Gertie Gitana (born Gertrude Mary Astbury; 27 December 1887 – 5 January 1957)[1] was an English music hall entertainer.
[1] Her music hall repertoire included "A Schoolgirl's Holiday", "We've been chums for fifty years", "When the Harvest Moon is Shining", "Silver Bell", "You do Look Well in Your Old Dutch Bonnet", "Queen of the Cannibal Isles", "Never Mind", "When I see the Lovelight Gleaming", and especially "Nellie Dean" – written by Henry W. Armstrong – which an audience first heard her sing in 1907.
"Nellie Dean", which was a song her brother had heard while in the United States,[1] was an instant success and became her 'signature tune'.
[4] Two musical shows were specially written for her: Nellie Dean and Dear Louise, and in 1928 she married her leading man in the latter, Don Ross.
[1] She retired in 1938 but made a very successful comeback ten years later with other "old timers" in the show Thanks for the Memory produced by her husband.
The inscription reads "A Loving Remembrance of Gertie Gitana Music Hall Artiste" followed by the lyrics "There's An Old Mill by the Stream Nelly Dean".