Wigan Album

That looks more like Esther Williams Jake..
another famous film star. She was very athletic as well being a great swimmer.

Signature on left says
Esther williams

Saw quite a few films at Scholes Picture House with Esther Williams starring, she was lovely. Some of these American film stars entertained the troops abroad with Bob Hope. ( I don’t know if Esther did) In the fifties Marilyn Monroe went to Korea and that went down extremely well.
Same with the British with Vera Lynn singing to the troops in Burma.
Many others besides under the umbrella of ENSA. If you Google Esther Williams you might get more info on whether she did and if he saw her in a show.

ENSA stands for Entertainments National Service Association.
Your Grandad may have seen some shows abroad depending where he was.

My bad!
Thanks everyone! I always assumed it was Rita Hayworth… well anyway he had that for a while and had it tattooed on his arm

Thanks Veronica, he was actually in the malayan emergency

According to the lads who saw the ENSA shows, like my late Dad. They said ENSA stood for, 'Every Night Something Awful' .

Rita Hayworth does a similar pose on the poster in ' The Shawshank Redemption '. You may have got it from that Jake .
Incidentally , after Andy escapes through the tunnel , who put the poster back in place ?

I’ve hear that too Pete Barker. At least it shows the troops weren’t forgotten. I think they entertained the workers at the Munition Factories in the canteens as well. I recall when I worked at ROF Chorley there was an old battered Honky Tonk piano on the stage.

I wondered that as well Poet very puzzling. Brilliant film though… Didn’t the crooked Warden tear the poster off the wall and screw it up?
( Before blowing his brains out later!)
The prisoners were watching Gilda a film with the famous scene
In which she throws her glorious mane of hair back and the men all roared… yes Rita Hayworth was the famous wartime pin -up…Britain could never compete with those films..

Rita was the first pin up girl in the cell . As the years passed she was replaced by Marilyn Monroe then Raquel Welch . The warder threw a pebble at Raquel which tore through the picture revealing the escape tunnel. .
Jake's grandad was lucky to get Esther . Many British troops had to be content with drawings of 'Jane ' , who Churchill called ' Britain's secret weapon ' .

Jane the ‘cartoon’ was
( based on a real person) in the News of the World.
It was banned from our house later on. I think Churchill remarked on a few secret weapons. With Hitler it was the Queen Mother! What a time to live through… a thoroughly great generation…. We should be eternally grateful to them. My dad was a fan of Susan Haywood..they all seemed to have their favourites. Churchill favoured Mrs Miniver … (her real name escapes me ) …

I think it was Greer Garson, Veronica. Laura would have known, going to the pictures in Milford so often!

Correct Irene. I think Churchill liked those war time films as they depicted the stoicism and fervour for what was being fought for. Mind you he may have been biased as he was ‘half American’ as his mother Jenny Jerome was American.

Thanks for the info guys!
I think it’s a post card he got in the war, he was in the Malayan emergency and had it with him.
He ended up having it tattooed on his arm and he used to be able make her dance with his muscles lol

I bet he’d had a few drinks then Jake before having that tattoo done! ;o))