As head of catering at the BBC from 1949 to 1978, my father, Ivan Pinfield, who has died aged 94, ran the BBC canteens that were a haven for the stars and crews of television and radio. But he was also an accomplished actor in his own right.
After the war, he helped a cousin to run the Gurnard’s Head hotel near St Ives in Cornwall, where he was headhunted by the director of the Royal Shakespeare theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. Ivan was considered the ideal candidate to open the theatre’s new restaurant. It was here that he met the actor Margaret Courtenay, and began a lifelong passion for the theatre. They married in 1947 and I was born in 1952.
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