portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

MUSICAL INTERLUDE : WILSON, KEPPEL & BETTY!

I loved these . . . . . from a child . . . ..  .my maternal Grandfather (a Master Clogger) loved them too and along with learning he had been to see Nosmo King at the Blackpool Hippodrome made him my hero . . . he explained the name to me on a tram on our way to Blackpool and I was mesmerised (I usually was . . . . . He had been in the Royal Horse Artillery during the First World War and loved horses and I recall a vivid early memory of walking the glistening sands with the sun in my eyes when the tide was out to go see the cockle pickers who had a horse drawn truck to put the sacks on and I now realise it was because there was a horse . . . . . . I loved him unconditionally!)

 His routine never varied from his first greeting on his front doorstep whenever we went to see them which when young was often and pretty much every summer, where he would rub my knuckles together in a grip! ( he even tried it on his death bed which raised a tear) Until one year and I had decided to get him back and proudly bowled up to him on his front door aged about 5 or six and blithely greeted him “HELLO, HARRY!”, he nearly collapsed with laughter!


N.B. 
I wonder now looking back whether it was dangerous? I don’t suppose we were that far out but it seemed a considerable distance and the tide was notorious at cutting you off from the mainland and drowning folk, doubtless he knew what he was doing 
. . . . . . still here ain’t I? 😉



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