Kay Bamford was a famous local and budding entrepreneur. She was also a professional wrestler and roller skating fanatic. Even though she had a lot of talent, she is also known for being Miss Entertainment within the area of Worcester. She was responsible for promoting a number of events in the Cornmarket. When that was demolished to make room for new developments in the mid-sixties, she went on to blaze her own path, which led to a huge boom in town tourism. She created The Majestic, before going on to become a wildlife film producer.
Miss Entertainment and the Worcester Bingo Scene
Kay Bamford knew that the bingo craze was hitting the UK and, as a result of this, started to promote it much more vigorously. She knew that the Cornmarket area was being renovated, and that’s why she decided to open her own hall instead. She did this with the sole purpose of creating a bingo venue. Moves like this have helped the bingo sector to boom, even leading to the creation of a number of live bingo games, including Magic Thursdays and Lucky 7’s Jackpot Saloon. Online games also model that of traditional games, in the fact that people can connect with others online. Bingo is popular even to this day, but, especially in the sixties, having a purposely built bingo hall was huge.
Her Passion for Wildlife Film Making
Kay ran the bingo hall for quite some time and then took the option of early retirement. She was never one to sit still for long, though, and soon began to pursue a career in filmmaking. This is, of course, while she ran her beauty clinic, which was located on Broad Street. She enjoyed filming a lot of local festivals but also explored balloon festivals and motor racing. She also ventured into wildlife filmmaking, where she travelled the world. Furthermore, she went to Australia, India, Kenya, the Antarctic, Canada, and the Falklands, with a number of her movies winning awards at the Worcester Camcorder Club. She was a chairman of the club for a number of years and soon joined the National Institute of Cinematographers.
Kay Bamford died last year at the age of 87 but has had a monumental influence on Worcester, from opening bingo halls, so people could meet new friends and socialise, to becoming a wildlife filmmaker for the Worcester Camcorder Club. She also ran several businesses within the area and was seen as a local celebrity.
She’ll be sorely missed, with her work going on to benefit others for years to come. Her passion was contagious too, and when she opened the bingo venue, it was a roaring success. People came from outside the area so they could play games at the new hall, and it helped to bring a lot of tourism to Worcester as a whole. Since then, various bingo venues have opened, but none are as iconic as the one that was created by Miss Entertainment herself.
Article written by Diana Payne
