ENTERTAINMENTS NATIONAL SERVICE ASSOCIATION (ENSA)

[MetPolice]

Does anyone know anything about ENSA or the ENTERTAINMENTS NATIONAL SERVICE ASSOCIATION?

Uniform? Badges? Were they awarded medals or Mentioned in Despatches? Photos of them? Rolls? etc.etc.

Note: This topic could be put under many different headings.

Edited April 27, 2014 by MetPolice

[Mervyn Mitton]

I remember the organisation - they were set-up to provide entertainments for the troops. Popular stars

volunteered their services and ENSA would arrange a venue and travel. Presumably the ENSA staff would

have worn a uniform - with identification and I expect they would have been eligible for various awards.

The 'Stars' would have been given awards from the Civil List for service.

They must have been quite a large body and it would be intersting if anyone has further - more detailed,

information. Mervyn

[Taz]

Hi,

Uniforms were introduced at Basil Dean's behest as he was worried that if the artistes were captured they could be shot as spies (a very real posibility). The uniforms consisted of standard pattern battle dress and any standard war theatre uniforms such as Jungle Green bush jackets or Airtex. The only insignia allowed on the uniforms was the standard ENSA shoulder titles. Although not having any rank, all ENSA performers were granted officer status so that they could use the mess facilities. The only artiste never to wear uniform was Tommy Trinder who, when it was put to him, said "if I get captured, I deserve to be shot!"

E.N.S.A (Entertainments National Service Association) members were entitled to be awarded the Defense Medal.

Dame Vera Lynn recieved the Burma Star In 1985 for entertaining British guerrilla units in Japanese-occupied Burma. She was also awarded the War Medal1939-1945.

Here is a few images of ENSA uniforms.

https://www.pinterest.com/paperdolls1/ensa-wwii/

ENSA cap badge and Dame Vera Lynn with her Medals

Regards Eddie

Edited May 1, 2014 by Taz

[Mervyn Mitton]

Eddie - you have added greatly to our knowledge - thankyou for your post. I saw Dame Vera Lynn in

the papers quite recently - she had just been given an award. Probably the one you mention.

How awful that I can still remember - as a young boy - hearing her on the radio during the war........... Mervyn

[MetPolice]

Thanks!

It really helps my research.

[Taz]

Here is an ENSA Brooch and lapel pin.

Regards Eddie

Edited May 15, 2014 by Taz

[Ulsterman]

My understanding from an old Medal News article from 1980 is that campaign stars were awarded to ENSA personnel, including those in Burma who never actually made it beyond what's now Bangladesh.

[mikehm]

Having recently acquired the medal group of ENSA dancer and singer Pauline Guy (who performed as Pauline Gaye) - 39-45, Africa, France & Germany, Defence and War Medals - I have been doing some digging into these questions. The following is mostly drawn from information contained in Greasepaint and Cordite, by Andy Merriman.

Between 1939 and 1946, ENSA put on 2,565,656 cinema shows and theatrical performances to an audience estimated to be in excess of 500,000,000. ENSA members performed from Iceland to Burma, taking in NW Europe, Germany, West and North Africa, the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent. Given the demands upon it, it is unsurprising that its live performances were not always of West End quality, and it came in for a great deal of underserved criticism as a result. No-one paused to reflect that whilst they seemed to expect every ENSA member to be Gracie Fields, or John Geilgud, or George Formby, they did not expect every soldier to be Monty, or Wavell, or Slim!

The man who ran it, Basil Dean, was so unpopular that ENSA was denied a place amongst the civilian organisations in the Victory Parade in London in 1945. It was not until the RBL permitted civilian organisations to march in the Remembrance Day parade in 2000 that ENSA veterans were at last recognised for their contribution to the war effort.

I have no data (yet) on the number of ENSA members deployed to theatres of war.

Entitlement to campaign stars and medals as one of the "specially approved civilian categories" is confirmed in War Office publication code WO1911, paragraph 9, sub-paragraph (d) "N.A.A.F.I. (Overseas)" as "Entertainments National Service Association (E.N.S.A.)"

There is no dedicated museum, archive, or other centre for information about ENSA.

One ENSA member was killed during the war. Nineteen-year-old dancer Vivien Hole (stage name Vivienne Fayre) was travelling in a lorry which hit a landmine in Holland in January, 1945. The blast took both of her legs off, and she died en route to a field hospital. She is buried in the Sittard War Cemetery, Limburg.

[Mervyn Mitton]

Thankyou Mikehm - very comprehensive , I doubt if much more could be added to their foundation.

[paul wood]

At the time a rather disrespectful title for ENSA by some of the troops was "Every night something atrocious."

Paul

[Samantha]

I hope I'm OK to join the group (being a Lady not a Gentleman!) but I saw this topic while researching ENSA for my Vera Lynn tribute act and had something to add.

