My friend Sybil Mitchell, who has died aged 94, was an actor under the stage name Sybil Ewbank, and a member of the theatrical Thorndike family.
Sybil was born in Weymouth, Dorset, but spent her early years in Portsmouth where her father, Commander Maurice Ewbank, was in charge of Royal Navy vocational training. Her mother was Eileen Thorndike, sister of the celebrated actor Dame Sybil Thorndike, and herself both an actor and teacher, who was for some years principal of the Embassy School of Acting in London. Of the four Ewbank children, both Sybil and her sister Elizabeth became actors.
