RUTH KETTLEWELLRuth Kettlewell, who died on 17 July 2007, will be remembered for her 50-year-long acting career in which she, in her own words, played "character bags".The devoted Christian appeared in a great number of plays, films and in particular, children's television programmes and usually played formidable characters. However the battleaxe that she was typecast as did not match her real-life persona of a warm and sympathetic woman.She often empathised with those characters that were bullied by her own and once spoke publicly about her appearance in the 1965 television drama Cathy Come Home. In this she plays a callous judge who unflinchingly serves an eviction order on a couple and their two children."I only had a cough-and-spit role, to condemn these poor souls and shift them," she said. "I was very harsh to them. They were going through a very bad time."Ruth Anne Berry was born in Worcester on April 13, 1913. She was the daughter of a clergyman and niece of Lt-Col W.P Drury who wrote novels and short stories, including Private Pagett of the Marines.She attended school in Lancashire before going to art college there. Shortly after, in 1932, she married the Rev Robert Kettlewell, who was vicar of the North Yorkshire village of Great Ayton. She was given away by her uncle in a ceremony performed by her father.Sadly, her husband died when the war ended, after contracting scarlet fever while working as an Army padre.By this point she had started acting, and joined the repertory company at Windsor in 1949, which took her performing all over Britain. She never married again.Her most prominent stage appearances included the West End role of Miss Yorke in Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo and Mrs Paroo in the original London cast of Meredith Willson's musical comedy The Music Man, performed at the Adelphi Theatre in 1961.Mrs Kettlewell's first film role was in 1958's Room at the Top, which was based on John Braine's novel about a working-class man who falls in love with two women and will do anything to further his social status.When she began to be perceived as a character actress, she was cast as Mrs Bonner in the 1960 film version of Sons and Lovers amongst other roles, but found more work in television.Her most regular roles were in children's television and she played Mrs Grapple in Hope and Keen's Crazy House for three years in the early 1970s. She also spent some of this decade working with comedians, appearing in sitcoms such as How's Your father? And entertainment shows like The Mike Reid show.Mrs Kettlewell remained loyal to her religious beliefs throughout her career and often merged her faith with her acting, holding an active place in the Actors' church Union.She also formed an amateur dramatics group called the St Augustine's players at the church of St Augustine of Canterbury Church in Highgate, North London, where she was a regular in the congregation.She died of natural causes, in London, at the age of 94.
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