Park Theatre’s origin story…

Mrs Bond’s profession [or, what Park Theatre owes to my grandmother]

One of the truisms of fundraising is that it’s always hard to raise the first chunk of money, but much easier to raise the last. People are more willing to give you the final slice to take you across the finish line than the initial money to start something. Another truism is that it’s always easiest to start with people you know.

I remember when I first saw the building that is now Park Theatre. Walking through the entrance and seeing the stairs leading both upwards and downwards, I instantly had a powerful sense of stalls and circle waiting to be discovered. This and the shape of the building suggested a three-sided, two-levelled space giving the geometrical intimacy I always craved in live performance – the ability to wrap people around a stage in the most intimate way possible without their feeling lost in the darkness eight, nine, ten rows back. It also felt like a two-venue space, which we hadn’t really anticipated.

After years of searching, the stars were clearly aligning… But how could we raise the money to buy this space and transform it into a living, breathing theatre? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce JM Bond…

Some family history:

In the 1950s, my grandmother Moyra, a widow, had recently completed her teacher training. With an optimism reflecting the ‘Rebuild Britain’ spirit of the time, she took out a loan from the bank and purchased a faltering girls’ school in Liverpool. After much hard work and innovation, she successfully turned the school around. One of those innovations sprang from her realising that her students had no official preparation materials for their 11-Plus exams. She therefore devised lists of subject-based questions that she eventually wrote into booklets.

The school’s results reflected the wisdom of her strategy and in the early 1960s, someone convinced her to pitch the booklets to a publisher so that young people the country-wide could benefit. Another success! They were published under the genderless name “JM Bond, School Principal”, rather than “Jean Moyra Bond, Headmistress” for fear no-one would buy educational books from a woman.

In the 50 years that followed, the Bond Assessment Papers have been extended and rewritten and distributed all over the world. When she died in 2011 an article in The Times mentioned her alongside JK Rowling and Joanna Trollope for the sheer number of copies she sold.

My grandmother was somewhat eccentric and whilst we family members were aware that the Bond Books had made her some money, we were quite sure this legacy was going to go to an animal sanctuary. When she died, however, it turned out that she left her estate to her two sons, my dad and his brother.

When we discovered the premises in Finsbury Park, Dad told us there was enough money to buy the building. It was far from enough to finance everything, but it was the key chunk of money needed to start the ball rolling. From there we were able to raise further funds – both from creating flats on the upper floors which we sold and from other individuals and trusts and foundations coming on board.

Looking back, it pleases me to think that Park Theatre’s origin lies not just in stage folk’s dreams and ambitions, but also in legions of ordinary parents buying their children study books in maths, reasoning, algebra and logic. And in the intelligence and pluck of a determined woman.

By Jez Bond, Artistic Director