Jan Holden

Valerie Jeanne Wilkinson (9 May 1931 – 11 October 2005) was an English actress known as Jan Holden, using her mother's maiden name as a stage name. In theatre she was known for her performances in light comedy and appeared in several popular television series during the 1950s and 1960s.

Early life

Born in Southport, Lancashire, Jeanne Wilkinson, as she then was, spent her early childhood in India, where her father was a senior manager at the Swadeshi Cotton Mills in Kanpur. At the age of six, she and her twin brother Geoffrey were sent to schools in the hills near Simla. Getting there took a two-day train journey. The term lasted nine months, and there were three months at home during the cool season. The schools were not mixed, so she and her brother only met at church on Sundays.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, Holden and her mother returned to Britain, where she became a boarder at Lowther College in North Wales. When the war ended, her mother returned to India while Jan stayed at her school and lived with school friends during the holidays. At the age of eighteen, she was offered places at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the Old Vic School, and the Bristol Old Vic, but her father declined to pay the fees, as he disapproved of her ambition to go on the stage. Eventually he was persuaded to allow her to take a directors' course at the Old Vic, where she was one of two pupils chosen as assistant stage managers.