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Elsewhere
on this site you
can find the story AERIAL ANTICS which
featured an
incident
with Laurel and Hardy, during their stay in Northampton, when a workman
was
repairing a lamp outside their hotel window. This time around we find
Stan
and Babe on good old terra-cotta, with two photos taken during
a promotion
for "Road Safety Week." The story behind these goes briefly like
this:
Week
commencing 19th
October 1953, Laurel and
Hardy were booked for a week's engagement at the New Theatre,
Northampton. After the Monday morning rehearsals, their schedule was
interrupted
when P.C. Spiller, of the Northamptonshire Constabulary, enticed them
outside
into Abington Street to pose for the photograph, below. In it, we see
Stan
with a group of schoolchildren standing by a zebra-crossing, and a
rather
portly warden, Ollie, holding a huge rectangular sign (a prototype
"lollipop"),
and directing them across. Maybe because Hardy was the first to
demonstrate
it, it was named after him - "l'olliepop."
My Boy Lollipop
Oliver
Hardy escorts Stan
Laurel and pupils from Notre Dame School across Abingdon
Street.
(Marriot
Collection)
The
'lollipop' photo has been published
before
but, to our knowledge, the photograph of the next piece of the
promotion
has not. For parked right next to the zebra-crossing (you can see the
Belisha
Beacon) was a 1902 Wolsey car, in and around which Stan and Babe
performed
some comedy antics, but with a serious message.
Ollie
telling Stan where
to park the car, ready
for him to elope with his sweetheart, Dulcy.
(Marriot Collection)
For
many years it was believed that film
footage
existed of these two sequences, but this was subsequently disproved
when
I spoke to P.C. Spiller, the organiser of the whole event. The good
news,
is that the car in the photo does still exist. If you wish to see it,
you'll
find it in the car showroom of W. Grose Ltd. Queen's Park Parade,
Northampton.
(Article Copyright 'A.J' Marriot. First printed in The Laurel & Hardy Magazine 2003) To find the even BIGGER story
behind
Laurel
and Hardy in Northampton, To purchase copies, click on the LULU icon banner: |
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