Miriam Pleasence

A good friend of mine has died: Miriam Pleasence. She was Donald Pleasence's first wife (he had three or four afterwards - "got younger every time" she told me). She had been an excellent actress and, she told me, had written a couple of plays with her husband; whether they were ever produced or not I don't know. But since I knew she could write I asked her if she would collaborate on a play with me. She said yes so we went about collaborating - not very successfully I'm afraid: I'd write a scene, send it to her in London, she'd make changes and send it back. It never worked out.
She had been, early in her life, in the Birmingham Reportary Company under the famous Barry Jackson who had set up the company in the early part of the 20th C.
She was an exceptionally good writer of amusing theatrical anecodal stories and I tried to persuade her to make them into a collection and get them published. This, I think, never came about which is a great pity.
We both used to attend, fairly regularly, writing weekends in Abergavenny. I recall one evening in the bar when I was telling a group of writers about an article I had read (in Punch magazine) about a husband and wife who had the perfect partnership: he went to work in the nights and she went to work in the days; they passed each other on the doorstep on their ways out and in. A woman on the course objected strongly to this, she found the idea in rather bad taste. She said "I had a perfect marriage, my husband and I did everything together.... etc etc" Later I told Miriam about this incident and she said "Was it her first, second or third husband?"