The Story Of The Sally Bretton Appreciation Group

How an enjoyment of the work of Sally Bretton developed into an obsession and, ultimately, a desire to share.

(Picture - Daily Telegraph, 28th March 2025 - Interview for Beyond Paradise Series 3) 

My first encounter with the work of Sally goes back to her appearances with Harry Enfield in the early 2000's. After her childhood career and just as her adult career was getting underway. I was captivated, of course, by her looks. But, more significantly to me, by the comic performances. So often, in the early days, as a foil for a comedy "genius" of the time.

(Picture - Harry Enfield's Brand Spanking New Show, 2000 - "People Think We're Sisters" )

It took me twenty years for that enjoyment to evolve into an "obsession" and by the 2020's I had started to hunt down everything that I could find involving Sally's work. Over time I grew a haphazard collection of DVD's and downloads where it was nigh on impossible to find anything. In 2024 I started to build a database of references and material from Sally's career in Movies, TV, Radio and Theatre. At least I would now be able to find what I was looking for!

(Picture - Sally Bretton Database - 10th April, 2025 - The SallyDB continues to grow)

It quickly became evident that there was a wealth of wonderful material and I felt a little guilty keeping it all to myself. I had a look, on Social Media, to see if a forum existed where I could share some of my finds. Only two "Sally" Groups, on Facebook, were evident when I looked. One appeared to be dormant and my attempts to reach out, to this group, were never reciprocated. The second group seemed to focus solely on Sally's looks with scant regard for her wonderful work. I did join this group, for a while, but it was not what I was looking for.

There seemed to be only one option open to me. In September of 2024 I started the "Sally Bretton Appreciation Group" on Facebook. A forum for me, and others likeminded, to talk about Sally and to share and enjoy her work. I made the group Private. I was not interested in the sort of members that were only interested in Sally's looks. I wanted to be able to police this. I then set about a strategy of occasionally promoting the group on other, possibly similar minded, groups. Slowly the membership is creeping up and continues to do so. My "troublesome" members are restricted to one who has, so far, joined under three names intent on posting unrelated spam apparently unaware that all of the three "users" are the only users in the group who require authorisation for their posts.

(Picture - Sally Bretton Appreciation Group, 10th April 2025 - 59 Members)

Sally Bretton (stage name) was born Sally Davis. Wikipedia has always said that Sally Davis had been born in Hitchin on 23rd April 1980. This seems to be the date that has been taken as gospel ever since. I don't know where it came from in the first place. It never added up for me since, as a Sally aficionado and viewer of the vast majority of everything she has appeared in on screen (tv and film), radio and in the theatre, I knew that in the Screen One Drama "Can you hear me thinking?", in 1990, Sally played and looked the part of a secondary school aged child. That would have made her then, perhaps, 12 or even 13. Already I was of the mind that the actual date of birth was more likely to be mid to late seventies.

 

I started to research with a view to publishing my findings on Wikipedia. This proved to be a thankless task since I came to find that Wiki Admins were not consistent in their approach to what could be published and how it should be referenced. In the end almost everything that I was working on, around Sally's filmography, was removed before I had completed it and I withdrew from Wiki with my tail between my legs.

I have, through the course of my research, come to understand that Sally is a very private person. As I found more and more out, it seemed plain that I was finding out about things that she was, probably, not wanting to share. Her date of birth, her place of birth, her full name, her married name, (the surname of her husband - the photographer named Lee, that had not been publicly revealed in the past). And more.

I had enjoyed researching Sally but I became increasingly uncomfortable with what I knew and saw.

So, as I left Wikipedia, I also ceased to dig any further into Sally's background.

(Picture - Wikipedia, 10th April, 2025 - Very few of my edits remain)

Needless to say that none of my findings have been published. I had reached out to Sally's agent to confess to her, through that route, as to what I had found and how I had found it. Perhaps to see if we could devise a controlled way that some of my findings could be shared.  Some sort of endorsement. But a response was not forthcoming and I have, too, left this alone now.

The "Sally Bretton Appreciation Group" continues to thrive. It has pictures, video clips, audio clips, program trailers, documents and links to other Sally Material on the web. I work hard to keep it fresh with regular updates and I encourage members to enjoy the material, comment, like and even share their own. I was thrilled when, one member, shared picture's of when he actually met Sally.

While Sally continues to produce wonderful performances in all forms, I see no reason for the Group to cease to operate. I and all of our growing list of members enjoy the work that Sally has done and relish the prospect of what is to come. I hope that the membership continues to grow as more and more hear about us through searches, group shares and word of mouth.

The Sally Bretton Appreciation Group is a Private Facebook Group. Find it and request membership at :-

Sally Bretton Appreciation Group

Thanks for reading this blog and for enjoying the group

Sally Admin