Life and Music of Black Anna

Well and truly steering the helm at The Jolly Butchers pub in Ber Street, Norwich is Antoinette Hannent better known as 'Black Anna'.

Anglia TV News profiled this landlady and jazz aficionado - so-named 'Black' Anna, due to her habitual wearing of the colour. Always the main attraction, this landlady and jazz singer is adored by her regulars who gather at the pub in their droves to witness a consummate performance from this vivacious character.

Despite being close to seventy years of age, Black Anna belts out with great gusto, typically early jazz numbers with that familiar gravelly voice. A favourite amongst US airmen during WWII, the pub later became a popular haunt for student regulars who loved her infectious enthusiasm for a song as everyone gets stuck in. The film was shot just three years before her death in 1976, after which the pub closed, probably never to retain the same atmosphere that this famed woman of Norwich bestowed upon it.