Do Brits remember George Formby?

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Jul 16 - 05:43 PM

Of all people to introduce one to George Formby:
I first learned of him by reading about a visit to a dog racetrack -- by vet James Herriot, to treat a few greyhounds.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 24 Jul 16 - 04:16 PM

Back in 2011 I posted a question and list of George Formby's films.
At that time FEATHER YOUR NEST was unavailable in a legitimate DVD
release.
I've just learned that the film is now available in the
series EALING STUDIOS RARITIES COLLECTION, Vol.14. released in 2014.
This DVD contains the following films:
LONELY ROAD (1936)
THE SIGN OF FOUR (1932)
THE WATER GIPSIES (1932)
FEATHER YOUR NEST (1937)

Best wishes, Thomas.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 05:14 PM

Ukulele Ike was one of the first to do Gershwin songs like "Fascinatin' Rhythm" where he could imitate an early jazz trumpet in his scat singing. One of his classics was the song "If I Had You".

There might be some connection between the styles of Formby and Edwards.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 10:05 AM

yes and yes - probably (above and OP)

All pop music has these similarities - it is a feature of "wot wurks, wot sells", and don't forget the song "Mr Woo's a Window Cleaner Now"
Is that cashing-in on an old success or what?

cf Neil Sedaka in his Calendar Girl day.

In the book "How to be a Succesful Songwriter" the one common bit of advice from many well-known and respected pop composers (inc Sedaka) was to: "Take a song, write new lyrics, then write a new tune to that"

I think the word is "derivative" but in the throw-away mental wallpaper that is "popular consumption", derivative is easy money all too often.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Sanjay Sircar
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 09:51 PM

If "Mr Woo's a Window Cleaner" was 1940 (?), and "On the Bar on the Piccola Marina" is 1954 (?), is the musical resemblance between the main line of the first and the choris of the second (Uncle Harry's not a missionary now") just in my head, or is it actually there?

Sanjay Sircar

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Jan 13 - 04:38 AM

Brits!!!
Isn't that racial stereotyping? LOL

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Feb 12 - 03:23 PM

Jerry Myer. Kids were definitely more literate in those days. Its like something from Ulysses - Rose of Castille - rows of cast steel

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: alanabit
Date: 17 Feb 12 - 02:23 PM

There is a story of him being invited to sing personally for the royal family. Apparently at Queen Mary's request, he reinstated a couple of verses of "The Window Cleaner", which had been censored by the BBC for being too risqué!

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 17 Feb 12 - 02:11 PM

It's rumoured that Queen Mary adored his songs, especially the Windowcleaner. She knew all the words.
My parents loathed George, I could never discover why, but I suspect he represented 'Oop North' and they thought 'Dahn Sahf' was infinitely superior! I've always loved his songs, and have several CD's of them.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 17 Feb 12 - 12:42 PM

Jerry Myer? = very lavish!

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Joe Nicholson
Date: 17 Feb 12 - 11:09 AM

As a child in the 30-s and 40-s I loved George Formby. I learned and could sing all his songs, I even had a toy Ukulele from Woolworths (altough I could not get a tune out of it). But then when I was sixteen in 1948 I saw him live at Leeds Empire and a was shocked to realise just how bad his stage act was. It did nothing for me at all or was it just that going of George was just part of growing up

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 01:32 PM

Hahaha! LOL! Jerry Myer! Love it! I only wish I was Skinny now. Fatty more like!

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 12:55 PM

Indeed, Eliza ~~ tho my nickname was not racial or physical, but nominal. I was "Jerry" - 'Jerry Myer'! Geddit! So, I discovered later, was my father when he was at school.

Best

~M~

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 11:36 AM

In the forties, in Middlesex, absolutely everyone at school had a nickname depending on their race, origin or even hair colour. We had, Eyeties, Ginger, Specky, Wops, Taffies, Macks, Shorty, Lanky, Chinky, Sambo etc etc. I was Skinny, or The Galloping Hairpin. None of it was malicious or intended to upset. In fact, if you didn't have a nickname you'd have felt a bit out of it. But I concede that times have changed (unfortunately) and people would be very angry with these things nowadays. Oh how innocent we all were then!

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,ed
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 11:23 AM

Absolutely, I'm 39 and can't remember a time when I didn't know about George Formby. If you have seen his face and heard him sing there is little chance you would forget him and bearing in mind his films crop up on British tv every now and again I think most people with some cultural awareness beyond a vary narrow, marketed mainstream would know who he is. I think if you were to compile a top 100 list of British cultural icons of the 20th century he would be on it somewhere. Possibly top 50.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 04:25 PM

looking at Amazon UK, there seem to be 2 editions, the "2nd revised edition" from December 2011.
What is the difference between them???

