JOAN Grange was turned down at her first Sunbeam audition – because she didn’t have the right hairstyle.

“My aunt cut my hair into a fringe and I went back the next week. I did the Highland Fling and sang my scales. I can still see Francis Laidler in his big chair,” recalls Joan.

To her delight, Joan was then accepted for Laidler’s Sunbeams, the junior dance troupe that has been entertaining Bradford audiences for more than a century.

Joan was a Sunbeam in 1936. Now 90, she recently returned to the stage, joining other former Sunbeams in a glittering gala performance celebrating the Alhambra’s centenary.

The variety show line-up included Michael Ball, Joe McElderry and panto stalwart Billy Pearce. A packed audience arrived on a red carpet, greeted by dancing girls, and Act One ended with a big band number featuring Sunbeams past and present. Joan and the other older Sunbeams high-kicked onto the stage, to loud cheers.

With matching bobbed haircuts, the Sunbeams were introduced in 1917 as a ray of sunshine for Bradford during the First World War. They appeared in pantos in Bradford, Leeds and cities around the country delivered by theatre impresario, and Alhambra founder, Francis Laidler, known as the “King of Panto”.

“It was quite something to be a Sunbeam,” recalled Joan. “We had elocution lessons and wore a uniform of green cloth coats with a velvet collar, made by Verrells in Bradford. People used to take our picture in the street.”

Joan was sent to Bristol, where she was in a production of Aladdin for 12 weeks. “It was my first time away from home. We lived in a house run by a matron. It was quite an adventure,” she says. “In those days principal boys were women and Aladdin was played by Jean Colin, who became a film star.”

Prior to Bristol, Joan attended rehearsals at the Princes Theatre in Bradford. “One night the fog was so thick we couldn’t get home, so they put us up in the Alexander Hotel. There were no phones back then, so the police had to inform our parents where we were!” she smiled.

Joan combined her love of dance with roller-skating. “I used to go to the roller rink on Manningham Lane,” she recalled – and she won prizes. She and her late husband Maurice later lived in Rhodesia, then Canada, where Joan’s daughter, who inherited her love of dance, became a ballerina with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens.

Now Joan is back in Bradford after 55 years in Canada. She was the oldest of the nine former Sunbeams taking to the Alhambra stage last month.

Anne Dowling was in panto from 1952-1953. “Francis Laidler didn’t recruit from dance schools, he wanted ordinary local girls with no dance experience,” she said. “He held open auditions and we queued for hours around the block. If you had good co-ordination, a big smile and could kick your legs up you were fine. I was a child who’d never danced and suddenly I was on the Alhambra stage!

“Mr Laidler was a lovely, caring man. We were treated like little VIPs. We used to perform at old people’s homes and parties. We felt like stars.”

Dianne Brewster was in 1958-59 panto Jack and the Beanstalk, starring Ken Dodd. “For a child like me, plucked from a council estate to be a Sunbeam, it was the bees’ knees,” she said.

Pauline McHugh was also in Jack and the Beanstalk, and continues to write to Ken Dodd. “I came on with a basket of pies and he threw them out to the audience,” she recalled. “When the cow was sold I was one of the ‘cryers’. Doddy joked: ‘You’ll get no sweets tonight if you don’t stop crying’. It was the first time I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry – I thought if I cried I wouldn’t get any sweets and if I laughed I’d get the sack!” Pauline’s sister, Jackie Hanson, was also a Sunbeam and they appeared together in Babes in the Wood 54 years ago. “Our mum was a Sunbeam too in 1934,” said Jackie. “A highlight for me was appearing with Tommy Cooper. On my 14th birthday he brought me to the front of the stage and got everyone to sing Happy Birthday to me.”

The Sunbeams were paid £2 a week and had to meet Laidler’s strict criteria of age (12-14) and height (4ft 3ins to 4ft 6ins).

“Every six weeks a barber came to cut our hair,” said Janet Farrington, a Sunbeam from 1958-59. “We had four dance routines and were on stage every night, eight performances a week for three months.

“There was an ad in the Telegraph & Argus, then we started rehearsing in the summer holidays. It seems like a long time, but to us it was thrilling. We were full of energy and loved being on stage.”

Rita Harrison, a Sunbeam from 1952-53, added: “We had ‘aunties’ looking after us backstage, they made us have a little nap between the matinee and evening show. I was at the Theatre Royal in Leeds, there were 12 Sunbeams picked for there and 12 for the Alhambra. I was in Cinderella and wore a little Busby costume, a red coat and black hat.”

Nora Hurley, a Sunbeam from 1958-60, recalled the backstage discipline. “We had to be out of the theatre by 9pm, a school inspector was there every night to check,” she said. “We used to get into trouble for making a noise in our tap shoes going downstairs.”

The Sunbeams of the late 1950s would probably have been in trouble had Mr Laidler caught them hanging out of the dressing-room window trying to glimpse Cliff Richard in 1959. “Cliff and the Shadows were at the Gaumont next door, we were desperate to see him,” smiled Dianne.

A highlight for the girls was the presentation of gifts on the last night of the panto. “It was the only night we were allowed to stay until the end,” said Janet. “Gifts from our families were brought on stage. My dad was in hospital and sent a telegram, that was really touching for me.”

Sisters Pauline and Jackie were given a watch by their mother, and Pauline also received a fairy doll which had been perched on Ken Dodd’s dressing-room mirror during the panto run. Rita remembers a bracelet from comic Freddie Frinton.

Many Sunbeams went to on to become professional dancers and worked around the world.

“It gave me a lifelong love of dancing,” said Maureen Dinsdale, a Sunbeam from 1959-60. “It felt special to be a Sunbeam. I loved the costumes and shoes, especially my red tap shoes. I loved the sound they made.”

Janet recalled being inspired by the dancing girls in the pantos. “We were teamed up with chorus girls, they used to do our make-up and they looked after us. I remember them taking us for ice-creams. We looked up to them as dancers, some were Tiller girls,” she said.

The ladies all look back fondly on their days as Sunbeams. “It gave me a love of the stage, of singing and dancing. It gave me a confidence I still have. I’ll always get up and dance, even now,” said Dianne. “I was so proud of being picked at that audition from hundreds of girls. I went from being an ordinary girl to something special. Even now, if you tell someone you were a Sunbeam it feels very special.”