Thurrock Memories : Fitness at Bata, East Tilbury

DOWN Memory Lane looks at an interesting lady who founded and became a radio and television star for Beauty through health.

Eileen Philippa Rose Fowler (1906-2000) was born in Edmonton but lived and worked in Thurrock for many years.

Many Thurrock ladies remember her fitness classes at Bata, East Tilbury, Queen's Hotel, Grays and at Thames Board Mills, West Thurrock.

From early childhood, Eileen Fowler had enjoyed dancing, swimming, riding, sailing - "anything that would make me move," she said.

Later she went into the world of the performing arts - musical theatre being her metier. During those years she owned up that she "ate the wrong food" and that late nights and parties tired her out.

So in the mid-1930s she left the stage and focused on keeping fit and a healthy life style. She believed exercise was a key to energy and suppleness. Seeing exercise as a natural tonic which brought a special sense of well being, Eileen examined ways to sell her notions to the public at large, and before and throughout the Second World War set up the Industrial Keep Fit organisation, with flourishing classes for the company workers of Middlesex, Hertfordshire and later Essex, where huge displays and demonstrations were given by teams from her different groups.

She was able to bring her unique presentation skills to that task. Her classes featured smiling girls with EF' on their shirts. Eileen Fowler's ladylike but demanding routines were a feature of radio and television between 1954 and 1961.

She was a founder member of the Keep Fit Association in 1956. She also produced fitness programmes, including Stay Young Forever, on LP records and was awarded MBE in 1975.

Several local ladies have contacted me about her classes in Thurrock including Beryl-Giggins now living in Vancouver, BC Canada, who said: "I belonged to a Health and Beauty class in the early 1950s, run by Eileen Fowler, at Thames Board Mills sports centre, (we had T.B.M. on our costume) on the junction of Purfleet Road and the London-Southend Road (by Painter's Garage). I think there were just the two classes, and we frequently gave shows together.

"It was quite a new concept at the time to exercise to music, sometimes with props, and I have to say that Eileen Fowler was the epitome of 'health and beauty' - just a darling of a teacher. It must have been at the beginning of her career, but I never witnessed her TV shows as I had emigrated by that time."

Elsie Wright nee Ellis remembers well Eileen Fowler classes at Bata, East Tilbury. Elsie was in the 1950 / 51 Pantomime, classes were run on a strict but fair basis and "Miss Fowler" taught also tap and soft shoe dance."

Our featured photograph is of the rehearsal for the pantomime with Miss fowler on the left.

I am still interested in discovering where she lived in Horndon, I think it deserves a Thurrock heritage Plaque commemorating her role in developing Beauty through health!

History feed back:

A question raised by a member of the community is to the Thurrock Maltings, behind the old brewery in Bridge Road, any body got any memories of this?

History fact of the week:

July 13, 1767 - hiring a horse and cart for haulage out of Royal Magazines Purfleet cost 13 shillings per day!