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Pamela Werner, The Peking American School and their 1927 Production of The Forest Ring

Posted: October 10th, 2012 | 10 Comments »

I recently received a nice review in the newsletter of the Peking American School alumni. You’d have to be a fair age (to be fair!) by now to be an old boy or girl of the PAS so it’s great their magazine is still going. The review was good – ‘you have to read this book!’ (I’m not going to argue with that), however the historian of all things treaty port schools Steve Upton added a little bit of extra info. I knew that Pamela Werner (the murder victim in my book Midnight in Peking) had briefly attended the PAS and then later left and was unable to return meaning she was enrolled in the Tientsin Grammar School. However, Mr Upton has additional information:

Pamela did attend PAS for one year 1927 (when she would have been about 8) and did appear in a school play, The Forest Ring. The PAS magazine, Dragon, covered the production, which is all about bear cubs being taken and mama bear looking for them. The Fairy Queen can help but needs a mortal child who believes in fairies. Pamela appeared as an attendant to the Fairy Queen in the production staged by their teacher Miss Reynolds.

Sadly no pushy parents with video recorders in those days to tape the whole thing but I bet it was a great night out!

Pamela Werner as a young girl a few years before she appeared in The Forest Ring at the Peking American School

10 Comments on “Pamela Werner, The Peking American School and their 1927 Production of The Forest Ring”

  1. 1 Sally Greenwood said at 8:20 am on October 11th, 2012:

    I really enjoyed your book Midnight in Peking which brought back memories of my grandmother. She visited China in the late 1930’s so I dug out the photo album. There are some wonderful photos of her travelling with her sister and a few are taken outside what appears to be a cinema. On the back someone has written ‘Peking 1937’ in pencil. The name of the theatre/cinema appears to be the ‘Pavilion’. As you are knowledgeable about the old city are you familiar with this cinema and do you know where it is/was located? My grandmother was a bit of a film buff so assume English-language films were shown in Peking? Thank you in advance, Sally.

  2. 2 Paul French said at 10:05 pm on October 11th, 2012:

    Sally, many thanks for your comment – much appreciated. I’m afraid though that I don’t know the Pavilion cinema though there were several in central Peking that showed either exclusively foreign films (Hollywood mostly but some UK films from the likes of Rank as well), or a mix of foreign and Chinese films often with English subtitles. The Ping-an Cinema on Hatamen Street was the largest one near the old Badlands. I’ll see if I can find anything on the Pavilion.

    Of course if you’d care to share your grandmother’s pictures I’d love to see them (and post them on this blog!) but also they could be archived by the excellent Visualising China project at Bristol University – see the link on my blogroll opposite.

  3. 3 Andrea Klopper said at 5:56 pm on October 15th, 2012:

    I have enjoyed reading your book especially with ripples reaching the city of Tianjin which is currently my home. I have been researching different aspects of its expat past and write for the local expat magazine The JIN as a spur! I’m working on an article about your book – so hopefully you get more sales.
    I question the accuracy of your reference on page 100 (Penguin/Viking edition) to the Tientsin Massacre. This actually took place in 1870 so Werner would not have been around. No wonder he escaped it! Was this again the rumour mill at work or another event that took place in 1890s which is the date you give?
    Yours
    AK

  4. 4 Paul French said at 8:36 am on October 16th, 2012:

    Andrea

    Thanks for your comments – sorry I wasn’t clear – there was a further riot in the British Concession during a commemoration of the events of 1870 I probably got a bit confused! I’ve been meaning to come and do a book event in Tianjin but just haven’t been able to find time to schedule anything as yet – any ideas where one might do such an event? I know Penguin would like to do something.

  5. 5 Sally Greenwood said at 8:28 am on October 17th, 2012:

    Thank you for your response, Paul. I would happily share the photo but unfortunately my scanner is kaput! Will send a copy when I can. Look forward to hearing more about the ‘Pavilion’ in Peking. Warm regards, Sally.

  6. 6 Steve Upton said at 2:22 am on May 8th, 2013:

    Dear Paul: I’ve never said that you were unaware that Pamela Werner briefly attended the Peking American School (PAS). While I wish that you had mentioned her brief attendance at PAS in your book Midnight in Peking, I do think highly of that book and doubt that anyone who buys it will feel disappointed. It’s a very worthwhile contribution which highlights interesting aspects of the history of the foreign communities of Beijing and Tianjin in the 1930s. I’m pleased that I was able to put you in contact with Diana Dennis (daughter-in-law of Detective Chief Inspector Richard Dennis of Tianjin’s British Concession), who turned out to be a helpful source of photos and information for the book.

    I think you’ll be interested in another minor detail that I didn’t see in Midnight in Peking: Wentworth Prentice, the American dentist at the heart of the murder mystery which is the subject of that book, often advertised his dental services in the yearbooks of the Peking American School.

    I see that some of the visitors to your China Rhyming site are interested in the Peking Pavilion cinema. At the Upton Sino-Foreign Archive (USFA), in Concord, NH, USA, there’s some information regarding that cinema. A description of USFA can be found in an April 29, 2013 entry (in the Fresh From the Archives section) on http://www.dissertationreviews. org
    With best regards, Steve Upton

  7. 7 Hong Fang said at 12:22 am on October 8th, 2015:

    Sally, Paul, & Steve:

    The Peking Pavilion (the Chinese name was Ping-an Cinema) was on Tung Chang-an Chieh (East Chang-an Street, not Hatamen Street). On the east side of the Pavilion was the Peking Palace Hotel (Chinese name: Tung-an Hotel). My great-grandfather was the owner and general manager of the Hotel, and also involved in managing (or a financial partner?) the Pavilion next door. I dug out the info through foreign business lists of the era, and in various Chinese resources.

    I would really love to see the old photo picture(s)!

    I have a blog in Chinese (http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/2142521695). I am thinking about a blog site in English since I have a lot of interesting stories to share.

    Thanks in advance,

    Hong

  8. 8 Henry Yao said at 2:51 am on April 13th, 2016:

    Hi Old timers:
    Yes, Ping An Cinema was on Tung Chang-an
    Chieh or Dong Chang-an Jie. In the late 40’s, my good friend Benito Virgona used to work or owned part of it. Further east of the same street was the Olympic Cinema. What was on Hatamen street was the Old Roxy (also called Da Hua), which was very popular at the time. I think it is still there now. About a block north of that, at the corner of Jinyu Hutong was the old Rex Cinema. (Next to the old YMCA). If you continue going east on Jinyu Hutong, crossing the Hatamen street was a dead end hutong and a big yard. PAS used to use that space for a skating rink in the winter.
    So much so for our old Pekingers.

  9. 9 Paul French said at 8:28 pm on April 14th, 2016:

    Do you have any photographs of those old cinemas?

  10. 10 Paul French said at 10:28 pm on April 14th, 2016:

    Thanks for this btw

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