Thanks, Thomas.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,AEOLA
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 03:39 PM

As a youngster in the 40's I'd never heard of racism, was this something introduced by the ' do-gooders',, 'elf & safety' etc..???

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Tootler
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 01:03 PM

In the Frank Skinner Programme, it says that after the incident described by henryp above, Formby then performed for small black communities and was eventually deported from South Africa. They were put on a plane and told they not to come back.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Baz Bowdidge
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 07:09 AM

The entire Frank Skinner programme on George Formby (59 mins) is on Youtube:
Click Here - Frank Skinner on George Formby (BBC)

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 06:50 AM

In 1946 Beryl and George toured South Africa shortly before formal racial apartheid was introduced, where they refused to play racially-segregated venues. According to Formby's biographer, when George was cheered by a black audience after embracing a small black girl who had presented his wife with a box of chocolates, National Party leader Daniel François Malan (who later introduced apartheid) phoned to complain; Beryl replied "Why don't you piss off you horrible little man?".
From Wikipedia

Subject: Lyr Add: IN A LITTLE WIGAN GARDEN (George Formby)
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 06:34 AM

The Frank Skinner doc did single out "In a Little Wigan Garden" as being a good example of how Formby's double-entendres careered into the surreal.

"When the morning mildew christens our shallots": that's a great line!

I think you can see some of the influence of British folksong in there...


IN A LITTLE WIGAN GARDEN
Written by Fred E. Cliffe & Harry Gifford
Performed by George Formby in "No Limit" (1935)

Talk of your beautiful meadows and fields and your parks so grand
Talk of your wonderful gardens down at Kew.
I know a spot that can beat all the lot it's the best I've seen
Keep all your hills and dales, put me with the slugs and snails.

In a little Wigan garden, where the dandelions grow
With my sweetie frowsy Flo round the mulberry bush we go
Underneath the Wigan Palm trees there I bring her up to scratch
We have such a game on the cucumber frame;
I'd show her the cabbage patch

When the morning mildew christens our shallots,
Scented breezes coming from the chimney pots
In a little Wigan Garden, when the soot is falling down
Oh what a place, what a case, a disgrace to my hometown.

All sorts of things come with wings some with stings every night appear
Glow worms and silkworms and Wigan earwigs too.
Crocuses croak with the fog and the smoke from the gasworks near
The one thing that only grows, is the wart on my sweeties nose

In a little Wigan garden with my little Wiganese
Getting stung with bumble bees, between the cabbages and peas
'Neath the Wigan water lilies where the drainpipe overflows
There's my girl and me she sits on my knee
And watch how the rhubarb grows

'Neath the shady tree to my loved one I cling
While the birds above do everything but sing
It's a rotten Wigan garden, everything grows upside down
Oh what a place what a case, a disgrace to my hometown.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: matt milton
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 06:30 AM

I've rather mellowed on the "of its time" argument.

I think, if you look at the lyrics of "Mr Wu" and other Formby songs, they exemplify a kind of playground racism - you can imagine if a song like that was on TV, the next day all the chinese kids getting that sung at them by the white kids. But at least the Mr Wu charactre is part of the community, a neighbour, a valued one at that, and a class equal.

So I think you'd have to be either stupid or a racist to sing that song now, but I don't think it's a racist song in the sense of promulgating racial hatred, or theories of racial superiority. It's just unthinking, unquestioning and parochial. "Of its time".

It is certainly not "of its time", in the way Adolf Hitler was "of his time". Quite apart from anything, you had a similarly cloying, vernacular, playground racism persisting in Britain right through the 1970s.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: matt milton
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 06:18 AM

The Frank Skinner programme was great - and shows that George Formby and his missus were the best kind of anti-racists, actually putting their money where their mouth was and confronting racist South Africans head-on (as far as a light entertainer/comedian in a foreign country can).

When you think of WHEN that was - a good few decades before toleration of Apartheid became utterly unacceptable in mainstream popular culture (eg The Specials 'Free Nelson Mandela', Spitting Image's 'I've Never Met a Nice South African') it goes to show that George Formby was a decent human with no time for that kind of disgusting inequality.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Jan 12 - 11:43 AM

fascinating!

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 19 Jan 12 - 06:46 AM

It's Turned out Nice Again

Two Norfolk authors have written the first authorised biography of a great 20th century entertainer, George Formby, who called Norfolk his second home.

It's turned out nice again

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 09:20 AM

Yay, Will. I always loved DLS, but found that bit hard. I had a lot to say of this on the entry I wrote on her for The Continuum Encyclopedia Of British Literature.

~M~

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 08:49 AM

I think there was much worse stuff than Formby in the 1930s. I shudder every time I read the casual anti-semitism and stereotyping of Jews in Dorothy Sayers's detective fiction. It crops up occasionally in Priestley ("The Good Companions"), though perhaps in not quite as snobbish a way as Sayers.

