A four piece jazz band has performed at Shottendane nursing home in Margate today (January 30) to celebrate the 93rd birthday of Ramsgate Seaside Shuffle jazz festival founder Betty Renz.
Betty, who used to be part of a jazz trio with two sisters, had originally tried to set up the festival for traditional jazz in her hometown of Margate but after hitting the buffers took her idea to Ramsgate instead.
Betty was working for the information bureau in Margate but took a job on the side working at the Belle Vue pub in Cliftonville.
She said: “It was good fun. I met two sisters who were very good at singing and we started a trio and I got both of them to come and be barmaids as well!
“The two sisters were very good at harmonies, and I would sing the melody. Sometimes people would say we were like the Beverley Sisters which they didn’t like as they said their harmonies were better!
“Margate had a jazz festival but it was all modern jazz. I went to meet the lady in charge and said perhaps we could do some traditional jazz but she said ‘we don’t want that sort of music.’
“I thought if Margate didn’t want us then we’d go to Ramsgate.”
The idea was taken to an events meeting and received backing, although it turned out that Betty would have to find a way to fund it. Undeterred, she set about creating the Seaside Shuffle which launched at Ramsgate Small Boat Owners Club in 2011 and is still going strong today.
Betty was born in Walthamstow on January 30, 1932, to parents Charlie and Dolly Battell.
Her parents, Betty and her brother moved to Southall during the war years.
She said: “We had to build an air raid shelter in the garden but my dad said he wouldn’t dig up the lawn in the back garden, so we had it out front instead.
“We had some close calls and one time an incendiary bomb came down in the front garden a couple of houses up.
“Mum and Dad went to put the fire out as incendiary bombs were used to light up an area so (the bombers) could see better. They didn’t explode but would burst into flames.
“My mum found a sandbag and dropped the whole thing on to the fire and the flames came out and singed all Dad’s eyebrows and hair! When he came back to the shelter the warden gave him a cup of tea and Dad said ‘what’s in this tea?’ When the warden said whisky Dad said ‘never mind the tea, give me the bottle!”
Betty desperately wanted to be a sailor like her dad but first trained as a nursery nurse. At 18 she decided to follow her dream but was thwarted when she was told women couldn’t enrol until they were 21.
She said: “When I was 20 I met (husband-to-be) Arthur, he was kissing me goodnight on the doorstep one night and I just thought ‘blow the ships.’
Betty’s family were frequent visitors to Margate during the holidays and in 1945 they made the move to the seaside permanently, buying a 5-bed house in Madeira Road, Cliftonville, to run as a guesthouse.
In 1955 Arthur and Betty were married and they went on to have daughter Christina.
Betty, who worked for a while at the children’s hospital in Margate, has been a campaigner for improvements to Thanet’s health services for more than 50 years. She gave her first petition to then-mayor, Alderman Adams, in around 1969 and has continued to promote better healthcare – particularly stroke services and heading up Thanet Action for Trauma Emergencies group (TATE) to protest against changes to emergency services at QEQM Hospital- ever since.
Betty also worked in Margate’s library, which was then based in Victoria Road, before going on to the Information Bureau – a job she took because she was “a bit boisterous” for library work.
Betty, who was also part of the Save Dreamland campaign, realised her long sailing ambition in 1988 when she joined the maiden voyage of the Jubilee Sailing Trust where people with disabilities and people who were able bodied joined together to sail a tall ship.
She said: “I absolutely loved it, there were no passengers because everybody was part of the crew. We would take it in turns to be behind the wheel and be on watch.
“Standing at the helm, steering the ship, I was a sailor at last.”
Betty continued to sail after Arthur passed away in 1992 and says her favourite journey was in 2013 when the ship was taken to the Canaries.
She said: “We had 10 policeman from Hampshire onboard training and working with people with disabilities.
“We stopped in port at Madeira and I went ashore with some crew. We went in the cable car to the top of the mountain but you had to come down on a wooden toboggan.
“I got halfway down and they said this is where it stops and said I needed to get a taxi the rest of the way. When they told me it would cost 40 Euros I said I was going to walk the 5km but I’d have to walk backwards because my knee was so bad.
“Some of the others said they were going to walk, so they walked forwards and held my arms. It was a long way to go so one of the crew went ahead and they would shout every time we reached another bar. By the time I got to the end I was sozzled!”
Betty, who was well-known for riding her bike around Margate, lived independently until moving to Shottendane two years ago.
Activities co-ordinator Julie Cullip said: “Betty is very kind, thoughtful and bubbly. Her love is Jazz music so we arranged a party in the home with the jazz band playing.”
Black Cat Jazz – members Ian, Colin Barry and Tony O Sullivan – visited Shottendane for Betty’s birthday. She had been the band’s singer for many years and took up the mic again today.
Wow- what a fabulous lady Betty sounds. I hope I have as colourful life as her to reflect back on in 50 years!
I bet that Southall has changed a wee bit since the war years!!