Michael Gradwell Photography

Told by local historian Susan Wilson with photographs by Michael Gradwell

Thora was born in Cheapside, Morecambe in 1911. She made her stage debut in 1911 at the age of two months. She was carried on stage at the Royalty Theatre, Morecambe in a play directed by her father who was also the stage manager.

Her father did not want her to be an actress and she worked at the local Co-op before joining Morecambe Repertory Theatre. Her first London appearance was in 1940. For years she played cleaning ladies of housekeepers with her father proving a dominant influence throughout the early years.

Thora was versatile and she could play Shakespeare too, notably the nurse in Romeo and Juliet on the BBC in 1967. In the early 1970s she received good notices for the performance in the revival of No No Nanette. However it was through her television career in long funning sitcoms such as Meet the Wife and In Loving Memory that she became a household name. In Meet the Wife she was married to Freddie Frinton. In Loving Memory ran for four series.

She was known to millions in later life as Edie in Last of the Summer Wine. Thora enjoyed appearing in work written by playwright Alan Bennett and she won a Bafta in 1989 for A Cream Cracker Under The Settee, part of the Talking Heads series. All Creature Great and Small featured Thora in the final episode. In her long career she appeared in more than one hundred films including The Entertainer with Laurence Olivier.

Thora was deeply religious and presented Praise Be. Her talent as a writer was revealed with the publication of her autobiography in 1976 and she went on to write several other successful books. Thora was made a Dame in 1993. When her husband Jimmy Scott died that ended 58 years of marriage and Thora might have decided it was time to retire but instead she went on to win a Bafta best actress for The Telegram by Alan Bennett.

Thora was working all her life. Her ability to get under the skin of her characters was an extraordinary one. Thora also retained her sense of working-class values to the end.