The Stage

Babs Adams

Published Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 09:20 by Bob Sterling

It was whilst writing her autobiography, Parade of Clowns, that Babs Adams discovered that her showbusiness ancestry went back as far as 1767 to a family called Tabrars. Her maternal grandmother Lizzie Tabrar was one of 11 children and whose brother Joseph was a prolific songwriter (Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow-Wow, was one of his songs).

Her professional life began at the age of 15 when she was a dancer on Southend Pier. Three years later she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, and started performing in camp shows, then eventually joined the WAAF Gang Show where she met her future husband Bill Adams, who also came from a showbusiness family. They married in 1945 and formed a successful comedy patter and dance act.

Working their way up from the clubs, they reached the pinnacle of their career in the Moss Empire circuit. Their act was also in demand for a long time on the US Bases in Germany. When Bill passed away, Babs became a supporting artist in Coronation Street for many years. She was 84 when she died and is survived by a nephew and her brother in Australia.