Katharine Blake(1921-1991)

She was born in the Transvaal but her ancestry is Irish with her family once owning Renvyle House in Connemara, She was educated in Scotland and three times won an award as Canada's Best Actress, sought fossils in the Colorado canyons and the volcanic area of her native Transvaal and archaelogical remains in Mexico but regards London as her home, She writes historical mysteries and adapted Brigid Brophy's The Snowball and Brecht's Galileo for television, the latter directed by her husband Charles Jarrett, All,this from a former stammering left handed child who was educated by nuns at Leith and who tied her left hand and forced her to write with her right but even today she does many things with her left, The one thing they did do for her was to give her elocution lessons to cure her stammer which is why she developed into an actress, At 16 she went into repertory at Perth then to Amersham and Windsor and at 17 made her West End debut with Edith Evans in Antony and Cleopatra. In the early 50's she went to Canada and worked with a group that included author/playwrite Arthur Haley and producer Sydney Newman who came to London to make Armchair Theatre in which Katherine won Best TV Actress of the Year Award in 1964 which prevented her returning to, the theatre. While she loves acting because it means working with other people the actual performances terrify her and it means losing about 5 Ilbs over 2 camera days, The first night in the theatre has the same effect on her and she always thinks 'thats it never again', She is much happier writing Her most enjoyable was how the ghost of poet affected a young boy in the tv series Haunted, She has a fear of machines which she hasn't been able to overcome so can't drive,, The fear stems from when she was a schoolgirl during the blitz and going up the steps from a tube station bombing caused a stampede of people knocking her over and trampling her resulting in her left cheek bone being crushed, Her worst experience was when she had to fly to South Africa and because of the then restrictions it took about 22 hours, She finds that her marriage to Charles Jarrett has helped her stabilise herself.