At about 14, I performed in a production of The Pirates of Penzance at King Henry VIII School.

All the principal roles were taken by students apart from the Major General and Ruth - who was played by the school secretary.

Over the course of the rehearsals she became a firm favourite with the young cast helping out with tricky harmonies, lending advice on performance and regaling us with stories of backstage shenanigans of her time on stage in Abergavenny.

On opening night, running backstage after an exit, she gouged her head on a stray nail.

Streaming with blood, cleaned herself up, slapped on an Elastoplast and finished the show before getting stitched up.

The Pirates production was not only my first real experience of the unique camaraderie found behind the footlights but also forged a life-long love of the theatre and a lengthy, if occasionally controversial, career writing about it.

It was also my first encounter the inimitable Dilys Sayce who passed away last week at the grand old age of 101.

Many years after that production I was to meet her again thanks to theatre legend Brenda Harris with whom she had been friends for a lifetime.

The pair had offered to sing a duet at a fundraising event for the National Eisteddfod and had chosen Rossini’s Cats Duet.

The performance started well but as it got into full swing it became apparent something was very wrong.

Accompanist Marion Copp desperately tried to get things back on track, hammering out notes as the two singers battled on with their ‘meows’ becoming more and more frantic.

Eventually the experienced pianist threw up her hands in despair.

“I’ve got no idea where you are!” she bellowed at the singers.

“Well I’m on page four,” said Brenda in the way only she could.

“I’m on page six,” countered Dilys.

“And I’m on page three,” said Marion.

“Well how could you have got so far behind?” asked Dilys as the audience wept with laughter.

Over the years I spent many afternoons and evenings with them often at The Mother’s house where we enjoyed ‘a little tincture’ and hours of their shared memories of Abergavenny.

Several years ago to mark Brenda’s 90th birthday I had the unique privilege of hosting an afternoon at the theatre where she shared her stories of almost 70 years on stage…and fittingly sitting next to her for most of the show was her friend Dilys.

The ‘rehearsals’ were lively to say the least. We abandoned all hope of following a script, the show drastically overran and everyone in the theatre wished it could have gone on for another 12 hours as the pair laughed, cried and reminisced about life, theatre and friendship.

It was an afternoon none of us involved with will ever forget.

People like Dilys Sayce don’t come along that often and when they do they enrich the lives of everyone lucky enough to know them.

At the end of Brenda’s tribute show, actress Elsie Kelly - whose late husband Gordon (Tex) appeared with Dilys and Brenda at the Borough - used a quote from the musical Camelot which epitomised Brenda and applies no less to Dilys.

Asked by his young squire about the identity of someone leaving a scene King Arthur replies, “ He is one of what we all are. Less than a drop in the great, blue motion of the sunlit sea. But it seems that some of the drops sparkle... How some of them do sparkle...”