IVAN MORGAN
Theatre manager. Born 23 March 1922, Rugby, Warks. As a teenager he was articled to Truslove and Harris, agricultural auctioneers. He volunteered for military service in World War II and served as a wireless operator/air gunner in the RAF from April 1940 to June 1946. He flew on missions in the Middle East on Blenheims and Wellingtons and in Europe on Dakotas, eventually ending up as signal's officer on Ramree Island, off the Burma coast.
On demobilisation from the RAF he joined Granada having seen an advertisement for assistant managers, the first to be taken on after the war. He joined Granada, Rugby on August Bank Holiday Monday 1946. This was followed by the Regent, Rugby later renamed the Century. Ivan wanted to take over a London theatre but had to gain experience first so he became house manager at Granada, Woolwich where he stayed for nine months.

West Ham Kinema was Ivan's first London theatre and it was a tough house to run. On one occasion a customer pulled a knife on him - another, a loaded pistol was aimed at him. Fortunately, in both cases, the trouble makers were arrested and given custodial sentences. Further moves were on the cards for Ivan who took over Granada, Sydenham and had to stop the film and go on stage when it was announced that King George VI had died. All cinemas and theatres were shut immediately. Sydenham was followed by Dartford, Sutton, Welling, Woolwich and finally, in 1960, to Granada, Bedford.

Ivan started something completely different when he went to the Granada, Welling. He presented a spring parade of farm animals and had baby chicks hatching out in the foyer in an incubator, and lambs, calves, piglets and little ponies on stage. At the Granada, Bedford, for the first time at any theatre anywhere in the world he ran a sheep-shearing competition on stage, advertising Hot Enough for June. He also started disc jockey shows on stage on Sunday nights which progressed to band shows and competitions, which proved a huge success.
During his years with Granada he has worked with hundreds of top names in the music business. He particularly remembers Tommy Steele, The Beatles, Mollie and Robinson Cleaver, opera & ballet he has worked with Alicia Markova, Nadia Nerina, Anton Dolin, Moira Shearer and Beryl Gray.
Says Ivan: "I had a most enjoyable week playing the Student Prince with John Hanson. I also remember Joe Collins who produced some of the Granada pantomimes and often he was accompanied by a young Joan Collins and her sister Jackie. Memories which will stay with me for the rest of my life are time spent with Ingrid Bergman and Charlie Chaplin. What wonderful people they were!"
In 1959 Ivan was the first manager to promote wrestling in a Granada theatre at Woolwich. The ring was on stage and Paul Lincoln, who ran the Two I's Coffee Bar in Soho, was the promoter who wrestled under the name Doctor Death with a mask on. From then on, wrestling was adopted throughout Granada.
He enjoyed his twenty years working in the various Granada theatres but was surprised to receive a call from Lord Bernstein in 1966 asking him to take over the Toddington motorway service area as general manager. Once the service area was up and running Ivan controlled some 1,200 staff, 84 managers, 1,200 seats with an extra 400 for party catering, plus 64 petrol pumps and eight breakdown vehicles.
He was made a Freeman of the City of London in the year 2000. Ivan remained an active member of the National Equine Welfare Committee and was one of the four organisers of the British Horse Society Rescue Centre. He was regional welfare officer for 18 years for the six counties in the East of England, retiring in December 2002. He is the only Englishman in 105 years to have driven a pair or team of four horses from the seat of a wagon in the Frontier Days parades at Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA.
He first took an interest in Freemasonry whilst in the RAF when he met a colleague Billy Hughes. It was Billy who, in 1955, initiated Ivan into Lakedale Lodge No.4044. WM of St Mary Abbotts Lodge No. 1974 in 1999. Thomas Ivan James Morgan joined Chelsea Lodge 20 March 1987.
 

Picture House Article
Kindly supplied by W.Bro.Paul Ganjou SLGR

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