Paddie O’Neil

Paddie O’Neil’s obituary in The Stage includes the following. Her sister, Louise, mentioned in the second paragraph married Paddy Connors.

“Adalena Lillian Nail was born in a fairground trailer in Leominster on May 1, 1926. Her mother Bessie made up her name – a mixture of her aunt Ada’s and aunt Lena’s. But Paddie’s father Jack had been desperate for a boy – a show on in town at the time was Paddy, the Next Best Thing, and so Adalena became Paddie, and it stuck.

Jack was a lion tamer known as Professor Nail. When Paddie was only four, he encouraged her to stand in the lion’s cage, the ‘Den of Death’, and sing Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow Wow. She said that it was only many years later that she realised that not every child did this. Paddie had three sisters, Betty, Daisy and Louise, and one brother, Tommy. Their childhood was spent moving around so the children went to many schools, only spending several months in one place during the winter.”

The Stage, 2 March 2010