JUNE Generation class

Generation Dance Class June ....Yesterday's class seemed for some reason to be very special ... we have now been meeting up every month for over 9 years.. and weekly on zoom throughout lockdown . Everyone had either worked for Dougie and myself and along the way other dancers have joined in on the fun and it has become a Generation family of dancers ... Old friendships rekindled and lots of new ones have been made .. The support is amazing, not only during the class but everyone looks out for each other we have a group page which at points has been a lifeline of support and help to everyone ..

I have been so humbled today with the most touching messages from all the gang ...of what it all means to each of them ...

we all do a warm up then burst into a full routine .. 2 hours of pure fun and their passion Dance ... EVERYONE IS WELCOME next class will be in July so if you love to Dance come along and join in with this amazing group people .. I will put the date once confirmed .... Much Love Ant xx

A birthday Celebration for Lesley Ann Chowen

A lovely celebration,a surprise party for the ever young Lesley Ann Chowen hosted by her beautiful family ... so much fun and love for such a special Lady .....we all go back a long way ... Lesley I have always thought the world of... In my early days of choreographing Lesley was a wonderful support to me with great encouragement ,kindness and enthusiasm... which to this day she still has bundles of it ...So lovely to see friends too ... lovely evening x ps thank you Jackie Travers for the pics x

Our dear Mum 95!

A beautiful day to celebrate our Mothers 95th Birthday .. a Lovely meal in Southsea at the Briny.. she loved it... then back to Janet's for Pimms ,Cake and Strawberries....

Thank you dearest friends for all the lovely birthday messages you kindly sent ... she loved it... as we read them out to her ... she glowed bless her ... such a special day x

The passing of a dear Friend

I am sad to write this on hearing the news of dearest Barbara Ferris passed away on friday ….

The kindest, sweetest, funny ,amusing , talented actress and one of the most beautiful person inside and out that I had the pleasure of knowing …. how lucky I was …. My loving thoughts to John her husband and her children Nick,Christopher and Catherine and her beloved Grand children ..

I hope dougie was there to waltz you around the clouds xxxx god bless dearest BarreSadly last week one of Dougie's long time closest friends and dear friend of mine the Lovely Barbara Ferris passed away ...

ADDED 1ST June

She worked for Dougie, with Una Stubbs, Amanda Barrie, Betty Laine , etc on Cool for Cats ... and remained close friends all their lives .... I was lucky enough to be able to call her a friend

she was the kindest, elegant,caring, loveable, Witty , funny generous and talented person you could meet ..... such a honour to have known her .... My deepest sympathies are with John and her children and her most cherished grand children ... my thoughts with Angie Richards xI hope Dougie was there for your first dance xxx

A lovely Obituary written by Michael Coveney

Barbara Ferris obituary

Actor who began her career in ‘dolly bird’ roles and became the star of plays by Edward Bond and David Hare

Michael Coveney

Sun 1 Jun 2025 15.02 BST

Share

It was once said of the actor Barbara Ferris, who has died aged 85, that she was the only one of Joan Littlewood’s girls at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, in London, who started out working-class and ended up middle-class.

Her father had a milk round in Soho after the second world war. Barbara progressed from training at the Italia Conti stage school, to fashion modelling and dancing – in Cole Porter’s Can-Can and The Pajama Game, Bob Fosse’s first show as a choreographer – at the London Coliseum in 1954-55, to important roles in plays by Edward Bond and David Hare at the Royal Court. In 1966, she was in a starring role opposite Donald Sinden in Terence Frisby’s West End long-runner There’s a Girl in My Soup (her role in the subsequent film was taken by Goldie Hawn).

Along the way, she transformed herself from a blond, beehive hair-styled cockney “dolly bird” to an actor of real emotional and technical command, notably in John Boorman’s first feature film, Catch Us If You Can (1965) with the Dave Clark Five, a much-underrated movie, and in Interlude (1968), Kevin Billington’s remake of a US Douglas Sirk film, in which, as an arts reporter, she conducted a disruptive affair with a married maestro played by Oskar Werner.

Zwischenspiel Interlude Barbara Ferris, Oskar Werner *** Local Caption *** 1968 --D1Y06R Zwischenspiel Interlude Barbara Ferris, Oskar Werner *** Local Caption *** 1968 --

View image in fullscreen

Ferris with Oskar Werner in Interlude, 1968, Kevin Billington’s remake of a Douglas Sirk film. Photograph: United Archives GmbH/Alamy

The social mobility tag was applied when she married, in 1960, the film director and producer, John Quested, while appearing in cabaret at Winston’s Club, Mayfair. Her honeymoon was just one night in the Dorchester hotel, as she was about to make her professional stage debut with Littlewood in Stephen Lewis’s Sparrers Can’t Sing. The show transferred to the West End. She was up and running.

