Author
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Topic: George Formby Society
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Maurice Leakey
Film God
Posts: 5895
From: Bristol. United Kingdom
Registered: Oct 2007
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posted September 01, 2013 11:14 AM
The recent appearance of Lee on a programme with George Formby material reminded my of an incident of about 12 years ago. I had found a VHS copy of "Ukulele Man" at a car-boot sale. On the back were details of the George Formby Society with the name of a member/officer(?) of the Society and a mention of other tapes and material for sale.
So I 'phoned, I think it was Stan Evans, who sent me long lists of available material. I spoke to him a week or so later for a chat and he mentioned that a lot of the tape material had been taken off 16mm film. My ears pricked up. I asked if they still had the 16mm material, and if so, would it be for sale.
The result was that my offer was accepted and I went up to Warrington to collect it all, including a BTH 301. I was entertained to some of George's songs and saw his various ukulele-banjos, each one tuned to a different key, the songs which were in that key were hand written on the vellum. It saved retuning and George was able to change instruments in a moment for a new song.
I came away with a lot of 16mm films, including a feature and a half-hour documentary gleaned from early Formby films. There was a 10 minute unedited sound/silent Pathe newsreel of George fooling about with the Army in France in 1940, and an interesting short from 1948 called "George and Beryl at the Speedway", other items included George and Professor Joad (of the BBC Brains Trust) judging a Bathing Beauty Contest at Morecombe in September 1946. Oh, yes. Not forgetting George singing "Fanlight Fanny" from "Trouble Brewing".
-------------------- Maurice
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