One magical night, time seemed to stop as we walked through the countryside and we had the strangest feeling we had gone back 400 years. - Val Straw, Subscriber

Your request for memories certainly brought back many wonderful ones for for me. A Midsummer Night's Dream is my favourite Shakespeare play and Brook's still my favourite production, even though I have seen many more since August 29 1970. It showed me that a production did not have to be conventional to get across to an audience and opened me up to so many amazing evening (and matinees) at Stratford, the Aldwych and beyond. I had just finished at University and was working in London when I went on my day trip and looking at the list of plays I saw that year I didn't seem to miss much! Once married, my husband and I went to Stratford two or three times a year, and always looked forward to the ritual of the play, the Chinese meal at the Mayflower, the visit to the theatre photographer's studio from where photos of Kenneth Branagh, Jeremy Irons and many others always came home with me. (Some of these photos are on the board in my den as a reminder of Stratford and the RSC). The greatest treat was to be able to walk to our b&b, by the river or across the fields or through the town and not worry about catching tubes or buses home. One magical night, time seemed to stop as we walked through the countryside and we had the strangest feeling we had gone back 400 years. Age and ailments have curtailed the trips in the last few years but fittingly the last RSC production I saw was Dream online, which I loved and would never have imagined in 1970 how I would see the play in 2021. I wondered if I still had my programme, and to my surprise I did (though not the ticket alas). I keep a diary and found my entry for that August day - hard to decipher, grammar gone but full of enthusiasm for what I'd seen. So much so my page a day wasn't enough! I also found some photos which I think are ones I took that day. I have taken the liberty of sending some photos of the programme and part of the highly original photo cast list, my diary entry (with translation) and the photos of the theatre, the Shakespeare statue and Stratford High Street, which looks even more than 50 years old. And of course my board with those brilliant photos.