About Paul Dunford & Hinge & Bracket

Keeping Their Dream Alive

My name is Paul Dunford, I am 40 years old and I have been a fan of the "Dear Ladies" since the late 70's. My Aim is to keep the memory of Patrick Fyffe & Hinge & Bracket alive for the whole world to see.

I have always loved Hinge & Bracket from a small child, and I just had to make a website when I heard Patrick Fyffe had died as there was absolutely nothing out there.

It was with great excitement on a cold December morning in 2003 that my phone rang and I heard a familiar voice on the other end. Thanks to David Rumelle, George called to thank me for the website and we had a chat and got invited to go to see him in Panto in Southend on sea, which we enjoyed on the 10th January 2004. That was the day he signed all of my albums and I asked if he would support the idea of an Official website. He agreed and www.hingeandbracket-official.co.uk was born a couple of months later.

This website went live on the 11th May 2004 in memory of Patrick Fyffe who had died 2 years earlier.

I have raised money on the site each year since then for flowers for Patrick's grave and have travelled to Taunton to lay them there.

Thanks to Kathy Duguid's idea all monies that were originally raised to give to the Dame Hilda Bracket trust went towards getting the bench put up at the crematorium. Thank you to all donators.

Thanks to all of the fans that signed the petitions on the website as in March my dream came true... The got in touch to thank me for the support of Hinge & Bracket and told me they are planning to release Dear Ladies on for the first time. (Full details on the Blog)

On the 8th October 2007, Series One of "Dear Ladies" was finally released officially by Acorn Media/.

There is also the Gala Evenings due out in February 2008 and fingers crossed that sales of Series one will go towards a release of Series Two & Three of Dear Ladies.

My thanks go to George Logan for endorsing this site as the only Official Hinge & Bracket Website.

Hinge and Bracket always gave a superb portrayal, and in my view it was excellent entertainment too. They played two mature and rather scholarly ladies, and their act centered on musical performances, often from Gilbert and Sullivan. There was acid and witty repartee between the two ladies in friendly, but barbed, rivalry. You might have sat through the performance and not realised that they were drag performers, if you weren't very observant.

I saw them live on stage in Chatham "Central Hall" twice and Canterbury "Marlowe Theatre" in the play "Lettice & Lovage" once and each performance was excellent and skilful. But they were playing to an audience that was fast dying out.

In the 1980's they had a television sitcom series, "Dear Ladies". They played themselves, genteel, musical ladies. There were plenty of oblique references to the risqué, but all done in the best possible taste.