A 99-year-old actor has threatened to “chain myself to the grounds” of the All England Club if controversial plans to build 39 new tennis courts at Wimbledon are approved on Friday. Thelma Ruby, who has appeared with Orson Welles and Judi Dench on stage and lives in a flat overlooking the club, said she was determined to take a stand on environmental grounds. Asked whether she was worried about being arrested, Ruby replied: “No, I’m 99.
Let them arrest me.” Speaking at a packed public meeting organised by Save Wimbledon Park, Ruby said that she had been unpersuaded by someone from the “tennis courts” who had tried to change her mind. “I said: ‘What’s going to happen?’” she explained.
“He said: ‘Oh, all the trees will be cut down, and there will be eight tennis courts between you and the lake and it’ll take years to build.’ “This beautiful view I get when I look out of my window is not only going to be a building site, but there are going to be polluting lorries passing my window every 10 minutes. And we know, in this day and age, how important trees are.
I look several times a day out of the window and enjoy my view. And it gives me strength to carry on.” The All England Club has argued that it needs a third 8,000-seat show court on the grounds of the old Wimbledon Park golf club, as well as 38 other grass courts that would be used for qualifying and practice, to ensure Wimbledon remains the world’s pre-eminent tennis tournament.
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