By the early 90s, Quested was both the owner and chairman of Goldcrest Films. Ferris’s career did not dry up exactly, but she retired by choice, to raise the couple’s family, and travel extensively with her husband’s work. They had houses in Ireland and Zurich and, in London, a Chelsea apartment.

The second of four children, Barbara was born in London, to Dorothy (nee Roth) and Roy Ferris. While at Italia Conti, she was already working as a teenager in TV commercials and pantomime, supplementing Roy’s income. Her younger sister, Liz, became a springboard diving champion, who won a bronze medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics, before going on to be a doctor.

Barbara’s early television work included the groundbreaking pop music show Cool for Cats (1956), alongside Amanda Barrie and Una Stubbs, and a cockney barmaid, Nona Willis, at the Rovers Return in Coronation Street (1961); Nona left the Street after 10 episodes, because she didn’t understand the Lancastrian accents.

Ferris in rehearsal for There's a Girl in My Soup with, left, Jon Pertwee and Donald Sinden.

View image in fullscreen

Ferris in rehearsal for There's a Girl in My Soup with, left, Jon Pertwee and Donald Sinden. Photograph: Beverley Goodway/ANL/Rex/Shutterstock

There was nothing cosy about her performance as Pam in Bond’s Saved (given under club conditions in 1965 – the Lord Chamberlain had censored it): an unaffectionate mother, glued to the television, of the baby stoned to death in a notorious scene; nor as the effervescent, spirited Moll, defying an “arranged marriage” in the teeming Jacobean comedy, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, in 1966. Both plays were at the Royal Court and directed by William Gaskill.

After There’s a Girl in My Soup, in which she managed a sort of beady frivolity, she was one of three liberated female teachers – the others were Anna Massey and Lynn Redgrave – in Hare’s first major success, Slag (1971); Mrs Elvsted in John Osborne’s adaptation of Hedda Gabler (with Jill Bennett and Brian Cox); and the hilarious spirit of a “new broom” in a chaotic pre-internet library in Michael Frayn’s Alphabetical Order (1975), playing opposite Billie Whitelaw’s humane confusion as a much-loved resident librarian.

Ferris with Anna Massey in Slag at the Royal Court, 1971. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

View image in fullscreen

Ferris with Anna Massey in Slag at the Royal Court, 1971. Photograph: Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The director of the Frayn play, Michael Rudman, took her into his Lyttelton-based National Theatre company for revivals of Somerset Maugham and JB Priestley before she returned to the West End as the boozy actor sister of Penelope Keith in Stanley Price’s Moving (1981); and as a sexually treacherous sister in Alan Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings (1982) – having sex with said sister’s obtuse novelist husband (Nigel Havers) under a Christmas tree laden with presents and thereby setting off a gift-wrapped, loudly drumming teddy bear.

Her last major London appearances were as Mavis, a dance teacher, in Richard Harris’s suburban Chorus Line-type hit, Stepping Out (1984), in which she skilfully projected an uneasy blend of personal insecurity and dull professional competence, and in Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound at the Greenwich Theatre in 1991, a rueful family comedy.

She was twice married to Richard Briers on screen: as a vicar’s wife in 18 episodes of the 1985 television sitcom All in Good Faith, and as Enid Washbrook in Michael Winner’s so-so movie based on Ayckbourn’s wonderful am-dram comedy, A Chorus of Disapproval (1989), featuring before-they-were-movie-stars super-suave Jeremy Irons and a sweaty, obsessive Anthony Hopkins.

Her last film, which she did because her old friend from Littlewood days, Victor Spinetti, was in it, was Peter Medak’s The Krays (1990). And she dabbled in fringe theatre, producing and financing two glorious little compilation shows at the King’s Head in Islington in 2002: Call Me Merman and Dorothy Fields Forever, paying tribute to the great Ethel and the unjustly forgotten lyricist Dorothy, both magically recreated by her friend Angela Richards.

Ferris, who loved playing golf, is survived by her husband and their children, Nicholas, Christopher and Catherine.

Barbara Gillian Ferris, actor, born 27 July 1939; died 23 May 2025

flowers in bloom

The cottage looks like a florist !

THE MONTHE OF MAY MEMORY DAY'S

May is such a strange time for me …. Full of celebrations and memories of loved ones

I can’t belive its two years since the passing of dear Dougie x and dearest Jamie 22 years ago ….

