Morecambe & Wise & Friends

Fellow blogger and wife, Dunstabelle, and I, are planning a short break to Bournemouth, a town that I have been visiting since the early 1960s, when various relations on my mothers side decided to retire down there. A trip to the theatre was always undertaken, that in 1966 taking us to see Morecambe & Wise at the Winter Gardens. Of the performers that season, only singer Susan Maughan appears to be still with us. Whist I do remember bits of the show some forty-seven years later, particularly ventriloquist Arthur Worsley, I sadly have no recollection of "Marvo (The World's Greatest Illusionist), assisted by Dolores (The Sex Symbol)!"

Although others appearing in the town that summer included Harry Worth and Frankie Vaughan, I suspect that Morecambe & Wise were a natural choice for us (good clean fun), although Ivor Emmanuel would have clinched it for my mother.

Here are a few pages from the programme;

Farewell Max

With the sad news today of the death of comedian and entertainer, Max Bygraves, I have looked out this programme of his show at the Bournemouth Winter Gardens Theatre for 1970.

His supporting acts on this occasion were comic Tony Cawley and juggler Ric Benny, with music provided by The Selmas, none of whom I have heard of before or since. I suspect that we chose to see Max on our 1970 visit (rather than Jimmy Tarbuck or Harry Corbett & Sooty, who were also in town that summer), because of Auntie Mu, who was a fan of his. Sadly he blotted his copybook with her by swearing on stage (the word bloody was heard) and I don't think she ever forgave him.........

Welcome to Bournemouth

These two illustrations provided the frontispiece to official guides to Bournemouth published in 1935 and 1965. The top view was entitled Bathing from the Pier, and appears to be a of a smaller area especially built lower down for that activity. One-piece swimsuits are certainly the fashion!

The lower view is, well, self explanatory. I'm not sure whether as a nine year-old, I would have been interested in the girls on the beach, although I certainly appreciated singer Susan Maughan when she appeared with Morcambe & Wise at the Winter Gardens Theatre the following summer! My 1965 holiday would have included riding on the yellow Corporation trolleybuses and serious train-watching, as most services through Bournemouth then were still steam-hauled. An evening treat would be a drive through the town's illuminations in Uncle Billy's Ford Consul. Now, where's my time machine.........

The sobering thought is that the carefree group from 1935 have probably all died and that the game gals from 1965 are all now pensioners!