April Meeting 2022 Cancelled April 3, 2022

Hello Laurel & Hardy friends,

Again no show I’m afraid this month.  I had hoped to have brought some good news this month on a restart for next month, but with rising infection rates on the Omicron BA.2 variant I think it would be a good and prudent idea to put it off for yet another month, that is until most, if not all, of our over 75s have had their fourth jab and infection rates are back on the rapid fall.  So fingers crossed.  i’m now thinking of a restart on Wednesday, May 18th evening (7.30pm) dependent on the venue.

On the good news front, I have booked the Bull Inn, Bottesford, for Saturday afternoon June 18th, 1pm to 6pm.  Unfortunately as the “skittle alley” has been transformed into a small events area, we are now having to pay a small hire fee….but rest assured, it will remain a FREE event to you and its open to all family and friends.   For those that haven’t been before we very much run it as a Laurel & Hardy film show with a few interludes for brief L&H based talks, a L&H film observational quiz (which this year will be based on “The Sons of the Desert” film ), film rarities and of course a raffle…and yes I’ve collected some good raffle prizes in the past 2 years.   If all goes well, I’m hoping that John Palmer can bring his wonderful L&H car again – a genuine Model T Ford.  John’s car is presently undergoing a few maintenance/repairs at the moment so we wish John well with this.

he Bull Inn was run by Bill and Olga Healey (Stan’s sister) during the 1950s and a number of occasions during that time Stan & Ollie popped in to see them, particularly when they were on tour.  They even pulled the pints behind the bar on Christmas Day 1953.  The lounge is adorned with photos and memorabilia.

With C-19 in mind I’m not advertising this event too broadly but all tent members on this email, friends and family are warmly invited along with past attendees….so we may get a few from other tents.

As mentioned last month, its our 22nd Birthday as a tent in this year 2022.  We tried to celebrate our 20th birthday in 2020 and I had it fully planned out….so based on that plan and where we are now, I’ve entitled our show  “Twice Two – Part Deux” .   So yes, we’re going to show the Boys “Twice Two” film alongside the Boys “Sons of the Desert” feature….(why this feature film I hear you ask….well its because Ollie lives at “2-2-2-2 Fairview Avenue” and that these two little ducks are like “two peas in a par- deux”  Sorry, welcome back to the bad jokes!!!)

In the morning we will do the usual  trip out to Barkston and lay some flowers on  Arthur Jeffersons grave (Stan’s father) and also see the pub (The Plough Inn) which Bill & Olga ran during the 1940s and Stan & Ollie visited on 16th March 1947…exactly 75 years ago this month.

Its now been 2 years since we last met.  We had planned a meeting for Wednesday, March 18th which we had to cancel.  We had planned to have  a “Tough Guys (& Dolls)”  theme where Stan & Ollie are confronted by some really tough characters….one of these is Walter Butch Long, whose birthday we would have been celebrating this month (March 5th).  We were going to show a number of Laurel & Hardy short films with Walter Long, Noah Young, Anita Garvin and Frank Brownlee.