BP News

"Stages" Picture Puzzle

The picture of Stages published in last month’s newsletter was not the one that was presented to The Queen Mother when she opened our theatre in 1983. The Hitchin artist Carl Laubin had intended it to be the final image and the painting was duly photographed for prints to be made. Then, at the last minute, the artist changed his mind. Apparently he was not happy with the ‘balance’ and when correcting it he painted out the figure in blue overalls perched half way up the scaffolding. Most of the painting was based on sketches that Laubin made while members were busy working on the last stages of the theatre. The three in this part of the picture are Brian Hull, on the tallescope, Roger Hawkins next to him and Chris Lane, below.

Although Chris was very philosophical about his last-minute erasure from this historic picture I have always felt very sorry that it was he, of all people, who had to go. So I later ordered a couple of prints of this version of Stages, so that the Lane family could have its own unique record of Chris’s enormous contribution to the building of the QMT. Incidentally, the original painting now hangs at St Paul’s Walden Bury, in the bedroom used by The Queen Mother whenever she visited her childhood Hertfordshire home.