Bill Port was born in Lanark in 1931 where he made his stage debut at the age of five. He made regular appearances in the Gilbert and Sullivan Operas and Shakespeare plays staged by Dalziel High School in Motherwell where he was a pupil. After growing up in the usual way he moved to London in 1951 and began a career in the laundry industry, eventually taking control of all the laundries owned by British Rail. He renewed his amateur acting career when, with his wife Pat and their two children, he moved to Peppard, near Henley-on-Thames. Bill and Pat joined the Chiltern Edge Players, later becoming members of the Henley Players and the Henley Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society which performed at The Kenton Theatre. First Pat, then Bill, joined the management society of the Theatre and were subsequently elected to the Board of Directors. With his long involvement, Bill came to realise the huge significance of the many individuals who, throughout the Theatre's life and right into the present, had worked so hard - generally with little acknowledgement - to maintain the presence of this precious facility at the heart of Henley. The bi-centenary of The Kenton theatre seemed to Bill an appropriate moment to put right this omission and to record the ups and downs of England's fourth oldest theatre.