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Joyce Grenfell Quotes

Joyce Irene Grenfell, OBE was a British comedienne, singer, actress and monologist. She is remembered for such roles as the gym mistress Miss Gossage in the 1950 film The Happiest Days of Your Life and Ruby Gates in the St Trinian's films. She was known as a writer and performer at a time when it was unusual for a woman of her social background to work in those fields.

✵ 10. February 1910 – 30. November 1979
Joyce Grenfell photo
Joyce Grenfell: 8   quotes 0   likes

Famous Joyce Grenfell Quotes

“Progress everywhere today does seem to come so very heavily disguised as chaos.”

Joyce Grenfell

Stately as a Galleon (1978), "English Lit."

“Joyce was a wonderful woman, but she wasn't Prime Minister, was she?”

Joyce Grenfell

American journalist, seeing the long queue for her memorial service. http://www.retirement-matters.co.uk/joyceg.htm
About

“If I should go before the rest of you,
Break not a flower, nor inscribe a stone,
Nor, when I’m gone, speak in a Sunday voice,
But be the usual selves That I have known.”

Joyce Grenfell

Poem If I should go before the rest of you

“Stately as a galleon, I sail across the floor,
Doing the military two-step, as in the days of yore.”

Joyce Grenfell

Stately as a Galleon (1978), " Stately as a Galleon http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1241.html"

“I don't understand Ethel.
I don't, I don't really.
She's one of my very best friends,
Just about the best, nearly.
She's an awfully nice girl, Ethel is,
Dainty and refined,
I mean she'd never do or say
Anything unkind.
But get her inside a stadium
And she seems to go out of her mind.”

Joyce Grenfell

Poem Ethel

“I was allowed to slave for them
For ever and evermore.
Oh, I was allowed to fetch and carry
For my Three Brothers,
Jim and Bob and Harry.”

Joyce Grenfell

Poem Three Brothers

“They look quite promising in the shop, and not entirely without hope when I get them back into my wardrobe. But then, when I put them on they tend to deteriorate with a very strange rapidity and one feels sorry for them.”

Joyce Grenfell

Stately as a Galleon (1978), "English Lit." (of new clothes)

“George - don't do that.”

Joyce Grenfell

Catch phrase, used as the title of her book George - Don't Do That (1977)

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