Commemorating Comedians in Caerphilly, Morecambe and Ulverston

Three Towns Commemorate their Favourite Sons

Tommy Cooper, Caerphilly, South Wales

County Borough of Caerphilly

When we visited in April 2009, Caerphilly looked a dismal town; shops were boarded up, paint was peeling, windows needed cleaning – those that were not broken – and many of the people look pale and unwell. It gives me no pleasure to write this; I may be a long exiled Welshman, but both sides of my family come from South Wales, as do Lynne’s (her mother actually attended Caerphilly Grammar School), and it remains a part of my somewhat complex concept of ‘home’. There are still many pleasant and prosperous places in the region, but I fear that Caerphilly is typical of too many towns struggling to adjust to the post-industrial world.

The centre is dominated by one of Britain’s largest Norman castles. This should be a tourist attraction, and maybe it is, but on a dank April day the castle looked as dark and forbidding as Gilbert de Clare (see also Llantrisant and Castell Coch) could have hoped for when he began work in 1268.

Parc Dafydd Williams, Caerphilly

On the plus side, there is a pleasant garden which the town kindly chose to name after me (all right, it’s some other bloke with the same name, but it could have been). Nearby is a statue of Caerphilly’s favourite son.

Tommy Cooper was born in Caerphilly in 1921, though the family moved to Devon when he was three. His connection with the town is slim, but Caerphilly needs all the straws it can clutch. The statue, the work of James Done, was unveiled by Sir Anthony Hopkins in 2008.

Tommy Cooper and Caerphilly Castle

For those too young to remember, Tommy Cooper was a magician. Tall and ungainly with a fez stuck on his permanently dishevelled head, he looked nothing like the standard magician – and his tricks went wrong. From this simple premise he extracted humour which was sometimes simple, sometimes complex but always hilarious. An innately funny man, he could make an audience laugh by standing silent and motionless on stage, he was also a competent magician. Occasionally his tricks went right, just to keep everybody off balance.

He died on stage during a live televised show in 1984. At first, both the audience and stage crew thought the collapse was part of his act. Sadly it was not. A one-off and a true original, he died far too young.

Eric Morecambe, Morecambe, Lancashire

Lancashire

Morecambe

I have written about Morecambe Bay before (Morecambe Bay and Sunderland Point) but not about the town. A station and harbour were built beside the bay in 1846 and the town that grew up around them and absorbed the fishing village of Poulton-le-Sands eventually adopted the name of the bay. For a time Morecambe thrived, the railway bringing tens of thousands of holiday-makers each year, mainly from Yorkshire and southern Scotland.

In 2013, however, marketing Morecambe as a seaside resort seems a job for a hopeless optimist. With a beach of imported sand, and sea that only visits for a couple of hours a day, the cool, damp climate is the least of its disadvantages. Yet people still come here. The hinterland of north Lancashire and southern Cumbria is countryside of rare beauty, but surely it is only those who know no better - or can afford no better - that take a seaside holiday in Morecambe. Maybe Morecambe has its charms, if so I have missed them – I would be happy if anyone enlightened me.

The sea front at Morecambe

While the town took its name from the bay, Eric Morecambe took his name from the town where he was born in 1926. John Eric Bartholomew, as he was then, met Ernest Wiseman in 1940 and the double act of Bartholomew and Wiseman was born. Separated for a while by national service, they reunited, changed their names to Morecambe and Wise and the rest is history.

The Morecambe and Wise show was a Saturday prime time fixture for well over a decade and the Christmas special was compulsory viewing. With a script that was not actually replete with jokes, Eric’s clowning and ad-libbing regularly reduced my mother to a quivering heap. The quality of guests was legendary, serious actors, like Judi Dench and Glenda Jackson, serious musicians, like André Previn, and serious politicians, like Harold Wilson, queued up to be the butt of their jokes.

Eric died in 1984, the month after Tommy Cooper. Like Cooper he died of a heart attack, but unlike Cooper he managed to finish his show before collapsing backstage.

A statue of Eric Morecambe by sculptor Graham Ibbeson has pride of place on the town’s sea front. Before the Olympics the Queen did not do guests spots on other people’s shows, but she did came to Morecambe to unveil Eric’s statue in 1999.

Eric Morecambe on the Morecambe Sea Front

Eric and Ernie brought the double act to such a pitch of perfection they effectively killed it. Humour does not always cross the generations, but my mother was one of his greatest fans and my daughter can sometimes be heard quoting him, though she was only three when he died.

Stan Laurel, Ulverston, Cumbria

Cumbria

Traditionally a detached part of Lancashire, but since 1972 officially Cumbria, the Furness peninsula is a strange sort of place. Travelling south, the Lake District hills flatten out into land scarred by ancient glacial activity, riven by broad sandy estuaries and fringed by desolate salt marshes. The unlovely industrial town of Barrow lies at the tip of the peninsula while at the base is the small, neat market town of Ulverston.

County Square is hardly the focal point of the cluster of handsome old buildings that make up central Ulverston, but it does seem to be considered the town centre.

