By George, song was ‘too blue’ for Formby...
Jack Evans
GEORGE Formby complained to musicians that their songs included “too much sex stuff” in a letter due to go under the hammer this month.
Two banjo ukuleles plus a life-size model of George – whose When I’m Cleaning Windows BBC bosses branded “smutty” – could fetch £30,000 as part of the biggest auction since his death in 1961.
The star’s personal scrapbook and previously unseen family photographs will be offered too.
In the letter to songwriters Harry Gifford and Fred Cliffe on July 12, 1936, George wrote: “Dear lads, Very many thanks for your song but I am very sorry to have to send it back to you as it is really too blue, you are getting too much on the sex stuff, try and clean it up a bit.”
One of the ukuleles, set to go for £15,000, was played in the 1935 film Off The Dole and even has rub marks caused by his buttons. Jim Spencer, of Hansons Auctioneers, said: “It celebrates the life of one of
Britain’s most famous 20th century stars. In his heyday, Formby was the UK’s highest paid entertainer.”
The life-size model is set to fetch £300 while his personal scrapbook he wrote on tour in Australia in 1947 has a guide price of up to £1,500.
Also on sale at the auction on Thursday, in which bids can be accepted online, will be photos of him relaxing with his wife Beryl on a cruise. Another item is the Wigan-born star’s Book of Common Prayer in which he wrote “Yours in faith, George Formby, 1941”.
Mr Spencer added: “When I collected the objects, I had no space left for the life-size figure of George.
“I had a drive back with other motorists thinking I had a pretend twin brother keeping me company.”