Queenie had been in many pre-television radio programmes. In my childhood, radio divided the day into compartments. There were kids programmes after about 4pm and Blue Hills at lunchtime. Nancy Bridges, a vaudevillian who, with her sister Babe were duetting xylophonists, asked me to speak at an event she was organising at the Sydney Town Hall to celebrate the career of Dame Nellie Melba. I was also invited to ‘look after’ the appearance on stage of Queenie Ashton. I would provide the general history, Queenie an account of a personal meeting with the diva. ‘I was a dancer, first, you know’, she told the Sydney Town Hall audience. ‘And, you know, I can still execute a high kick’. Queenie, in her eighties at the time and standing on the very edge of the precipitous Town Hall platform, lifted her leg high above the microphone. In a flash of anxiety, I imagined that I would be forever labelled as one who stood by as an Australian legend plummeted into the front stalls. She didn’t, and the audience expressed its appreciation in the usual way. Queenie was clearly still very supple.