Quote: Billy Bunter @ 27th August 2023, 7:28 PM
As you say, what wonderful photographs - we lost Felixstowe Beach Station a few years ago, which they tried to save, but no they just had to demolish it and now there's just a vacant plot of scrubland. Utter senseless waste of money, and along with it went so many childhood memories for me when arriving at the little station with bucket and spade in hand.
EDIT : Just found this video
Quote: Billy Bunter @ 27th August 2023, 7:28 PMYou might also like this transport-related one then, again from Flanders & Swann. In memory of the railway stations closed by Dr Beeching in 1963. If not the song then certainly the wonderful pictures accompanying it (not that I can take any credit for that - other than finding it).
Lovely find that, thanks! A missed world.
Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 27th August 2023, 11:47 PMAs you say, what wonderful photographs - we lost Felixstowe Beach Station a few years ago, which they tried to save, but no they just had to demolish it and now there's just a vacant plot of scrubland. Utter senseless waste of money, and along with it went so many childhood memories for me when arriving at the little station with bucket and spade in hand.
EDIT : Just found this video
Similar situation to the Swanage Railway in Dorset (of which I am a member). Line closed in 1972 and, despite local opposition, the entire track was dug up and stations boarded up within six months. Then volunteers spent the next 30 years gradually re-opening the line, bit by bit.
Welshman Wyn Calvin MBE, known as "The Clown Prince of Wales", was born on today's date in 1925 (he died on 25 January 2022 aged 96),
He is considered one of the greatest ever pantomime dames, appearing in his first panto in 1947 and going on to perform in 54 pantomimes in total with the Stage newspaper acclaiming him as "the Laurence Olivier of pantomime dames", renowned particularly for his Widow Twankey:
He played "mother" to the likes of Ken Dodd, Roy Hudd and Harry Worth and, when Sir Ian McKellen was booked to play the role in a National Theatre production, he contacted Wyn Calvin for guidance in playing the character. They became great friends.
He was also a veteran comedy performer on variety-bills and Summer Shows in resorts around the country
(including seven in Llandudno and four in Blackpool where he was referred to as "Blackpool's favourite Welsh comedian").
Over the years, he supported charities through organisations such as the Grand Order of Water Rats and the Variety Club of Great Britain and is the only Welshman to be crowned King Rat.
He was one of the founders of the campaign to build the Noah's Ark Children's Hospital for Wales and was vice-president of the British Music Hall Society (deputy to president Paul O'Grady). One of his last appearances, before he died, was in September 2021 at a celebratory lunch put on by the Society to commemorate his 96th birthday and 76 years in showbiz at the Union Jack Club in London.
Here he reminisces very briefly about his career in show business, illustrated with some interesting photos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JITrbqsUoNg .
Gladys Mills (nee Jordan), born 105 years ago yesterday on 29 August 1918 in East London, known as Mrs Mills, was an English pianist who released many records. Her repertoire included many sing-along and party tunes made popular in the music hall, using a stride piano technique. She married Bert Mills in 1947.
While working as the superintendent of a typing pool in the office of the Paymaster General in London, she performed as a honky-tonk pianist in the evenings and weekends and was spotted by a talent scout while playing piano at a dance at the Woodford Golf Club in Essex. In 1961 she released her first record, "Mrs Mills Medley parts 1 & 2" and, at the age of 43, in December 1961, she made her first television appearance on that year's Christmas edition of The Billy Cotton Band Show, reproduced here for posterity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhkYB4kcaLg
By the end of January 1962, she would be a household name, She toured the UK, making many appearances on TV and radio throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Here she appears on the Morecambe & Wise show in 1971:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNVYwRVhJOg&t=21s
She died of a heart attack on 24 February 1978, aged 59.
Vesta Tilley (born Matilda Alice Powles 13 May 1864 - 16 September 1952) was the best-known male impersonator of her era. Her career lasted from 1869 until 1920. Her father was Henry Powles, known as Harry Ball, a musician who became master of ceremonies at the Theatre Royal, Gloucester and later the St George's Hall in Nottingham.. By 1872, he had quit his job to manage Tilley's career full-time and she was supporting the family
As well as being a music hall star, she also found success as a principal boy in pantomime, At the age of 13, she played Robinson Crusoe at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth but became best known for playing Dick Whittington. By the 1890s, Tilley was England's highest earning woman. She was also a star in the vaudeville circuit in the United States, touring a total of six times earning up to $600 per week. In 1890 she married Walter de Frece at Brixton Registry Office - a theatre impresario who became her new manager and songwriter.
By 1912, music hall entertainments had become accepted and a Royal Command Performance was organised. Tilley sang a favourite song, "The Piccadilly Johnny with the Little Glass Eye" wearing trousers as part of her act, which scandalised the attending Queen Mary. During the First World War she was known as "England's greatest recruiting sergeant", singing patriotic songs while dressed in khaki fatigues like a soldier and promoting enlistment drives.
Becoming Lady de Frece in 1919, after her husband was knighted, she decided to retire and made a year-long farewell tour from which all profits went to children's hospitals. Her last performance was in 1920 at the Coliseum Theatre, London. She then supported her husband when he became a Member of Parliament and later retired with him to Monte Carlo. She died in 1952 and is buried at Putney Vale Cemetery next to her husband, who had died in 1935. A black granite memorial marks the spot.
