Celebrate inimitable Stan Laurel in the Lakes
SINCE appearing in their first film together in 1921, the slapstick duo Laurel and hardy, have been making the world chuckle.
Some will remember them as door-todoor Christmas tree salesmen in Big Business, others for their side-splitting dance sequence in Way Out West.
And who can forget hardy’s catchphrase: ‘Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.’
this year marks 125 years since the birthh of Stan Laurel and 50 since his death and I have come to Ulverston, best known as a jumping-off point en route to the western Lake District, and also where the comedian was born and grew up.
the Laurel and hardy Museum in Ulverston has a vast collection of memorabilia, figurines, letters and photos of the duo. Stan Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in his grandparents’ cottage on June 16, 1890. he lived here as a tot while his parents were away working in the theatre; his father was a manager, his mother an actress. As a young adult, he often returned to Ulverston for holidays.
It is still a popular spot, with its footpaths along the canal and a lighthouse monument dedicated to the 18th-century naval explorer Sir John Barrow.
On June 20, Another Fine Fest, a festival of music, comedy and street theatre, will celebrate the town and the anniversary of Stan’s birth. the scene, like Market Street, where Laurel used to go shopping with his grandmother, has changed little. Overlooked by an 1845 clock tower, the cobbled avenue is lined with independent shops. One of these is the family-run grocer and tearoom Gillam’s, where a young Laurel bought Beer’s treacle toffee, made two streets away.
Doug Gillam runs the store, set up by his great-great-grandfather in 1892, and still uses the original brass scales to weigh out coffee and loose-leaf tea.
An old delivery bike is parked outside. ‘Some of my customers who are now in their 70s used to be delivery boys,’ says Doug.
My pockets full of toffees, I leave Ulverston, pondering the merits of a very fine laugh.