County Square, Ulverston

Stan Laurel was born Stanley Arthur Jefferson in Ulverston in 1886. He came from a theatrical family, went into the business straight from school and joined Fred Karno’s troupe in 1910. In 1912 he toured America with the troupe (which also included Charlie Chaplin) and decided to stay. He was already a well-established actor and film director when he started working with Oliver Hardy in the late 1920s.

The statue of Stan and Ollie that stands outside Coronation Hall is, like that of Eric Morecambe, by Graham Ibbeson. It was unveiled by Ken Dodd in 2009.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy outside Coronation Hall, Ulverston

Ulverston also has a Laurel and Hardy museum, but it was closed for ‘major refurbishment’ when we visited – what did we expect on a cold wet January morning? Laurel and Hardy were no doubt funny in their day, but I doubt modern audiences find much to laugh at. That said, they were innovators in their field, they were the first major double act in film history, and they were successful in both silent and talking pictures, so they must have had something.

My mother met them when they were touring Britain in the late 1940s. They came to the Ideal Home exhibition and visited the stand where she was demonstrating cookery techniques. Her verdict: ‘a pair of silly old fools.’

Francis Crane M.B.E.

CONGRATULATIONS

 

Extract from this morning’s New Year’s Honours List

M.B.E.

Doctor Francis Gibbs Crane. Head of Geography and Duke of Edinburgh's Co-ordinator, Stafford Grammar School. For services to Education.

You could have knocked me down with a feather – I never knew his middle name was Gibbs!



Francis Crane M.B.E. lunches at the Ship Inn, Danebridge

 

Francis is the originator and organiser of most of the walks posted on this blog; he is also the map reader who is never wrong. Above is a picture of Francis in the pub (not exactly alien territory) as it is one of the few I have of his face. I have, though, hundreds of pictures of his back as I plod along behind struggling to keep up.



Francis, rear elevation

 

Francis and I both arrived at Stafford Grammar School in August 1989. I have retired, he is still there. I do not know if he introduced the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme in the school, but he is entirely responsible for the huge success it has become. SGS is one of the smallest schools in the Stafford area but regularly gains the highest number of gold awards - in some years as many as all the other schools combined. Enrolment for the bronze award in Year 9 is entirely voluntary, though it is never far off 100%.
 


Francis turns left - well he is a Guardian reader

The time Francis has devoted to the scheme is mind-boggling. From the endless but ever efficient organisation, through the pre-expedition checks, six or more weekends every year for the expeditions themselves and countless hours chasing up unreturned tents and incomplete record books. And he gets to camp out in the Peak District in March. The reward for all this? The satisfaction of a job well done, the knowledge that hundreds (maybe thousands) of youngsters have had experiences and opportunities they would not otherwise have had, and the chance to drive into a cow in a Dartmoor fog. And that was all – until today.



Francis on Bredon Hill

 
Congratulations Francis, a well-deserved honour.  You now, though, lose the title of Unsung Hero – you just got sung.

 

Cannock Chase in Torrential Rain: The (N + 2)th Annual Fish and Chip Walk

The British climate can be described in two words – temperate maritime – the weather, though, is an entirely different matter. After the extraordinary cold of the Nth Chip Walk , and last year’s milder experience, this year’s Chip Walk was dominated by rain. And it was not just the day of the walk, the whole of the preceding week had seen persistent heavy rain.

Whenever I hear reports of flooding I comfort myself with the smug thought that I live on the top of a hill. This year I have been forced into a rethink; living on a hill, I have learnt, is a small step from living on an island. I have had to choose my routes from Swynnerton based on which roads are still above water.

To reach Cannock Chase, I detoured through Eccleshall, where the River Sow was still flowing under the bridge – if only just. In Stafford I crossed the little River Penk which had spread right across its flood plain, incorporated the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, and was doing its best to imitate the Nile (if the Trent can look like the Dordogne…..)

Staffordshire’s soil is largely clay – hence the pottery industry – but Cannock Chase is a pile of sandstone pebbles 100m high, so if anywhere is suitable for a walk on such a day at the end of such a week this is it.

The popularity of a wet day’s walking on the Chase can be seen from the photograph, but I eventually found a space in the Punch Bowl car park.



Here's my car squeezed into the last free space in the Punch Bowl car park

Lee and Francis arrived shortly afterwards. The Chip Walk was down to three people, which was how it started fifteen or more years ago. As we struggled into waterproof jackets and over-trousers we mused on the weakness of the others, though to be fair the shortage of walkers was more due to family commitments than fear of the weather, and I was the one who had been on the phone an hour before to see if anybody else wanted to cancel. ‘It’ll be the only exercise any of us will get over Christmas,’ Francis had said, and I found that a powerful argument.

We set off up the slope and turned left round Hart’s Hill to join the Sherbrook. Looking on the bright side, as one is apt to do after voluntarily setting off for a walk during a downpour, there was little wind so the rain was falling vertically rather than being blown into our faces.



