Pearl Taylor… Remembers…….They Nearly Knocked It Down

When the decision was taken to knock down the theatre and build a leisure centre, the members of the local Amateur Societies decided to get up a petition against the closure. The town’s people got behind us - and we won, didn’t we!

‘The theatre was handed to the user societies to run, with the financial backing of business people in the town. I became cleaning co-ordinator and key holder, grouping together the members of amateur societies on Sunday mornings to clean the theatre from top to bottom.

A group of volunteers became the permanent stage crew for ten years,  headed by Trevor Farmer as Stage Manager, we worked 52 weeks of the year on every show, just for the love of the Palace Theatre.”