Here are a couple of Edison recordings of Vesta Tilley:
When the Right Girl Comes Along
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEhMzOFjJjs
and I'm Following in Father's Footsteps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXl-WE0HVns
Her life story was commemorated in the 1957 film After the Ball, starring Pat Kirkwood as Vesta and Laurence Harvey as her husband, also with a brief appearance by Ballard Berkeley of Fawlty Towers fame and which shows up on TPTV periodically.
Clapham and Dwyer were the first comedy double act to become famous on British radio. Charlie Clapham (6 January 1894-27 July 1959} was a barrister's clerk working in London, and amateur performer, who turned professional in 1919 after serving in the First World War. He met London-born Bill Dwyer (7 May 1887-11 January 1943), a commercial traveller and semi-professional entertainer, and they began working together at garden parties in 1925. Dwyer was the straight man, and Clapham - with monocle and moustache - was the fool.
They broadcast regularly on the BBC through the 1930s. In 1935, they were banned by BBC radio for several months for broadcasting an improper joke:
"What's the difference between a champagne cork and a baby?"
"A champagne cork has the name of the maker on it."
And in 1946, the chairman of the Board of Governors of the BBC, Lord Inman, objected to another of their jokes:
"When I got into my hotel bedroom last night, I found a lady's nightdress on the bed, and I rang the bell."
"What for - to ask them to take it away?"
"No - to ask them to fill it."
It was as a result of these indiscretions that the BBC produced its Green Book, setting out the subjects, words, phrases and songs that should not be broadcast.
Probably their most famous stage act was the Cockney Alphabet, a humorous phonetic alphabet starting with "A for 'orses" (Hay for Horses) and ending with "Z for Breezes" (Zephyr Breezes). They recorded it on record under the title A Surrealist Alphabet in 1936:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-USI4unQQs
If you can't get quite what they are getting at with some of the letters, an explanation can be found here: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/a_surrealist_alphabet_as_explained_by_two_comedians
They appeared in several films in the 1930s, including the early Will Hay film Radio Parade Of 1935 and the the 1937 musical revue film Sing As You Swing which uses their being banned from a broadcasting organisation as a running gag.
A post-Sunday lunch treat - the only available film of Flanders & Swann performing At the Drop of Another Hat in front of a New York audience in 1967 - as I relax in my favourite armchair. What you might call a tranquillity of delight.
Interesting portion about changing to metric and decimal currency, the building of the Channel Tunnel and the Common Market.
Quote: Billy Bunter @ 25th August 2023, 7:41 PMSir George Robey (born George Edward Wade 20 Sept 1869) was known as "the prime minister of mirth."
He was the only reason I watched Southern Roses (1936) recently on TPTV, and this little round man was nothing like his famous image you have shown.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028289/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_10_act
Wasn't a bad film either, with another of the stalwarts of British cinema, Athene Seyler in it, whose name you might not be familiar with, but her face you would certainly recognise.
Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 3rd September 2023, 4:22 PManother of the stalwarts of British cinema, Athene Seyler in it, whose name you might not be familiar with, but her face you would certainly recognise.
Yes, I see from IMDB she's been in quite a few films that I have encountered over the years: Nurse on Wheels, A French Mistress, Make Mine Mink, Happy is the Bride... ...
And two episodes of Compact!
The recent death of Mohamed Al-Fayed, one time owner of Fulham Football Club, brought to mind someone else very much associated with that club in an altogether different era - one Tommy Trinder
director of the club from 1948 and Chairman from 1959 to 1976, overseeing the career of their most famous player, Johnny Haynes - who he made the first £100 a week footballer when the maximum wage restrictions were lifted.
Trinder was a film, stage, radio and, latterly, TV star. He was Bruce Forsyth's predecessor as host of Sunday Night At The London Palladium. Jokes about Fulham football club were a regular feature of Trinder's act and his popular catchphrase was "you lucky people".
He appeared in the 1944 Ealing Studios film Champagne Charlie alongside Stanley Holloway, based on the rivalry between the popular music hall performers George Leybourne (played by Trinder), who was known as "Champagne Charlie" because he was the first artist to perform the song of that title, and Alfred Vance (Holloway), who was known as "The Great Vance".
Here he sings the song Champagne Charlie from the film {in audio only - although a DVD of the film is available, which I've just purchased from Music Magpie), a song he went on to perform several times on BBC's The Good Old Days: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cdz4Y7KPuQ
One of the early British comedians I could never take a liking to - I don't know why, but he just gets up my nose.
Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 3rd September 2023, 4:22 PM...........................with another of the stalwarts of British cinema, Athene Seyler in it, whose name you might not be familiar with, but her face you would certainly recognise.
Here she is in her young days.................
............one of those faces that turns up on a regular basis as either a rich spinster aunt or nosey neighbour or interfering busybody etc. etc., and here she is on a Carry-On blog with Terry-Thomas and Kenneth Williams
http://carryonfan.blogspot.com/2018/02/carry-on-faces-in-different-places-make.html
Oh yes, I certainly know the face. I see she played the Kathleen Harrison role in the 1935 film of Scrooge. Not sure I've ever seen that version though.
Born this day in1909 in Ukraine: Boris Winogradsky aka Bernard Delfont (Baron Delfont of Stepney) who started out as a dancer on the music halls and ended up as one of the most powerful producers and impresarios in the world. He was brother to agent, impresario and producer, Lew Grade (pictured with Delfont above}, often satirised in Morecambe & Wise sketches, who also started out as a dancer.
Here he talks about his life (including turning down management of the Beatles) in an episode of Desert Island Discs from 10 November 1991: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0093ypn