ADDICT

While neighbors in Richmond, England, shook their heads, lonely little old Ada Littlejohn packed her small trunk last August and sailed for Manhattan. Her husband had died. So had her terrier Jumbo and her canary Nanki-Poo. For Mrs. Ada Littlejohn it seemed at first like just one more tragedy in her life when the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company announced it would give Gilbert & Sullivan in the U.S. this season (TIME, Sept. 17). But then she reckoned her slender income and decided to go along.

For 40 years Mrs. Ada Littlejohn has been a Gilbert & Sullivan addict. She has heard nearly every London performance, thought little of traveling to Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow to hear others. This week the D'Oyly Carte players gave their 100th Manhattan performance. For Mrs. Littlejohn, who goes five times a week, it was the 62nd. Singers in the company have come to regard the small white-haired lady as their mascot. She knows each time they make a mistake, lives with them in the Hotel Lincoln across from the theatre. For the performances she insists on buying her own $1.65 balcony ticket. Says she in her bright cockney accent: "I can't imagine 'eaven without Gilbert & Sullivan. I do hope those two men will be busy at it when I get up there."

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