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It was October and Testa Rossa was nearing publication date. Desiree Newark, the author sent me an e mail to confirm that the proofs had been approved. At the end of her e mail she added a couple of sentences, saying that she had some old scrap books which had been left behind in her house by an old friend who had rescued them from being thrown out with some rubbish from the basement of a mansion in Kensington, London. These scrapbooks were about the Liverpool Playhouse Theatre and contained photographs and a considerable amount of press cuttings about a man called William Armstrong. She asked would I have any idea what she could do with them as it seemed a shame to just throw away a man's life when he had obviously spent a lot of time putting the scrap books together. I said, "Send them to me. I'm sure I can find a home for them!" She said she would send them in two parcels as the scrapbooks were quite heavy. The first parcel arrived Saturday morning. No sign of number two parcel. Sunday passed anxiously by.

I was waiting at the bottom of my drive on Monday morning for the postman's van. He knew why I was there. He grinned and got out of his van. "Is this what you're waiting for?" He watched as I tore away the brown paper and I told him briefly about the contents. "Sounds very interesting," in his welsh accent "enjoy yourself then. Taraa." "Oh I will….." under my breath.

I spent the next few hours enthralled by albums which seemed to contain every single press cutting from every newspaper and magazine which even mentioned the Playhouse Theatre, its director, himself, William Armstrong, or any of the actors and actresses whom he had directed. Amongst the names I recognised , Robert Donat who went on to Hollywood fame, Sir Michael Redgrave, Rex Harrison. Several I did not know, before my time but obviously famous in their day Ena Burrell for one, described by one press cutting as a Junoesque figure. There were press photographs cut from newspapers, a minutely detailed collection which kept me fascinated so that I was grumpy about leaving my reading to see to mundane household matters.

The scrapbooks are a unique, invaluable collection of one man's memories of his days as Director of the oldest repertory theatre in the U.K. Now I need to find out more. What happened to him when he left Liverpool? He was there from 1922, the records I have go up to 1940 when war threatened the existence of the theatre and its company.

He did not marry so far as I can make out. One of the articles in the scrap books asks the question, "Why did I remain single ?", an interview of William Armstrong which tells us that he believed that his work would not have made him a good husband, that a wife would have been neglected.

Another article tells us of holidays on the Riviera with lifelong friends, with Somerset Maugham and Aldous Huxley. There are stories and interviews of his early days as an actor under tyrannical producers whose tongue could cut like a knife. William Armstrong's wit was up to those occasions. The story of William Armstrong's appearance as 'Cinna' in Julius Caesar under the withering eye of Sir Herbert Tree describes Armstrong as nervous. The point arrived when Brutus says 'Doth not the day break here?" "No" says Casca and it was here that Armstrong had to come on with "Oh pardon, sir, it doth, and yon grey lines, that fret the clouds, are messengers of day."

No sooner had they been uttered than Tree emitted a despairing groan. Fixing Armstrong with a baleful eye, he said "Say it again." With trepidation he repeated the part and the result appeared to be worse, for Tree groaned again. With a hollow voice he said, "You are too Neapolitan, you must be more Roman." Totally unable to distinguish between the subtle distinction of Naples and Rome, Armstrong confesses that his third attempt was pure Edinburgh, which, strangely enough, satisfied the request.

More press cuttings deal with the success achieved by many of his actors and actresses after they had left his 'school of drama', going on to achieve success after success on Broadway and in Hollywood. There are details of marriages, of births and of deaths. It is as though all those who had been under his directorship were indeed his children. A fascinating man. A sensitive man. And this record of his life and his achievments was destined for the rubbish tip until a little known author contacted her Liverpool publisher asking was she interested in looking at some scrapbooks she had in her possession...