I’m happy to retain an open mind about the new theatre, and let’s hope it works. My affection for the old building centred only around the productions played out within it.

My concerns about the redevelopment plan for the theatre primarily centred around the retention of the old building, which frankly is ugly and undeserving of special preservation, while destroying its only decent feature – the art deco foyer. If, as you say, this might after all be retained or restored, then so much the better.

I wish the theatre well, and hope for much improved and more thoughtful planning decisions in the future. Many thanks again.

How interesting to learn that you know all these haunts as well.

The footpath to Clifford Chambers makes a lovely 4 mile walk. The new road which you describe was built over the old railway bridge on the now defunct Cheltenham line, and is called Seven Meadows Road.

The route you took comes into Stratford along the old Tramway and crosses the river on the Tramway Bridge with fine views of Clopton Bridge and the RST on the other. I run along this section whenever I am in Stratford, although sadly the riverbank and Theate look a real mess there at the moment.

Ashley Road in Epsom is a regular lunchtime route of mine. By chance, I discovered a narrow footpath next to the cemetery there just a few weeks ago, and beside it I came across the grave of Ray Harford, the Blackburn and QPR football manager who died in 2003. Excellent epitaph too: ‘Lifetime goals achieved.’

As it happens, I quaffed a pint at The Cock in Headley on Thursday evening, and I ran up onto the gallops from Langley Vale and over Epsom race course only on Friday. Tough run, with lots of hills that had mysteriously grown higher since the previous evening… funny, that.

Many thanks again.

Your description of Stratford and the RSC has stirred up some memories. Not of going to the RSC performances (shame) but of the handful of occasions that I have been there.
Particularly poignant was the masthead picture of the Clopton Bridge close to the picture of the RSC theatre…

That automatically took me back 30 years this autumn to a warm day at the very end of October. We were honeymooning in the Cotswolds and my wife wanted to revisit Clifford Chambers as some years earlier she had stayed there at a friends house.

After walking around the village my wife recalled that she used to walk to Stratford so that is what we did. Leaving the car by the village we walked across the fields. From the map I have the impression that they have since built a new road to cross that footpath.

As we walked the sun came out and it became quite warm. So we had to carry our coats/jackets/pullovers/whatever. Anyway of course as we got closer to Stratford there was the RSC Theatre on the far side of the river and the Clopton Bridge ahead. The recesses of my memory seem to recall a couple of ice cream cones completing the picture! So the combination of those two scenes brings back memories of young love and hopes and dreams. Some dreams left unfulfilled.

We walked around Stratford, had lunch and saw some of the sights and shops before returning to find the car. The weather was still quite warm although the sun was going down and it got much cooler and darker as we got closer to the car. The sun setting as we returned to Clifford Chambers.

We occasionally went back to Stratford and I think the last time was about seven years ago fitting in another quick visit to Clifford Chambers.

We also visited (sightseeing again!) the Minack but was never around for a cliff top performance beside the sea.

Your picture of the crocus in bloom in Epsom Park is a reminder of spring’s early arrival this year and the few lonely crocii in our garden – planted by my wife!

It is much more pleasant to be going to/from work in the daylight now instead of walking to the station in the dark or half light.

Epsom is not far away and again the mention of Epsom Racecourse evokes memories of driving along Ashley Road and Langley Vale Road en route to Headley and places beyond.

Dewdrop

I can’t pretend that I understood it all then. Just sitting there for hours listening to 16th Century English wasn’t easy at that age.

But a great deal depends on how a play is interpreted, and the RSC always made it work, brilliantly.

Of course, I’ve been to some pretty boring Shakespeare productions in my time. Those amateur ‘every line is sacred, cut not a single word,’ versions of the histories certainly come to mind.

I saw ‘A Winter’s Tale’ at a clifftop theatre in Cornwall (SW England) once. The waves were crashing against the rocks far beneath us. The wind was howling and a couple of times it started to spot with rain. Against all that weather, I hardly heard a word. The play went on for four and a half hours, and by the end we were frozen half to death.

I’ve had better evenings than that one, but it was certainly memorable.

The RSC never ever did Shakespeare like that. In my research for this post, I’ve become aware of just what a ground-breaking and golden time it was for the company during those years with Trevor Nunn as Artistic Director.

How lucky I was to be able to witness so much of that magic, and, as Ella says, at such a young age.

The company struggled somewhat after Nunn left, and some would say is only now beginning to find its feet again. In these days of tight arts funding, the RSC is eternally strapped for cash.

My concern for the new theatre hinges around the design. Despite my memories of the place, the building is unremittingly ugly from the outside, from almost every angle.

The limitations of the design are even more concerning in how they dictate a reduced capacity.

If the RSC was struggling financially whilst playing to audiences of 1500, how on Earth are they ever going to survive with the much reduced revenues provided by an auditorium limited to just 1,000?

If retaining an unattractive building meant breaking the business, as I fear it might, then the decision should have been very easy, and very different.

I’d gladly have been the first one driving the bulldozer to demolish the old brick blockhouse in exchange for a gleaming new Daniel Libeskind or Richard Rogers creation, shining beside the sparkling Avon.

As the best producer of Shakespeare in the world, the RSC should have deserved no less.

Many thanks again.

Either they matured into great actors through their work with the company, or they were enormously talented before they came.

And perhaps it’s more likely still that both of those statements apply.