The actress Jayne Snow who died on February 1st, aged 47, was born in Solihull in Warwickshire, the only child of John and Mary Tonks. The family moved to the Scilly Isles on her fifth birthday. She appears to have inherited her theatrical bent from her late father who had a fine tenor voice and a love of the stage. She attended Truro Girls' Boarding School in Cornwall from where she went on loan to the local boys' school to take the title role in St Joan. Her school days were marked by her innate sense of fun, a joyful boldness which she would carry into adult life. Once she spent her entire term allowance on a Biba raincoat and absconded to a Kinks concert, where she charmed her way backstage and into a treasured photograph with the band.
She graduated from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. It was soon after that she met, as she recounted to her mother, "a lovely Irishman with doubtful house-keeping abilities". She married this Irishman, Brian Snow, and it was he who was to bring her to Ireland, after periods in England and Saudi Arabia. Ireland was to be her home for the next 20 years. They had two children Tamsin and Daniel, and as the children grew up, her thoughts turned again to the stage. She trained under Deirdre O'Connell at Dublin's Focus Theatre and later appeared in and directed many productions there.
A few years back, one newspaper christened her "The Queen of the Fringe". It was a title she embraced light-heartedly, and one that had some truth to it. She loved the familial aspect of the theatre. Audiences will remember her particularly for Violet in Small Craft Warnings, the wife in Trios, Irma in The Balcony, Nell in Endgame, Sybil and Helen in Decadence, and most recently in the eponymous role in Shirley Valentine, a part which she made her own despite battling with cancer. RTE viewers will have seen her as Irene in Fair City and as Sybil in Nighthawks, while two of her best performances came on screen in All Souls' Day and November Afternoon.
As an actress, Jayne Snow had many qualities. In rehearsal she was courageous in her choices and generous with other actors. Her lack of self-confidence often caused her to underestimate her talent, but, above all, she brought out the humanity and dignity of her characters, no matter how strange or bizarre.
She invariably sought out and found the best in friends. Perhaps naively, she saw beauty where some saw ugliness, and hope where others saw gloom. She loved having people into her home which became a haven for many. She had numerous close friends, who when illness struck, returned her generosity of spirit. With her hallmark resilience, she embraced life ever more intensely, even travelling to India shortly before her death.
Jayne Snow is survived by her husband Brian, children Tasmin and Daniel and her mother Mary.
Jayne Snow: born 1952; died February, 2000