Alumnae spotlight: Lady Attenborough, Sheila Sim

Lady Attenborough, Sheila Sim, Class of 1939

Following on from the exciting announcement this week about next year’s school production of Beauty and the Beast, we thought we would go with a theatre angle for this week’s Alumnae Spotlight. So, as our current students prepare to tread the boards for those all  important auditions, we launch our weekly celebration of alumnae achievements by remembering a genuine legend of stage and screen, who began her journey at Croydon High.

Sheila Sim was an actress and also the wife of actor and Oscar-winning director Richard Attenborough. Having met at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, they quickly became inseparable and fell in love while playing in a college production of The Lady with the Lamp.  She often appeared in movies with her husband but never merely as a talisman; in her own right, she brought charm and panache to anything she appeared in. In 1944, she played a land girl in A Canterbury Tale; fittingly, she had herself served in the Women’s Land Army in Hereford during the war. In 1952, both Richard and Sheila performed in the very first production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, the world’s longest-running play.

Born in Liverpool, she attended Croydon High during the 1930s. She is fondly remembered by alumnae who recall her attending special events such as the 80th anniversary celebrations in 1954 and Prize-giving. Dr. Maureen Adams, Class of 1942, once told us, “I stayed for dinner two days a week when we had games. The dining room was downstairs, next to the cloakrooms, and we sat at round tables with two senior girls at each table. Sheila was always very pleasant; I would try to sit with Sheila and her friend Jean. This would have been 1938-39 when I was in Lower and Upper 1V and Sheila in the Sixth Form. She had already taken part in some amateur acting at a little theatre across the road from the school, then in Wellesley Road.”

Following a flourishing career, notably in films, Sheila put aside acting to provide a stable home for their children. In 1968, she was sworn in as a magistrate in Surbiton, joining the Richmond bench. She was also an enthusiastic member of the Richmond Society, a group that contributed to the thinking behind the restoration and redevelopment of the banks of the Thames at Richmond.

After recruitment by Noël Coward, Sheila served the Actors’ Charitable Trust for over 60 years. She was instrumental in the success of two redevelopments of the actors’ care home, Denville Hall, in the 1960s and 2000s, and was a Trustee and Vice-President of the charities.

In June 2012, shortly before her 90th birthday, Sheila entered Denville Hall, for which she and her husband had both raised funds. Latter years were overshadowed by the loss, in 2004, of her daughter Jane and granddaughter Lucy in the tsunami in Thailand. In March 2013, in light of his deteriorating health, Richard Attenborough moved into Denville Hall to be with his wife; Richard died in 2014 when they had been married nearly 70 years.

Her death was announced on 19 January 2016. Sheila was cremated, and her ashes were interred in a vault at St Mary Magdalene church in Richmond beside those of her husband, as well as her daughter, Jane and her granddaughter, Lucy.

Sheila certainly aspired without limits. We are proud to celebrate her success with you.

Mrs Karen Roe
Alumnae Relations Manager