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Brenda's extensive collection of her own doggerel, written for birthdays, weddings, special events, and random occasions, with a short biography and brief descriptions of her life and work. Illustrated with pertinent family photos, Panto Stew was produced not long after she died in 1994, but has not been available for general sale until relatively recently.
 
"I had a mother who sang like an angel; I had a mother who painted pictures, who baked pasties and cooked like a dream, who sewed and made all her own dresses, who could charm the birds from the trees and talk the hind leg off a donkey. This in itself was hard enough. But in my younger years I also had a mother who collected the jokes, researched the stories, wrote the scripts, designed and painted the stage sets, made the costumes, painted the faces, made the props, acted in, stage managed and produced, the pantomimes.

And an important feature of the pantomimes was the pantomime stew - the big enamel pot on top of the primus in the village hall, filled to the brim with something of everything, to keep everyone going long enough to finish that day's rehearsal. Everyone brought some food or tins to go into that stewpot, and everyone ate from it. And when Brenda turned from amateur dramatics and singing and festivals, Pantomime Stew turned into Festival Stew."
 
A5 Paperback, 128 pages, 2 colour cover, b/w inside, 9 b/w photos, review by Charles Causley, self-published by Sue Luscombe (Ellery-Hill) 1994.