THE ROYAL WINDSOR HORSE SHOW

An amazing week @royalwindsorhorseshow .. huge thanks to every one involved at the “hubs from the guest presenters , the presentations, the riders the Shetland Pony Club , the Pony Club, the Royal Gardens , The Garden Presenters, the new @talkhorseofficial team and the incredible @alantitchmarshcbe @Debbiewiseman and Ensemble for their concerts … A huge special Thanks to @reece_campbell09 @dannyjonesey89of @checkevents5 the production team who effortlessly ran it so well, Matt from @henley_theatre_services for all the technical production… to all @royalwindsorhorseshow who have produced this since 1947 The HPOWER team are just incredible! First class

First trip to Leckford this year

always a treat to walk around Leckford water gardens with my brother Paul

MAY DAY CLASS

The monthly class fun as ever !!! lovely to see Cherida dancing bless xxx

April News !

As I write here the sun is shinning with this glorious moment of a amazing weather …..

a lot has happened this month, Firstly lovely news the Reece and Danny have got engaged … so romantic !!! in Paris on a roof top over looking the Eiffel Tower tres chiq..I wish them every happiness … bless … with good news there is always some sadness

We heard today the passing of the lovely Joanne Cookson, she passed peacefully in St Gemma’s hospice , she had not been well these past few months , but in true Joanne style a fighter in every way … so sad x it was only her birthday on Tuesday xxx which she had read all her loving messages xxx

We worked with Joanne for many years in shows all over the world from Cannes to Miami the daughter of the legendary Jean Pearce … I think of her with such fond affection… that fabulous makeup she did !!! We used to get her to show all the girls that’s how you do a stage makeup ! From dancing to all her work on fashion and wedding shows on the catwalk and behind the scenes directing and choreographing and working for event companies even a spell as being an agent at Trends she gave 100percent … I know the news will sadden all the amazing dancers from the Jean Pearce days …

So on behalf of all of us our thoughts are to Jo’s family and close friends at this sad time …

If I hear any more news I will pass on …

Then it was Easter … I decorated the cottage as I would, did church flowers in the font …. spent Easter with my dear Mum and Janet I cooked at Janets which was fun !!! and got easter eggs ! and beautiful flowers from Emma … The garden is starting to look really lovely and happy enjoying life here at 17 South End Cottages !… my bruv Paul has been staying which has been nice … lol its like living with my father ! happy days

can’t believe its MAY tomorrow !

Hello April...

Already its been a busy and its only the 8th ! the weather has been lovely… sunshine sunshine sunshine makes one feel so much better…My brother has moved from his place in Chilbolton, it was a lovely house and he kept it immaculate, lucky buyer ! i was rather sad to see it go ….

work in the garden my brother is has helped with the grass he is a expert !!! but lovely to see spring has finally arrived … had a lovely lunch with Janet Mum and paul

Had a lovely lunch with the girls Joan Lynda and Sophie They came to the cottage and I cooked Dougie’s Gin and tomato soup ! he would of loved it … went to Hampstead to take a class .. how funny we lived 30 secs away … for years and now a great space around the corner …. the ladies had fun… did it by train and it was easy …

Did some nice walks in the countryside ,and around Stockbridge

The Generation class went well this past sunday again travelled by train as m3 was in rd works .. it was okay found a whole new way to get around LONDON ON THE OVER GROUND … NEVER KNEW ABOUT IT!

Always great to learn some thing new ..

one of the girls Maxine bought me some beautiful lilies i was so very touched … happy days x

It was sad to hear Val Kilmer had passed away …we did a film with him Top secret … it was a fun job… x happy memories x

MARCH IS FLYING BY !

March is flying by … trying to get things done is just so harsh at the moment… along with work stuff have managed to visit my sister and mum stayed the weekend and had the most joyous walk along Meon beach …

i wrote a post on Dougie , the out during of love has been so heartfelt …

its been lovely to see the sun and warmer weather .. so have pottered in garden lovely to see spring, spring up .. always hope of new life …

It is with great sadness that I have just heard the very sad news that Roger Brown ( Howlett) passed away this afternoon…. I was only chatting with him this morning …. My loving thoughts to Linda Lou who passed on the news to me … their friendship from the Young Generation and Second Generation and their group Shades is such a a shock as she was also chatting with him this morning

My love goes to his family his dear sister Penny and to his new family and friends especially Tar in Thailand they must all be devastated..

Also to all the Generation family of dancers that worked with Roger … I hope his beloved Bobby was waiting for him xxx a lovely thought

We kept in contact over the years… bless him and was always so proud he was Dougie’s first yG’s head boy … Loving thoughts to All xxx

always nice to work with friends , did some costumes for Debbie Astell Times Two productions for her event .

also a nice visit to Houghton Lodge very near me just love the lodge florist …

so here is the month in pics and a pic I love of Josephine Baker Dougie loved her x

London...

After class drove to Geoff and Richard’s in Wapping went out for nice meal and stayed the night the next day i walked and walked and walked .. Wapping to the West End back to Wapping !

then in evening had a lovely meal with new friends and so fabulous to see Christopher Biggins and Neil Sinclaire such a tonic just so happy to see them … its been a life time knowing them xxxx a special day