Madeleine features brings back memories for Bill
Our recent Great Lives feature on West Midlands movie star Madeleine Carroll brought back memories for reader Bill Kerswell, whose father supplied her with a tennis racquet.
Carroll, who was born in West Bromwich in 1906, was at the height of her fame in the 1930s, and at one point became the highest paid actress in the world.
And around this time Bill's father Reginald Kerswell supplied her with a tennis racquet from his company in south Africa.
Carroll, perhaps best remembered as the leading lady in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, was one of a number of celebrity customers Mr Kerswell supplied when he ran the business in the 1920s and 30s.
Bill says his father also supplied tennis racquets to American film producer and business magnate Howard Hughes and fellow Hollywood legend Jean Harlow.
"He started the business about 1927, and began by exporting crayfish and lobster," says Bill, 81, who lives at Picklescott, near Church Stretton.
"He started selling expensive tennis racquets a bit later on."
Bill says at that time, South Africa was a popular destination for the wealthy to enjoy a bit of sunshine during the winter months, and his father spotted a gap in the market for selling high-end tennis equipment.
"He had been an amateur tennis player himself, and he got invited to a lot of tennis parties, and a lot of these people were there," he says
He enclosed a photograph of his father Reginald with Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow at a party some time in the 1930s.
After the war, Reginald moved to Shropshire and took a job with the Ministry of Food, before moving to Devon in later life.
