OTHERS

 
Vivienne Hole, the daughter of Ewart and Gertrude Hole from Honiton in Devon, is commemorated on a tombstone in R section, having died at the age of 19 on the 23rd January 1945.
 
Vivienne was a chorus dancer who specialised in tap and acrobatic dancing. Under the stage name Vivienne Fayre, she toured music halls and theatres doing chorus dancing and in a dance act known as the 'Two Maxettes', named after her dance teacher Max Rivers, with Audrey Landreth, whose stage name was Audrey Mayne.
 
At the end of 1944 Vivienne and Audrey enrolled at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in ENSA, the Entertainments National Service Association, to provide entertainment to the British Armed Forces personnel serving in World War II. Having completed their training at the Theatre Royal they were seconded to different entertainment troupes.
 
Following a performance in France, Vivienne was travelling in a truck, containing stage scenery, to her next concert engagement. The driver, taking a wrong turn, entered a minefield, hit a mine, and both he and Vivienne were killed instantly. Initially Vivienne, whose body was discovered by French locals, was buried in Normandy in a symbolic white coffin. After the war, her body was disinterred and buried with full military honours at the Sittard War Cemetery in Limburg, in the south of The Netherlands.
 
Vivienne Hole (Fayre) is the only ENSA fatality in the course of engagement during World War II.
 
Members of ENSA were also honorary officers in the British Army to enable them to have instant access to the Officer's Mess.
 
Vivienne's father Ewart died on the 21st August 1954, her mother Gertrude on the 3rd April 1982, and both are buried in ? section.
 
Audrey Landreth, who is 89, is alive today and residing in Orpington, Kent.
 
An account of her death can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/print/ww2peopleswar/stories/28/a4022128.shtml
 
Written for FOHRC and copyright of John Ireland.