August 2021 Speaker
It was good to see about 50 members join us for the presentation by Steve Short on ‘The life of Morecambe and Wise’. Steve began by telling us about their early lives, both were born in the mid 1920’s and neither of them were very good at attending school and in their early years both were much more interested in ‘Acting the Clown’ and Singing than school lessons.
Eric was named John Eric Bartholomew and was born in Morecambe and married Joan in 1952 and brought up 3 children. Eric was a keen bird watcher and in 1984 the RSPB bought the 1,100 acre Old Hall Marshes near Tolleshunt D’Arcy helped by donations from the Eric Morecambe Memorial Fund.
Ernie was born in Wexham and he was one of seven children and his surname was Wiseman. Both left school by the time they were 11 or 12 years old. Ernie’s father was a semi-professional entertainer, so Ernie worked with his dad in local Working Men’s Clubs his dad earning about £2-00 a week! In 1939 Ernie auditioned and worked with Jack Hylton.
Eric and Ernie met in 1940 on Arthur Askey’s Band Wagon on radio. They formed a close friendship during the early years of the war and made their debut in August 1941 as Bartholomew and Wise at The Liverpool Empire. Both appeared in theatre comedy until 1943 when Eric became a Bevin Boy down the mines and Ernie joined the Merchant Navy. After the war they met up again and became Morecambe and Wise and appeared in Variety shows, the Circus and Village Shows and once TV evolved they were given contracts with BBC TV and later ITV. Both married in the early 1950s and were best man to each other showing their close relationship.
They appeared in The Royal Variety Performance in Blackpool in 1955 in the presence of The Queen and Prince Philip and in 1966 at The London Palladium when the Queen Mother and Lord Snowdon were present.
Eric and Ernie appeared in the 1960’s and 1970’s on many TV shows with Andre Previn, Angela Rippon, Des O’Connor and Cliff Richard and were awarded a BAFTA in 1971 presented by Princess Anne and the OBE in 1976 and MBE a few years later. Their last TV show was on Boxing Day in 1983 after 40 years performing together.
I am sure Steve’s talk bought back many memories for us from previous years and reminded us of the expertise of these performers with their memory retention of their scripts and also seeing the large number of people involved in the TV productions.