My friend Don Loughman, who has died aged 92, was the Westminster theatre's production manager from 1961 and theatre manager from 1967 until his retirement in 1999. He was a member of the Society of West End Theatres and, from 1987, a board member of Westminster Productions, which put on plays at the theatre. When I was the secretary to the Westminster Memorial Trust, which owned the theatre, Don and his wife, Jill, whom he married in 1966, were my neighbours for more than 30 years.
We all lived in flats above the theatre, which is now the site of St James theatre. Our daughters grew up together, seeing the children's pantomime Give a Dog a Bone, which ran for 13 Christmas seasons, CS Lewis's Narnia stories and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Born in Abercarn, south Wales, Don was commissioned into the Royal Signals and served in the Indian army during the second world war. At this time he encountered the Moral Re-Armament (MRA) spiritual movement. Servicemen gave their postwar gratuities towards the purchase of the Westminster theatre as a memorial to those in MRA who had died in the war.
In 1952, MRA's founder, Frank Buchman, was invited to take a travelling group to the Indian subcontinent. Buchman took 200 people, who presented four stage plays. Don and two others were responsible for the logistics; the tour started in Sri Lanka and travelled to nine Indian cities. They went by special train to Delhi, stopping in Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Don, unable to pass on the details of the itinerary to all the passengers, then had to race the train to Delhi: a hair-raising experience on the Indian roads. He arrived to find 200 people patiently sitting on their suitcases. Never was anyone better at coping with a crisis.
Don became an actor himself, playing the part of Sam Trumper in Peter Howard's play The Man with the Key, which toured South Africa, Rhodesia, Kenya and Uganda from 1954 to 1956.
Don and Jill were a great support to me when my wife, Ann, died of cancer. Jill died two years later, in 1990. Our sadness, and gratitude for our wives, was a bond that kept us together from then on.
He is survived by his daughter, Jane, and grandson, Sebastian.