My first visit to the Hippodrome was one I would never forget
THE December 26 edition of the The Bugle, number 1374, featured a front cover photograph of young local children going to see the pantomime production of Humpty Dumpty, which was staged at Dudley Hippodrome in 1954. I was there!
I remember it well as it was my first visit to the Hippodrome and also the first pantomime that I had seen, it being a Christmas present from my Aunty Elsie (Jones) who accompanied this then-twelve year old boy.
The stars, Eve Boswell, Tommy Cooper and Derek Roy, meant little to me at that time. However from then on any time that one of the three appeared on the ‘wireless’ (TV was a further six years in the future as far as the Church family was concerned) my ears pricked up, as having seen them perform live it somehow created an affinity with them.
Often I would duet with Eve Boswell as she sang ‘Sugar Rush’, ‘Young and Foolish’ or ‘Bewitched’.
Derek Roy did not create such an impression on me as Tommy Cooper, who I continued to find extremely funny for the next thirty years until his untimely death in 1984. Happily I had been able to take the opportunity to see him perform on stage on another three occasions as well laugh at his zany humour on his many television appearances.
Autograph
I did not see Eve Boswell again but I came away from the Hippodrome clutching a signed photograph which has been pasted in my autograph book for the last sixty-four years.
Neither did I see another variety show at the Hippodrome although at the latter end of the 1950s, together with my life-long friend, Bob Drake, I was a regular attender at the Wrestling Promotions which were a monthly Friday evening attraction.
Naive as we were we saw the bouts as sport, not realising that the bouts were most probably fixed. How we enjoyed the regular grapplers including the masked Count Bartelli, Francis St Clair Gregory, Judo Al Hayes, Les Kellett, Mick Mcmanus, Mike Marino, Jackie Pallo, Ernie Riley and Tibor Szazaks.
The referees were either Stan Rylands or ‘Chopper’ Conroy with the latter also on occasions appearing as a contestant. With bouts decided by the best of three falls or one submission the audience always joined as one with the wrestler who was pressing for a submission, with the plea to Stan Rylands to “Ask him Stan!”
Surprisingly many years later my parents enjoyed their Saturday afternoons in front of the TV watching the self-same wrestlers on ITV’S World of Sport programme presented by Kent Walton.
Amusingly Mom and Dad also enjoyed watching the snooker programme, ‘Pot Black’ on their black and white set, but that’s a story for another time!