Returns of up to 17 per cent on investments produced £56,000 in interest in the 1980 financial year. The result has been that instead of having to commit every penny to the building project the society still has a substantial reserve in hand after paying out around £320,000 to rebuild the old church hall and equip the new theatre.
The story of the Nonentities' progress to financial independence beyond the hopes of most amateur theatre groups began in 1966, when the former Kiddermi nster Corporation decided that the route of the town's ringroad would go through the Playhouse site on Comberton Hill.
At the public inquiry into the project Kenneth Rose made clear that the Society would not oppose it, providing the compensation would pay for a new theatre to replace the 63 year old Playhouse.
But that was not to be. The Corporation claimed that its obligation did not go beyond paying for the value of the site, assessed at £16,000.
Kenneth Rose saw that as a breach of an undertaking and challenged the authority to go to law to settle a point that had never been decided in the long history of compulsory purchase for redevelopment work.
He argued that if a council needed to demolish a school or a hospital there would be no argument about paying what the lawyers called full reinstatement value, that is the whole cost of the replacement.
Why should a theatre which was in full use and had a future before it be treated any differently, he asked.
The issue fell to be settled by a Lands Tribunal, sitting in London in April 1970. The hearing lasted a week, with Queen's Counsel on both sides, and involved the most thorough inquiry into compensation law up to that time.
By then the Playhouse had been demolished and the road-builders were at work on the site.
The outcome of the hearing was an unqualified victory for Kenneth Rose's interpretation of the law. The Tribunal ruled that the Nonentities were entitled to compensation for everything they had lost and fixed the figure, at the values of the time, at £167,500.
There was no appeal against the finding, because of an arrangement about the cost of the roadworks which was very much to the Society's advantage. The bulk of the cost fell on national and county funds and Kidderminster Corporation had to find only one-tenth from its rates. The decision made no practical difference to its position and it was content to let the matter rest.
With cash in hand, the Society had established its base at Broadwaters and had paid about £10,000 for the old St. Oswald's Hall. Now the way was open for a more ambitious enterprise. The story of The Rose Trust is told on another page but the important continuing thread is the accumulation of investment interest over all the frustrating years until the Trust finally gave best to inflation and wound up earlier this year.
The income increased, in the way compound interest does, year by year and by the end of 1980 treasurer John Gaston was able to report to the Society that its assets had topped £400,000, all but the value of the Broadwaters building in cash on deposit.
The rates available on the market meant that the capital was holding its own with inflation, a rare achievement for the time. That accident of history has enabled the Society to set up The Rose without having to cut corners.
Its audiences can be thankful for the faith which led Kenneth Rose to
disregard Charles Dickens's advice and to go to law to make his point.