Our Welfare Officer Cilla Morris celebrated her 90th birthday on 28th January, Cilla is our most senior lady volunteer, and is also deputy head usherette. A framed caricature drawing and a beautiful basket of flowers was presented to her from fellow volunteers at a recent training session at the theatre on 1st February.
Born in 1926, Cilla grew up in East Cowes where she spent a happy childhood as the youngest of three girls. Her father was a Yorkshire man who worked at Whites shipyard in the town as a riveter. On leaving school she worked in the office of Saunders Roe aircraft factory. During the war she was evacuated to Hampshire along with some of her peers, to be kept safe from the bombing.
Whilst there she met her future husband Bill, they married in 1947 and moved to London where Bill worked for the London Electricity Board, their son Michael was born in 1948 and they settled in Merton Park. Cilla worked as a secretary in a boy’s school in Wandsworth for 22 years.
Sadly Bill died in 1998, and in 2003 she decided to come home to the Island. At present she is busier than ever, being actively involved in Shanklin Bowling Club, secretary of Lake WI, and of course her involvement with the theatre, in fact she was one of the first volunteers to sign up to FOST in 2010.
Pictured left to right: Alana Bird, Cilla Morris, Vivien Howell & Peter Coleman.
Vivien Howell February 2016, image courtesy of Michael Beston.
