Does anybody know where AVA is?

[John Duplock]

John Duplock and David Watson, ex Iberia Printers, recently had a re-union in Paris where David Lives. We would both very much like to find Gordon Mead, known as Ava on Iberia. (Cinderella in the ship's pantomime many moons ago.) Does anybody know where he now is? As previously posted, we would like to trace Frank Newnham, Printer on Iberia and Canberra. (He does not owe us money!!) Thanks to anybody who can help. JD & DW.

[Keith Moody]

john, you are looking for Gorden Mead (ava) who played cinderella many moons ago, tell me was that on the old "ARCADIA" back in the 1950`s ?
if so i remember it well, it was a good show and i still have the script for it. if it was this show it ran for 3 nights with some of the top passengers being invited by the capt. to watch it. one of those was the producer for TV in Australia who wanted the cast members to put the show on in Sydney for the TV to broadcast, however the Capt. would not allow it as there was to much controversy in the script subject matter that half would have had to be cut out.
if i remember rightly another member of the cast was Taffy Jones, cannot remember his name.
it was a mixture of snow white with the 3 drawfs being all over 6ft tall, a Policeman who turned up in the wrong show etc. it was very well put on and the acting bought the house down, i was the wicked uncle which meant i was to wear a long chinese beard, this was stuck on the first night with a special face glue and at the end of the night it came off with no problem, the following night i found out someone had left the lid off this glue and it had gone hard, the only glue we could find was in the carpenters workshop, so this had to do and it held the long beard on good, in fact too good, at the end of the evenings show i couldn`t get it off at all, so next day i had to serve my 2 tables of 2 on each, (1 was Lord Nuefeild and the other was the owner of the British Paint works) with this long beard on, they had been down to the show so thought it a laugh, when we did manage to get the beard off, my face came out in a rash which i had for weeks
keith moody
R635978

[John Duplock]

Hi Keith. Thanks for your reply, but unfortunately, although yours sounded like a great show, it was the wrong one. Ava was in the Iberia version, which was cleverly written around the Sydney dance, with Cinderella working in the platehouse to start, ending up with Prince Charming taking her to work in the air-conditioned Bureau after meeting her at the dance. This was around 1960. Gordon Mead, Cinderella, would now be in his 70s. Jock Hainey sang a memorable version of ''I've Got a Logging in the Morning'' (Get me to the Bridge on Time) to the tune of I'm Getting Married in the Morning''. The late Ken Galley was the Fairy Godmother. JD