ECHO<\/a>, Linda, 72, from Rainford, said: “I was playing the part of a saloon girl. My husband, Geoff, worked at Pilkington’s at the time, and one of the men in the office told him they were looking for cowboys for the production.<\/p>\n“He said to Geoff, ‘there’s a girl down there who’s just finished with her boyfriend – get down there!”<\/p>\n
Geoff took the man’s advice and promptly joined the cast, along with two of his friends.<\/p>\n
![\"Norman](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_JS367025090.jpg\")
Norman and Judith Martindale (left) with Linda and Geoff Hunter at the Empire Theatre to watch Calamity Jane<\/p>\n
Linda and Geoff soon hit it off, and one evening, she got a knock at the door and saw Geoff standing outside, waiting to ask her out on a date. She said yes, and the rest is history.<\/p>\n
But they weren’t the only ones who saw romance blossom during rehearsals for Calamity Jane. Judith met her husband Norman at the same show.<\/p>\n
“They got friendly as well,” said Linda. “And we all ended up getting married the same year. Judith got married in June 1972 and I got married in August 1972.”<\/p>\n
The two women have remained close friends. Linda is godmother to Judith and Norman’s daughter, and Judith is godmother to Linda and Geoff’s son.<\/p>\n
“It’s wonderful how we met,” said Linda. “We’re all still great friends.”<\/p>\n
Over the years, Linda and Judith have both continued to perform. Linda is in a choir, while Judith is an accomplished actress. Calamity Jane gave Norman the acting bug too. Since performing in the musical, he has acted in a number of different shows.<\/p>\n
For Geoff, though, once was enough. “He only stayed for one show – he already got the girl,” said Linda.<\/p>\n
She has fond memories of acting in Calamity Jane, and still has a photo of the gang acting together in the show.<\/p>\n
“Three of us are in the shot, she explained. “The photo is of Judith. I was the bridesmaid, standing there with my hands on my hips looking sultry. It was shot in the saloon with someone holding a gun.”<\/p>\n
When Linda saw that Calamity Jane was being performed at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool, she knew they had to go.<\/p>\n
She said: “I saw it and I thought, what a nostalgia trip. It’ll bring back a lot of lovely memories. So I booked some tickets.”<\/p>\n
Linda, Judith, Geoff and Norman all went to the matinee performance of the show this afternoon.<\/p>\n
The plot of the musical has strong parallels with their story. In the play, best friends Calamity Jane and Katy Brown end up getting married to their two suitors after a whirlwind romance.<\/p>\n
Calamity Jane finished its run the Empire Theatre today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Linda and Judith got more than they bargained for when they joined a production of Calamity Jane 18:30,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,11843,393,4884,179,8838,28145,2645,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-52681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-empire-theatre","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-nostalgia","14":"tag-rainford","15":"tag-st-helens","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114405507731026357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Norman](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_JS367025096.jpg\")
Norman and Judith Martindale (left) with Linda and Geoff Hunter (right) at the Empire Theatre to watch Calamity Jane 50 years after they first met performing the show<\/p>\n