Remember when ... Clark and Murray – ‘Mr and Mrs Glasgow’

AS a comedy duo, Gracie Clark and Colin Murray went back a very long way. In 1976 they celebrated their 50th year in the business, having first met at a concert party in Dunbar during the year of the General Strike.

They had become two of the best-known names on the showbiz circuit north of the border, familiar from their appearances at various theatres and also at resorts on the west coast. One of their career highlights came the night they took part in the first Royal Scottish Variety Show at the old Alhambra. Backstage, the Duke of Edinburgh told them: “This audience makes every other audience look like plum puddings.”

Home for many years for the devoted couple was a sunny, fiveroom and kitchen overlooking Kelvingrove Park; now, in 1976, they were living on the Ayrshire coast.

Recalling the first time she ever met Colin – they were initially a piano-and-singer duo before making the switch to comedy – Gracie recalled: “It might sound a bit corny in these so-called sophisticated days, but we fell in love almost at first sight.

“We set up as a double act and wanted to travel the halls, but my mother put her foot down. She didn’t believe in people who weren’t married being a double act and travelling around the country together. It just wasn’t decent, she said.

“However, she did relent to the extent of allowing us to do a double act in Glasgow, where after the shows we could go to our respective, and respectable homes,

“After a time she relented even further, and allowed us to work outside of Glasgow – but she always made sure we had a chaperone”.

By now, the couple had long retired, but offers kept coming their way. They had yet to decide whether to accept. “It’s awfy nice,”, quipped Colin,

“just sitting at home doing nothing”.

Colin died, aged 84, in April 1983; Gracie passed away, aged 90, in an Ayr nursing home in 1995.