Ladies at the table

The Billiard Player. February, 1947

Enjoy the favourite indoor game

Lady in the snooker limelight this month is MRS. VIOLET LINDRUM, the mother of Horace who must surely have won his disarming smile from her. Last Saturday her “In Town To-night” broadcast made known to British listeners exactly how much she is going back “down under” to do for the popularisation and organised promotion of snooker.

She is going to rear women snooker stars, for one thing. And, the Australian sports standard being what it is, ladies—be warned. Begin now making those high breaks, for big snooker events are coming and one fine day beyond doubt there is going to be a Women’s Empire Championship.

Nimble first with the piano ivories and trained under no less a master than the ever-great Paderewski (himself an ardent cueman), she has given musical performances to vast Australian audiences, besides being a professional dancer. Now, with an adult son as a snooker player of world-wide fame, she is ready for stardom too in women’s snooker. She is, additionally, Horace’s manager—but inconspicuously so. You will seldom find Mrs. Lindrum among the spectators of a Horace show.

She explains, “It was the great Melbourne Inman who taught me a lesson I shall always remember. When Horace and he were playing an exhibition in Australia—many years ago—Melbourne greeted my appearance with blunt, outspoken disapproval, and sent me home!

“Then, I was very hurt indeed. Now, I understand. A professional has a job to do, and if he is a good professional he can and does do it on his own initiative. He wants no ‘hangers-on’. The consciousness, however subtle, of the presence of someone in the match hall who is intimately apprehensive for his victory, can be disastrous to his complete calmness and absorption in his game—that essential in a game where temperament so rudely rides its course.”

Wise words, Mrs. Lindrum.

So if Horace is again a finalist in the great forthcoming Championship, and if you should see an auburn, pretty little lady of fifty quietly slipping into an obscure seat among the crowd, keep her arrival dark. She likes it that way.

If, on the other hand, however, you do want to meet this talented lady from Australia and to see her prowess at the table, you have your opportunity. She sails from England in May, so there are only three months left in which you car apply to The B.A. & C.C., Ludgate House 107 Fleet Street, London, E.C.4, for a VIOLET LINDRUM SNOOKER EXHIBITION.

If Horace should have a few free evenings not yet booked, what better than a performance by MOTHER AND SON? This would be something really new in professional snooker entertainment.

Clubs in Bournemouth and Hampshire write us for a match between Violet Lindrum and—

THELMA CARPENTER

Reigning Women’s Billiards Champion

Clubs in London, write us for a show by Violet Lindrum and—

JOYCE GARDNER

Seven Times Women’s Billiards Champion.

OR WITH RUTH HARRISON

Women’s Snooker Champion and the Only Woman to have held the Title.

Your referee? Make it an all-ladies performance and we shall be happy to arrange the refereeing services of BARBARA MESTON or EVA COLLINS.

Entries have already reached The Women’s Billiards Association for the Amateur Championships, but dozens more are wanted! The W.B.A. is diligently reorganising women’s play, and to rouse more enthusiasm we must demonstrate enthusiasm. It is up to you. We want to see women’s billiards played in every corner of the country, we ask every Association and League to enter at least one lady amateur.

Allowances will be made by public and press alike for a second-class standard here and there—it is realised that there have been inadequate facilities for women’s play in the past. But these limitations are now going by the wind.

Women want to play and will play.

Enter for this season’s Women’s Amateur

Billiards and Snooker Championships and you will be all the better fitted to win a place as finalist in next year’s events. Every professional will confirm that championship practice is all-important.

The closing date for entries, remember, is SATURDAY, 15th FEBRUARY.