55 years of love and marriage - Friends of Heath Library treated to fundraiser by happy couple Lee and Ruth Montague

Published: 16 December 2010
by DAN CARRIER

THE Friends of Heath Library in Keats Grove were treated to a fund-raising event last night (Wednesday) when committee member, library activist and actor Lee Montague appeared with his wife Ruth in a special pre-Christmas show they had written called Love, and/or Marriage.

Drawing on poetry and love letters from the great and the good, the bad and infamous, the couple appear infrequently in self-penned shows at the library to help raise funds – and to publicise the uncertain future library services in Camden are facing. 

Mr Montague and the Friends of Heath Library have been working for more than a decade to keep the library afloat and provide additional services. 

Mr Montague said: “Anything that can be done to make sure as many people as possible know  libraries are at risk because of cuts to council budgets is vital. They play such a vital role in our society and we must all be aware that some face closure.”

The couple chose songs and poems, and letters from such notables as Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon Bonaparte for the event. Other highlights included Ruth reading from Sylvia Plath’s memoirs – and Lee replying with words by Ted Hughes. The Montagues had an extra reason to be mulling over affairs of the heart: they are due to celebrate 55 years of married bliss on Saturday.

Playwright Ruth first spotted Lee, an actor, as he app­eared semi-naked on stage in a prod­uction of Christ­opher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine The Great at the Old Vic  in 1951.

Lee said: “I was prancing about with Leo McKern with very little on. She was in the audience and came back stage afterwards with a friend.”

Ruth then went to see Lee in The Taming of the Shrew at the King’s Theatre in Hornchurch and romance blossomed. The pair were married at the West Hampstead Synagogue, had a reception at Café Royal in Regent Street and then spent the night at the Savoy before heading to Biarritz for a Christmas h­oneymoon.

Lee recalls: “We were the only people there and restaurateurs in the town twitched behind curtains each night to see where we would choose to eat.”