 In December 1937, at sixteen, she played the role of Gretel in a BBC Television production of "Hansel and Gretel"., a pioneer BBC television broadcast, she was able to claim, when in her 90s, that she had made the earliest TV appearance of anyone living.This was followed by a role as a young girl in Dodie Smith's Dear Octopus (1938), with John Gielgud and Marie Tempest at the Queen's theatre, London.During the Second World War, she was in ENSA and also made the crossover from theatre to screen.