There was another reason for ENSA civilians to be allowed to wear uniform and had nominal officers rank whilst working. In the event of an enemy advance and an evacuation, civilians had last place on military transport so there was a chance that ENSA performers without military rank might be left behind. With officer status they could demand a place.

I have a small collection of ENSA memorabilia and it' a pity there's no museum to donate it to. One of the items is a letter to an amateur musician in Ireland hoping he would join ENSA - it illustrates how hard it was for Basil Dean to find the (3000+ if I remember right) performers he needed from amongst the small group of people who had not been called up for the military or for war work.

I'm striving for accuracy in my uniform (I have a better ENSA hat now than in the photo - Vera Lynn left, me right - the original ENSA hat was unique to them - the rest of the uniform was not - although I believe the buttons were unusual being basket-weave leather - but that's something I haven't been able to confirm yet).

Edited May 20, 2015 by Samantha

[Hugh]

Welcome, Samantha,  

You make a welcome change to the fossils here.  Perhaps you could post a link to some of your music.  

Best,

Hugh

[Mervyn Mitton]

Samantha  -  nice to see some new info. on this subject   -  and as Hugh says  -  welcome to GMIC.   I hope this will encourage other members to contribute anything that they know.    Mervyn

[Hillyann]

My father was an Artist/ Musician and was awarded the Africa Star medal for his services in North Africa. I don’t recall him referring to a uniform. His name was Jack Hillier. Very hard to find anything about these services during Second World War. I remember him referring to Constance Carpenter. 

[ChrisKelly]

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9384581.vera-lynns-brooch-lost-at-remembrance-day-service/

 

 

Edited December 8 by ChrisKelly

[ChrisKelly]

In reference to "mikehm"'s post, here is some information on Basil Dean:

 

"Another conspicuous success was The Constant Nymph (1926) by Margaret Kennedy, but Dean's handling of the casting was an example of the bullying and ruthlessness that made him many enemies in the theatrical profession. Having given the leading role to the young John Gielgud, but then finding that Noël Coward was available, Dean demoted Gielgud to understudy, despite the latter's unassailable contractual right to play the part. Dean's determination to have his own way made him, as The Times put it, "something of a byword in the West End through his dictatorial methods at rehearsal". Biographies of performers from Gielgud, Katharine Cornell and Vivien Leigh to Gracie Fields, Alan Napier and Barry Morse refer to Dean's bullying and cruelty and his unflattering nicknames: "Bloody Basil", "The Basilisk" and "Bastard Basil".

 

Gielgud's biographer, Jonathan Croall, wrote of Dean:

 

'His glittering productions were slick, meticulous and imaginative, with brilliantly realistic sets, state-of-the-art lighting and efficient teamwork. Tall, massive and bespectacled, "Bastard Basil" was a sadistic bully, and the most hated man in the theatre. In rehearsals he created a regime of fear, reducing actors to tears with his sarcasm and abuse. Yet he often drew excellent performances from his victims, and because his productions were usually successful, actors put up with his tyranny.'

 

Dean's biographer James Roose-Evans writes, "during six and a half years more than 80 per cent of the entertainments industry gave [ENSA] service in innumerable performances of plays, revues, and concerts". The Times recorded, "Over two and a half million performances took place before over 300 million men and women in the forces and industry". Richard Llewellyn, Dean's assistant at the time, wrote of him:

 

'Had Dean been a general he would have been properly acknowledged for his work with ENSA. Without Basil Dean, it would never have been. He was a martinet, a son-of-a-bitch bastard, a monolith, a kindly – sometimes – tyrant, a bully, but he knew what he wanted, and others didn't. His was the influence, the hand on the wheel, that never faltered.'"

 

Sources:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Dean

 

[Image: note, photograph taken in Berlin, 1945, by No. 5 Army Film And Photographic Unit.  This source obtained a copy of the original image from the Imperial War Museum.  Dean is wearing his ENSA uniform on official "active service" duties.  It is not a costume.]

 

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basil_Dean_in_Berlin_BU10460.jpg

 

Edited December 8 by ChrisKelly

[ChrisKelly]

The "dig" at ENSA may very well have originated from one of comedian Tommy Trinder's regular routines:

 

"By the time of the Second World War, Trinder was one of Britain's foremost entertainers and regularly appeared in his own shows at the London Palladium. He performed for British armed forces personnel as part of ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) and would joke that the organisation’s name stood for 'Every Night Something Atrocious'. Trinder would later dub its successor CSE (Combined Services Entertainment) 'Chaos Supersedes ENSA'."

 

"If it's laughter you're after, Trinder's the name!"

 

Source:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Trinder

 

Edited December 8 by ChrisKelly

[Gordon Craig]

ChrisKelly,

Thanks for adding to our knowledge of ENSA.

Regards,

Gordon