic and with a bit of 'fate' thrown in by an illness which meant she could not have children - she seemed to smash the stereotype and emerges as a key working class feminist of the 20th century. Although, she'd probably have been the last person to describe herself as such.
Grace Stansfield, aka Gracie Fields
Grace Stansfield, aka Gracie Fields - 'I've got to stop in, I've got to practice go away me mother's coming.' (I Taught Her How to Play Br-oop, Br-oop).
'None of my family, and especially me, would be where we are today without my mumma. She was the driving force. Who's to say that I, and my sisters and brother, might not have been working in the cotton mills to this day if it hadn't been for her? She made all of us realise her ambitions for her, and all my life I've wondered, really, how she did it. She brought us up on clouts, and push, and never-give-in''. Gracie Fields, 'Sing As We Go. Her Autobiography', (1960) published by Jarrold & Sons Ltd, Norwich.
Although Gracie milked the 'Rochdale lass born and bred' image and brief spell as a child millworker / half-timer (half the day in school, half in the mill), akin to Janis Joplin and the whole 'Pearl' thing, she I think was far from this image in reality. Her and her mother wanted to get out of Rochdale as soon as they could methinks, and as she went on to become the highest paid UK female film and singing star in the 1930s she bought a small patch of land with villa on her beloved island of Capri. Gracie Fields' life and story make fascinating reading, and Rochdale pays due homage to her and the legend of her birth above 'Chip Sarah's, (her paternal grandmother's) chip shop on Molesworth Street, Rochdale. Gracie talks about her grandmother 'Chip Sarah' in her autobiography. This woman, who could neither read or write, had worked down the pits as a child opening the great hulking iron doors which sealed off each shaft to stop 'fire-damp' explosions from spreading. She had to let the pit ponies in and out and let the coal trucks through for 12 hours every day. At 40 she'd saved enough money to buy a barbers in Rochdale which she converted into a prosperous fish and chip shop.
Gracie Fields had a mother, eh by gum she did n'all - a determined woman called Jenny who longed for a life on the stage herself. Working in the mills was not good enough for her three daughters and one son and she bullied, scrimped and saved and forced her kids to practice their singing. Gracie showed the most talent early on and Jenny, who cleaned and took in laundry from the local Rochdale Hippodrome (now demolished) used to cart young Grace into the Hippodrome with her, 'Keep your eyes about you, young Grace Watch everything you can, that's the only way you'll learn.''
Gracie Fields Comic Skills
Gracie's unmatched comic skill brought audiences to hysterics - she was early on a woman in a man's world of music hall comedy and competed with the best such as George Formby and Stanley Holloway. From music hall, to theatre to film, she couldn't seem to help herself turn comic in the middle of a serious song, or roll off classics like 'Walter Walter (Lead Me to the Alter)' - it's either the workhouse or me!, 'We've Got to Keep Up with the Jones' - he wears plus fours and she talks down her nose!, 'Mary Ellen's Hotpot Party' - to leave the eyes in potatoes isn't reet'!
But as Roy Hudd suggests, she could hit those high notes in the second syllable of 'Sally', and her beautiful renditions of songs like 'Danny Boy', and classical musical numbers like 'There's No business Like Show Business', demonstrated the versatility and diverse range of her voice - it was a beautiful voice. Her mother detested her tendency to comic, and it's said was disappointed that Gracie did not become an opera singer. Gracie put this comic preference down to her father's influence.
A confusing, contradictory and complex character, and during the 1930s the highest paid British star, Gracie was a royalist through and through and became 'wartime darling', particularly during the Second World War with anthems like 'Sing As We Go'. The message in these anthems always seemed to be struggle on, put up with it and hope for brighter days / along the lines of her mother's philosophy of life.
The depth of understanding, critique and analysis seems to be most evident in the comic numbers, the comic touch she said she got from her father - she had an in-depth understanding of the working class characters in the songs and could mock but with affection, keeping audiences in fits.
The Appeal of Gracie Fields
J.B. Priestly said of her, ''She fused two different kinds of appeal, one sentimental and the other comic, into one unique style of performance. She was also compelled to dominate her audience more thoroughly than any other variety artist and an audience so dominated has its response raised to a higher level. It enjoys an experience. And for such an experience it is instantly and profoundly grateful''. If you read about people who saw her sing live they do talk about being totally captivated - makes you wish you'd been there.
She came close to death in the late 1930s when she was afflicted by cervical cancer - she'd been ill for sometime but had ignored it pushing on with her punishing schedule of two or three shows a day sometimes. Her autobiography is telling here, as she gives a little insight into how the operation left her unable to bear children, and how this affected her (see p.128, 'Sing As We Go). The nation gulped waiting to hear that she was ok, flowers came from the Queen, Attlee and the renowned cartoonist Strube sketched a man in a bowler hat waiting to hear below a hospital window with a bunch of flowers. The strength of feeling felt by British people towards her at this time was immense.
A lot of pain, a lot of loneliness, a lot of struggle - but by heck what a life. Take time to explore the life of 'Our Gracie', as Strube aptly referred to her in his cartoon.
http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/Leisure/LocalHist.asp?URL=GracieFields
