Jarge Balsh & WM Jones - The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd

In his spare time the young Will Jones was making a name for himself as a popular singer and comedian. The earliest entry in his press cuttings book is for December 1908 when the Radstock Observer noted that “Mr WM Jones of Coleford scored a great success on his first appearance in Radstock with his humorous songs,” but no doubt the performance of the twenty four year old had been well polished previously at more local concerts and at home. Indeed, at this period no concert in the area seemed complete without a turn from Will Jones. “The comic effusions of Mr WM Jones met with tumultuous applause, and were undoubtedly the most popular items of the programme…Mr WM Jones, the Coleford comedian, brought both portions of the programme to a close, and as usual, scored an unqualified success…Mr WM Jones, the popular comedian, of Coleford, who concluded each part of the programme with comic effusions, met with ovations. His songs were “The bootblack” and “Buying a house”. These were so fun provoking that the audience would scarcely be satisfied with the encores.”

His collection of sheet music included piles of songs made popular by the music hall stars of the day, like Sam Mayo and Dan Leno, who wrote and first performed "Buying A House".

On his home turf in Coleford he was adored. “It was the excruciatingly funny impersonations of the latter (WMJ) which moved the crowded house to the wildest demonstrations of delight. We are sure, however, that the appreciation of every item of the programme was real if not noisy. The only criticism which we heard was that the public had too small an opportunity of contributing themselves to the entertainment. One chance, however, which they had they did not avail themselves of. Mr Jones especially invited them to assist him by “joining in” the choruses of one of his songs, and gratuitously offered to conduct them by the aid of a shoe brush, but everyone was so convulsed at the comicality of the invitation that they were for the moment incapable of speech.” Will Jones obviously knew how to work a crowd. The mining families had been treated to “expert instrumentalists”, “a brace of splendid sopranos”, even “an elocutionist of rare charm in Mrs Baxter”, but it was Will Jones they wanted. Significantly, his act often closed each half of the concerts. The roar of the crowd, if not the smell of the grease paint, held him fast, and once he even wandered away with a band of strolling players. The company collapsed in Gillingham and he was soon back in Coleford.

As Iachimo in Cymbeline at Mells

It was his first brush with commercial disaster but not the last. In the same period he went into business on his own account, in partnership with his friend, Harry Howell, who owned a photographers’ in Frome. The business did not prosper but the fascination of photography lingered for a long time. It left behind a legacy of images of life in the area which still turn up as old post cards, and which illustrate and enrich more than one volume of local history. His photographs taken underground at Newbury pit before the First World War, and his extraordinary images taken from the top of the Mackintosh colliery chimney, will appear elsewhere on this site.
Mabel May James came from Wells where her father owned a hairdresser’s shop in Broad Street. She spent holidays in Coleford where she met the redoubtable Will Jones. A photograph of him as a young man shows him as a real “masher” with bowler hat, sharp suit with narrow trousers, and a louche cigarette dangling from his lips, but the star of many a concert party was much less forward in real life than he was on stage. A letter of proposal to Mabel May survives, and its delicate and gentle courtesy seems to come from another world to our own.

Will Jones, the masher, left

“Dear Miss James,
I am afraid that I am going to surprise you with the contents of this letter – and yet I hope not.
Since last Sunday I have been unable to get thoughts of you out of my head, and at last I feel bound to sit down and tell you my feelings towards you.
You doubtless remember that little trip of ours to Cranmore, - it was practically the first time I had been in your company, but since that time I have been unable to think seriously of any other girl.
You will probably think I have waited a long time before telling you this, but as a matter-of-fact I have been on the point of doing so several times, both verbally and by letter, but various thoughts have detained me, chief among them being that you did not reciprocate my feelings, and that it would only mean a discontinuance of our friendship.
Probably I have been foolish but now I feel I must know whether I may hope or not. Do not think less of me for not speaking before.
I had more than one reason which I will explain if my answer is favourable. I do not ask you to give one an answer that will be either binding or committed but if you can give me just one word of encouragement you will make me indeed very happy.
I only wish that I could prove in some way how deep is my regard for you. I have a good outlook up here but hitherto I have not worked with the energy I might have done, owing no doubt to the feeling that I had no one to consider but myself. I have got opportunities but lack motive power, and there is no one in this world, Mabel, can inspire me with it but you.
To know that you felt concerned about my future welfare would be sufficient to urge me on to my greatest efforts besides helping me in a great many other ways.
Will you trust me? If you do I must solemnly swear never to give you cause to regret it. You are my ideal of what a girl should be and it is by no means a passing fancy with me.
I have never written a letter of this character before as I have never cared for any other girl enough to do so.
My reasons for writing instead of seeing you are first because I can state things more clearly, and also to give you a fairer chance of replying.
If you think its contents rather matter of fact, allow me to assure you I do not feel so and to plead two excuses first, inexperience, and secondly, I determined to say nothing but the simple truth without suggestion of any kind.
I shall say nothing of this to Fred & Miss James as I think it only a matter for our selves. Whatever your answer, I beg of you not to let it interfere with your holidays up here as I should be the last to press unwelcome attentions on you, and should probably keep away for my own sake, if they were so.
I must now leave the matter in your hands hoping most earnestly for a favourable reply

Yours
Will M Jones

The reply was favourable. If Will lacked “motive power”, Mabel May James had more than enough for both of them. A milliner at Clare’s of Wells, after their marriage she established her own draper’s shop in Coleford at Crossway House. The hats in these photographs of herself, one with her little daughter Gwen and the other with her own sister, come from a time when no one felt dressed without a hat – and what hats!

Her sister, Emily Maud James but always known as “Jack”, completed an innocent ménage a trois at Crossway House from the beginning of the marriage. Mabel ran the drapery and Jack ran the house. Will meanwhile on his side had a newsagent’s, tobacconist’s, photographer’s, and even a barber’s shop, as the following handbill proudly announced in 1912.

“I have not worked with the energy I might have done,” he had written to Mabel May. Haunted possibly by the spectre of his father’s indolence and failure, he found himself swept up in his wife’s whirlwind. The accepted myth with which I grew up was that Mabel did all the work while Will frittered away his time on his writing, performing and futile business schemes. Certainly he probably failed to match her cyclonic work ethic, but then the only person who could was their daughter, and my mother, Gwen. Both workaholics, both magicians with a needle and thread, both ruthless in their ambitions for their children, neither lived as long as they deserved.

Fancy dress competition in front of the Crossway 1921

The family myth has probably treated Will too harshly. No one could have accused this natural entrepreneur of being short on ideas. In the early 1920’s at the Crossway he added a garage, from which he also ran a taxi business. A business card of the period describes him as a “Photographer and Press Agent”, a member of the “Professional Photographer’s Association”. He was “local correspondent for news reports and advertisements for the following papers:- Bristol Evening News, Bristol Western Daily Press, Bristol Times and Echo, Bristol Times and Mirror, Bristol Chronicle and Herald, Yeovil Western Gazette, Wells Journal, Frome Somerset Standard, and Radstock Somerset Guardian.”