Around Hart's Hill

We reached the stepping stones which were, I was surprised to see, still not submerged. I took the customary picture. It is not that I actually want anybody to slip and topple into the icy water, but if they did and I was standing there with camera raised, well….. Half way across Francis stopped. Lee did not walk into his back, though for a moment I thought he might. Francis turned round. ‘We’re not crossing the stepping stones, I only came here for the picture.’



Just for the picture

We continued up the Sherbrook Valley. What would normally have been a gentle uphill plod became an upstream walk as the Sherbrook (version 2.0) was flowing down the stony path.




The Sher Brook (version 2.0)

After 3½ Km we turned right to splash up the path that climbs out of the valley up to the Katyn Memorial.



Splashing up towards the Katyn Memorila

In places the water on this path was even deeper and flowed even faster.



Looking back 'downstream' into the Sherbrook Valley

According to the map there is no pond at the top of the hill, but I lacked the heart to explain it to the happily paddling mallard.



There is no pond here

We passed the memorial (for more information see Chip Walk(N + 1).)



The Katyn memorial, Cannock Chase

On the far side of the nearby road is the Springslade Lodge Café and after walking for an hour and a half it seemed reasonable to spend a short time under cover. We removed our outer clothing, sat in the warm, dry café drinking coffee and watching the rain splash down outside.

I was comfortable where we were, but lunch, and the fish and chips which lie at the heart of any Chip Walk, was an hour away, so we had to brace ourselves, replace our still damp outer garments and venture into the rain.

Lunch since Chip Walk 1 (nobody is quite sure when that was but I am confident that 10 < N < 20) has been at the Swan with Two Necks in Longdon. It once had pretentions to be a gastropub and produced exceptional fish and chips but has changed hands several times over the years and the food has usually been satisfactory rather than outstanding. This year, like so many other country pubs, the Swan with Two Necks closed. Consequently we were heading for the Chetwynd Arms near Brocton, a thriving pub beside a main road.

We headed out over Anson’s Bank......



Over Anson's Bank

.....and past Chase Road Corner, another popular car parking spot with hardly a vehicle in it, and turned left to descend the Oldacre Valley.



Into the Oldacre Valley

There is more top soil here, so it was distinctly squelchy underfoot as we splashed down towards Brocton Pool. ‘This has been a dry valley since the ice age,’ Francis remarked. I presume this was some technical geography teacher’s use of the word ‘dry’, it certainly had bugger all to do with the valley I was standing in.



The Oldacre Valley has been a dry valley since the ice age!

I am not sure what route we took round Brocton Pool, I never saw it, but we emerged on the minor road that leads to the A34 and the Chetwynd Arms.

This Chetwynd Arms is not to be confused with the Chetwynd Arms in Upper Longdon (which features in Cannock Chase: not for the first time) – and Upper Longdon should not be confused with Longdon, home of the defunct Swan with Two Necks!



The Chetwynd Arms, near Brocton

The fish and chips were satisfactory, if hardly memorable, but were pleasingly inexpensive (though ‘two meals for the price of one’ is not best exploited by three people eating together). The staff were friendly and efficient and it is clearly a well run business, even if it lacks the personal touch of an old fashioned village pub.



So its a Chip Walk.
Fish and Chips are compulsory (yes, Sue, that means you)

Leaving the pub we found that the rain had eased. We crossed the A34 and followed a narrow path round the back of some houses that leads, by way of a horse paddock and a playground, to the centre of Brocton village. We would rather have lunched in the pub on Brocton village green, but there isn’t one; the clichés of the English countryside sometimes let you down.



Brocton Village Green - a space crying out for a pub

We returned to the Chase, climbing up the Mere Valley...



Up the Mere Valley

....to the tautologously named Mere Pool.



Lee passes the Mere Pool

From there it was a simple path round Hart’s Hill back to the Punch Bowl and the end of a short but relatively dry afternoon. Overall it may have been the shortest Chip Walk ever, but, despite the deeply unpleasant conditions we got out there and we did it, and I am glad we did. Tradition has been maintained.

The Annual Fish and Chip Walks

The Nth: Cannock Chase in Snow and Ice (Dec 2010)
The (N + 1)th: Cannock Chase a Little Warmer (Dec 2011)
The (N + 2)th: Cannock Chase in Torrential Rain (Dec 2012)
The (N + 3)th: Cannock Chase in Winter Sunshine (Jan 2014)
The (N + 4)th: Cannock Chase Through Fresh Eyes (Dec 2014)
The (N + 5)th: Cannock Case, Dismal, Dismal, Dismal (Dec 2015)
The (N + 6)th: Cannock Chase Mild and Dry - So Much Better (Dec 2016)
The (N + 7)th: Cannock Chase, Venturing Further East (Jan 2018)
The (N + 8)th: Cannock Chase, Wind and Rain (Dec 2018)
The (N + 9)th: Cannock Chase, Freda's Grave at Last (Dec 2019)
The (N + 10)th: Cannock Chase in the Time of Covid (Dec 2020)
The (N + 11)th: Cannock Chase, Tussocks(Dec 2021)
Dec 2020 - no walk
The (N + 12)th: Cannock Chase, Shifting Tectonic Plates (Dec 2023)