Always difficult to judge the mores of the time from today's standpoint but, even allowing for the distance between then and now, the anti-semitism's pretty horrible.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,Buddhuu
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 08:32 AM

Just spotted that Will kind of beat me to the South Africa reference.

I agree with confronting racism in music and everywhere else, but if that is one's mission then Formby is not the place to look for trouble.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,Buddhuu
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 08:26 AM

I have a hypersensitivity to racism, but even so I can find nothing racist in Chinese Laundry Blues.

In fact, the only one of Formby's Mr Wu songs that makes me wince is the Air Raid Warden one with its use of the slang term 'chink'. But even that one is not used in malice - rather it is a simple comic pun (poor quality and judgement, admittedly). If I recall correctly, Formby didn't write the 'Mr Wu's an Air Raid Warden' one.

Formby was fantastic. A top-notch entertainer.

As far as racism is concerned, if anything the evidence is that he and his wife had little time for that kind of nonsense. It is widely reported that on a trip to South Africa, Mrs F directed some very blunt words at the Nationalist Party leader who objected to her hugging a little black girl who had given her some chocolates.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 07:32 AM

Sean ~~ The Chinese were positively PROUD of their laundry-related status. A song about one who comically fell short of their ideal thru falling in love was in the nature of a COMPLIMENT to their usual expertise in the field which they would have appreciated. There was no "levity", in the pejorative sense in which you use the term [& you have shifted your ground here ~ it was me, not George, whom you seemed to accuse of levity before, but now it seems to be him]; no 'ethnic stereotyping' of a sort that the demographic itself could, or would, possibly object to. So what's your great problem? Live with it, for heavens sake...

~M~

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 07:06 AM

The levity is the humour of the song, still sung as 'harmless fun'; the stereotyping and the xenophobia go hand in hand - to write such a character is ethnic stereoptyping. Perhaps we could stretch that to an enduring fascination with diverse Exotica, which has a long & noble tradition right back to Purcell's Indian Queen and beyond, but I think that would be over generous in the present instance, which is perhaps as much as I can say? I just find the song uncomfortable & offensive; I always have. George is at his best when he sticks to the smutty innuendo and knob-gags.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Max Johnson
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 05:43 AM

Good heavens, is that the time? Catch you all later.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 03:42 AM

And there is no 'xenophobia' there either ~~ unless it be that retrospectively, anachronistically, and irrelevantly introduced by your own over-scrupulous guilty consciousness that our ancestors didn't think of everything in exactly the same terms as we do. This is a self-indulgent, not an intelligent, take on the matter, surely?

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 03:36 AM

... to clarify: remember the difference, please, between IRONY, which is something one may well employ, as I attempted to do here, in support of a reasoned argument; & LEVITY, which is something else entirely. It is misplaced contentiousness to accuse a point of obvious ironic intent of being an instance of levity.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 03:28 AM

...and where did you find any 'levity' in my last post? I have just read it, and it is purely factual. This is not a topic I would dream of approaching or treating with 'levity'.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Nov 11 - 03:27 AM

stereotyping is stereotyping;===

I don't disagree, Sean. I just don't find any stereotyping in this particular instance. A man called Wu - which is, as I have pointed out, a common Chinese name - runs a laundry - many of which, offering a particular kind of excellence of service, were Chinese laundries (and thus called by their proprietors: this one would have had "Wu's Chinese Laundry" proudly inscribed over the door: I remember them from the 1930s) at the time. WHERE IS THE STEREOTYPING here? I honestly cannot see any.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Bert
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 02:15 PM

...doesn't mean Oh Mr Wu isn't racial stereotyping though, or that it has a place in the multi-cultural England....


How can you tell if a society is multi cultural if you don't have racial stereotyping?

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 01:29 PM

The scars run too deep for levity, Michael - and the legacy endures, wherever you personally feel the humour of the thing lies. Fact is, stereotyping is stereotyping; it is reducing and ridiculing humanity in terms of xenophobic cliche in the God Allmighty Tradition of British Imperial Superiority.

Taking of which, I also love Kipling, but I happen to think Gunda Din is racist crap as well, no matter how well intentioned its mawkish over-weening sentiment.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 12:36 PM

---Having had Chinese friends beaten up whilst being taunted with chants of Oh Mr Wu then forgive me for taking it a little more seriously.---

Bollocks, Sean. Complete confusion of post hoc & propter hoc. They'd have been beaten up anyhow for being Chinese & hence other; not to mention for being THERE; not because the yobbos happened to know a song called Mr Wu. If they hadn't had this song to fall back on, they'd have found another chant. Or do you think they'd have said, "Oh, I say, chaps; we can't beat this Chin{ese fellow} up because we haven't an appropriate song to do it to, dontchaknow?" I have had Jewish friends beaten up, but their attackers didn't sing Cohen The Crooner as they did it...

