Searching for Stephen

My brother left no trace online of his career - until I found a theatre programme

Every now and then I post something here that has absolutely nothing to do with healthtech - and this is one of those occasions.

I have a memoir, Ruskin Park, coming out in September, based on the thousands of letters and documents I found when I cleared out my mother’s flat after her death. It tells the story of a brave, difficult woman, who brought up two boys, first my brother Stephen, then me, on her own while holding down a job at the BBC.

So I suppose family history was on my mind when I visited Middle Temple Hall in London’s Inns of Court last week to scope out the venue for our first Movers and Shakers podcast live event. (It’s on September 6th but all the tickets sold out the day they went on sale.) I suddenly remembered that Stephen, who was one of the last people to qualify as a barrister without attending university, had been a member of Middle Temple.

Stephen, just 16 when I was born, was a huge figure in my life, the nearest thing to a father I had in my early years as I did not meet my dad until I was 23.

With Stephen, left, in the late 1980s

When I got home I googled “Stephen Rich Middle Temple” and found nothing relating to my brother. These days it is unthinkable that any barrister - let alone one involved in some high profile crime cases - would not leave a trace online. A few other searches also turned up nothing. But when Stephen died suddenly aged just 52 in 1994, the internet as a popular medium was only just getting up a head of steam.

Then I tried something else. My brother - or rather my half-brother - had been brought to London from Bristol in 1950 aged 8 by our mother when she separated from her husband. They struggled to make ends meet on mum’s salary as a secretary on BBC TV programmes but after a few years they had another small addition to the household income - Stephen’s earnings as a child actor.

After being spotted at the Italia Conti drama school - where he’d been sent for elocution lessons because Mum thought he was picking up a cockney accent - he joined the Old Vic theatre where he appeared in their repertory of Shakespeare plays.

I did a search for “Stephen Rich Old Vic” and up popped a site listing theatrical memorabilia, including programmes for Old Vic plays. They included a 1954 production of Coriolanus, starring Richard Burton and a cast including many names who went on to be famous - Claire Bloom, John Neville, and Robert Hardy. Oh, and one who went on to be a director and playwright before changing tack to go into the law - Stephen Rich.

The memorabilia website looked antiquated but it had an email address for customers, so I sent a message asking whether the programme was still for sale, not expecting a response. But swiftly the site owner replied saying Coriolanus could be mine for a modest fee, and 36 hours later, an envelope was landing on my doormat.

Stephen Rich, aged 12, part of the mob in Coriolanus, with Richard Burton playing the lead

It contained not only the Coriolanus programme but more playbills - Macbeth, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and a Shakespeare Birthday Performance - where it turned out that Stephen had more prominent roles. In Macbeth he was Macduff’s son, in Love’s Labour’s Lost, he played Moth. And in one programme was a ticket for a seat in the stalls - priced at 11s/6d, which by my calculation is 57.5p, probably a hefty sum in 1953.

I am delighted with my purchase - leafing through the programmes, the 1950s leap off the page. The rules about keeping the gangways clear are “in accordance with the requirements of the Lord Chancellor”, who still acted as censor of every play. Recommended places to eat include Lyons Corner House and the British European Airways Buffet.

My mother was a prolific letter writer and threw nothing away

But I have another source of information about Stephen’s life at the Old Vic - my mother Sylvia Rich’s extraordinary letters. She kept all of those she received and carbon copies of every letter she typed - both work and personal - over a period of 50 years. They paint a vivid picture of everything from her work on live BBC television dramas, including one where she was required to get an elephant into the studio, to the affair with a much younger colleague which led to me.

In a letter to an old friend she describes what a busy routine she and Stephen have when he is in an Old Vic production: “He thought of the bright idea yesterday that he could have his baths at the theatre, as it seemed so late to have one at 11 o’clock at night, and we never get up in time in the mornings.  People look at me in astonishment as I darn socks going to meet him on the tube at 10 p.m. but must get it done some time!”

But most illuminating is an exchange of letters with her estranged husband. Stephen’s father Peter “Richie” Rich was a conservative figure who had disapproved of his wife getting a job at the BBC and was not enthusiastic about his son’s acting career. He wrote to Sylvia during Stephen’s appearance in Coriolanus:

“I don’t want him to get effeminate and affected and spoilt.  Frankly, I’d rather see him mending a bike with oil up to his elbows, or making some weird contraption and probably dangerous which might (a) break down or (b) blow up or (c) fuse the lights!!!  Get me?  I want him to be a real honest to goodness BOY.”

She wrote back outlining rather brilliantly the plot of Coriolanus and explaining that Stephen’s role as part of the Roman mob means he gets lots of healthy exercise:

“The set in Rome consists mostly of terraces and lots of flights of steps, which the mob dash up and down, or creep depending on the state of emotion..”

Ironically, when he was in 70s, “Richie” found work as an extra, appearing in commercials, and on the books of an agency probably suggested by his son.

For more stories like this look out in September for my book Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC.