TENTATIVE plans are being drawn up by the Chalfont St Giles Parish Council for celebrations in the village to mark the Queen's Golden Jubilee in June. Village organisations and groups who are thinking of staging any kind of event for the occasion are asked to contact the parish clerk on 01753 890517.

CHALFONT St Giles Twinning Association is holding a coffee morning on Saturday, March 2, in the Reading Room from 9.30am to midday.

LAST week I told you a rather macabre tale about an infamous person, and now I can tell you about a famous person who did once actually live in Chalfont St Giles.

OUR older readers will no doubt remember a very tall, dark and handsome film actor called Robert Donat who acted in many films in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, the most famous of which was Goodbye Mr Chips, made in 1939, where he played a schoolmaster and aged on-screen from 25 to 83. He won an Oscar for his performance in this film.

Robert Donat was the son of a Polish immigrant and an English mother, and was born in Withington, Manchester in 1905. In his late teens he joined a repertory company, playing a variety of Shakespearian and classical roles before making his London debut in 1930.

During the 1930s and war years Robert lived in a traditional brick and clay tile house which was then called 'Linthrathen', just opposite the Chalfonts Community College. The house is still there and is now called 'Foxdale'. Although this house stood just inside the Chalfont St Peter civil boundary, we think we can call him "one of ours" as the boundaries in the past have been quite fluid.

Robert Donat left the area in 1937 and returned to America where he starred opposite Marlene Dietrich in Knight without Armour, and the following year as the young doctor in A J Cronin's The Citadel, a performance which won him an Academy Award nomination.

Unfortunately his career was severely hampered by chronic asthma, a lifelong affliction, and it was three years before he was able to return to the screen. Uncannily, his last spoken words on-screen in the famous film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness were "We shall not see each other again, I think, Farewell."

Just after the completion of this film, on June 9, 1958, Robert Donat died, aged just 53. He left a wife, the actress Rene Asherson, who appeared with him in the film The Cure for Love. They had married in 1953.

In the weeks to come there will be more stories of the well-known personalities who were once residents of this lovely village.

By Josie Ricketts

February 14, 2002 13:38