It isn't even a stereotype: the humour of the song derives from a man in love being careless, not from his being Chinese.

~M~

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Will Fly
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 12:17 PM

I once had the interesting experience of singing "Mr. Wu" with a jazz band (me on tenor banjo) - many, many years ago. I couldn't understand why the rest of the band were looking at me and pissing themselves laughing.

When I put my specs on, I saw - to my total embarrassment - half a dozen Chinese people in the front row... To their credit, one of them came up to me afterwards and said how much he and his friends had enjoyed the band.

I still felt like a tit.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 12:12 PM

The Formby's behaviour in South Africa is, of course, examplary; doesn't mean Oh Mr Wu isn't racial stereotyping though, or that it has a place in the multi-cultural England I was born into & love very dearly. I also love Dudley D. Watkins but have always found the racial stereotyping we find in Desperate Dan and Lord Snooty beyond the pale too. Harmless fun? Having had Chinese friends beaten up whilst being taunted with chants of Oh Mr Wu then forgive me for taking it a little more seriously. One guy turned up at our old folk club a few year's back and gave us his update: Mr Wu Runs a Gay Bar Now (Oh Mr Wu, ooh, get you!); in the next song he was lamenting how the fish & chip shop of his childhood ho,e is now a Chinese Takeaway. Sad thing was - people loved it. I walked out in disgust. But, hey, I've seen racism and homophobia at the front line - and it really is no laughing matter believe me.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Will Fly
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 11:51 AM

The Formbys were arrested in South Africa and bundled out of the country for refusing to play to segregated audiences - Beryl said to Malan, "Piss off, you horrible little man!" Perhaps actions speak louder than words.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 11:48 AM

Mr Wu is just a comic song about a Chinese laundryman [as many laundrymen were at the time: hence the term Chinese laundry] whose work is suffering as he has grown careless because he has fallen in love. It's a funny song, with one or two of those suggestive non-rhymes ("Oh Mr Wu has got a funny little eye that flickers, You ought to see it wobble when he irons ladies' blouses" ~ oh tut tut & deary-me!).

Wu is a common Chinese name ~ I have a dear friend called Professor Wu Ningkun.   

That's all. What on earth is supposed to be racist about it, for crying out loud?

~M~

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 11:05 AM

I hope I've established my life-long and continued fondness for George Formby, however to call Oh Mr Wu anything but misplaced racial stereotyping is naive in the extreme; to think it has a place in the Endland of today is just plain misguided. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater here; I'm equally fond of Vivian Stanshall but find his fancy-dress exploits around the London clubs with Keith Moon beyond the pale. Onwards & upwards, eh??

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,AEOLA
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 10:10 AM

Very interesting thread, I live in Formby ( just up the road from Crosby!) Yes Percy French is buried here, but the interesting bit is that my wife's Uncle & Aunt lived next door to George & Beryl in Mains Lane, Singleton but Goerge was never allowed to visit on his own. Beryl was very jealous ( not without good cause I believe) she was also very tight on the purse strings and doled out his pocket money. Just referring to the ' racist ' bit, I don't think he knew the meaning of the word!! as many of us didn't long ago!!

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 05:54 AM

I didn't realise that he was quite so comfortably off. Also watching the Betty Driver tribute it seems that he and his wife objected to Betty appearing in a film with them for fear of being upstaged.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Oct 11 - 08:21 AM

George made his first proper film in 1934 "Boots, Boots" - and started off as a live entertainer in 1921 - so he had a dozen years or so on the boards before the films came along and made him. He suffered his first heart attack in 1952, during the run of his successful stage musical "Zip Goes a Million." He withdrew from the show, and confined his performances to occasional guest appearances on stage and TV.

Reading between the lines here, it suggests to me that George's live performances were probably far less frequent after the film successes but, without evidence from theatre bills, etc., it's difficult to say.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Oct 11 - 08:06 AM

My impression is that George Formby, unlike his father, didn't do that many live theatrical performances ~~ unlike, also, Tessie O'Shea, whom I too recall seeing in the early 40s at the Theatre Royal [or was it the Hippodrome?], Northampton.

Am I right that he mainly stuck to film?

~M~

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Max Johnson
Date: 30 Oct 11 - 07:39 AM

I saw Tessie O'Shea when I was about seven or eight years old in the first Christmas pantomime (and I think the first theatre) I ever went to. She played the uke, and I remember her singing her signature song 'Two Ton Tessie', and the audience at the Birmingham Alhambra went crazy. Wonderful.

I never saw George, unfortunately.

Subject: RE: Do Brits remember George Formby?
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Oct 11 - 05:30 AM

Well now, Suibhne, do you remember the wonderful Dave Morris and his "Club Night"?