Sybil Evers

Her mother Jessie was a talented water-colourist and instilled a love for the arts in Sybil, who quickly became interested in musical comedy, producing playlets and composing tunes as a child.

These included Kate in The Pirates of Penzance, the Lady Saphir in Patience, Leila in Iolanthe, Peep-Bo in The Mikado and Vittoria in The Gondoliers.

Occasionally she substituted for Marjorie Eyre in the larger mezzo-soprano roles of Tessa in The Gondoliers and Mad Margaret in Ruddigore.

[6] The Times wrote, "Miss Sybil Evers ... was the very incarnation of Milton's idea of the queen-hood of innocence, and her first entrance onto an empty stage was pure beauty.

"[2] In January 1937, Evers played the title role in Rutland Boughton's The Lily Maid at the Winter Garden Theatre.

[7][8][9] In April and May 1937, in honour of the coronation of King George VI, she sang in three performances of Parsifal at Covent Garden, as one of the six Flowermaidens.

[13] According to his biographer Mark Ryan, Abrahams had a fear of commitment and old-fashioned ideas about the role of women in marriage, but he was able to overcome these,[14] and the couple wed in December 1936.

[21] Before and during the Second World War, Evers and Abrahams also fostered two Jewish refugees: a German boy called Ken Gardner (born Kurt Katzenstein),[22] and an Austrian girl named Minka.

It was an annual cash prize awarded to the best female singer in her last year at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art.