© The Mercators 2024

On the second of February 2024, another of our former members sadly passed way. Phyllis was an active member of the club from 1972 until 1986. During those fourteen years she was involved in over twenty club productions, mostly in acting roles. She was always dedicated and reliable in her stage appearances and featured in many of our Church Hill Theatre productions in a wide variety of plays including Waiting in the Wings, The Long Christmas Dinner, Wild Goose Chase, Murder on the Nile, The Tinderbox, Caught on the Hop, I Remember Mama and The Imperial Nightingale.  She also ventured into direction and stage management, describing the latter in her own words from the club’s Golden Jubilee booklet as “A chameleon touched by divine inspiration – or desperate insanity.” Nor did she forget the importance of being an office bearer, serving for four years as Membership Secretary in the early 1980’s. The photograph from 1979 shows her memorably playing Milly in Gosforth’s Fete, one of five plays in Alan Ayckbourn’s Confusions.  

On the morning of Thursday 12th of October 2023, we sadly lost the man who can undeniably be described as the greatest Mercator of them all. He joined the club in October 1947, making his acting debut for us two years later in The Importance of Being Earnest at the Mary Erskine School Hall in Queen Street. Seventy years later he was still acting for us at the Killin Komedy Festival. We will all have our personal favourite memories of his stage performances. Amongst mine are a mercurial “Lob” in Dear Brutus and the touching pathos in his portrayal of the poet John Keats in Amore – The Romantic Poets. Although he thoroughly enjoyed acting, he directed many more plays. His choice was not only varied but also adventurous. Highlights include David Campton’s The Cagebirds which in 1975 gained the club our first ever first place at the Edinburgh District round of the SCDA One Act Festival and his imaginative interpretations of numerous Harold Pinter short plays staged between 1981 and 1997.
He also served our club as an office bearer many times and was still our secretary at the time of his passing. Beyond that he also diligently served the SCDA at District and Divisional levels, for example as Eastern Divisional Secretary from 1970 until 1984 and his many years as SCDA Librarian in Edinburgh.

We will always fondly remember Douglas as the kind generous friend he was and for how much he gave to amateur theatre and the club he loved.  

Another sad goodbye with Alistair Ferguson’s unexpected death on Saturday 31st of August 2024. He was an active member of the club from 1975 until 2001, a twenty six year span during which he acted in twenty three plays and directed another six. Alistair will always be fondly remembered for his timing of comedy lines which was second to none. Yet he could also ably handle the straight parts. Amongst his standout roles were Gosforth in Gosforth’s Fete, the adjudicator in Platform Party, (pictured opposite), Matey in Dear Brutus and Dr. Bessner in Murder on the Nile.
Alistair’s greatest passion was pantomime, both as a performer and a writer. He delighted in visiting clubs all over the country who were performing his scripts and fêted him as the author. Although he ceased performing many years ago, he was still regularly seen at SCDA One Act Festivals in the Church Hill Theatre as the Adjudicator’s Steward or as a member of the Emergency Panel. Alistair Ferguson was one of a kind who will be sorely missed.

Another stalwart of The Mercators sadly departed on Saturday 23rd.Jim’s involvement with the club started back in 1955 with an acting role in Joe Corrie’s The Income and continued through until 2016’s dramatised reading Arthur Conan Doyle – Man of Mystery, devised by John Kelly. Between those years, he was involved in another 48 plays, mostly as an actor, but he occasionally forayed into stage management and direction. Too many plays to mention, but a wide variety such as Champagne for Breakfast, Dangerous Corner, The Hollow (twice!), When we are Married, The Long Christmas Dinner (also twice!), Dear Brutus and Abbotsford Revisited (as featured opposite). Jim also took his share as an office bearer with the club and the S.C.D.A. We will all treasure the times he spent with us.