In August 2017, 87-year-old Sheila Morton did something for the very first time: she learned the name of her father. Up until then she knew absolutely nothing at all about him. She hadn’t been abandoned by a known man, there was simply a blank space on her birth certificate, which her mother had not attempted to fill with any information.
A life in showbiz
Sheila’s mother, Pattie Barry Furniss, was an unorthodox character who performed as a dancer on the variety stage in the 1920s and ’30s, with her twin sister Lily, as The Barry Twins. After starting in theatre as child actors, when they were around 10 years old, The Barry Twins were successful and hard-working performers, touring all over Great Britain, Europe and South Africa during their career.