Southern Rhodesia

In April, having got permission from his doctor to travel they embarked on a series of 17 shows in Bulawayo, southern Rhodesia. The tour lasted for two weeks and formed part of the Rhodes Centenary Exhibition. In July 1953 I saw him perform a 30 minutes spot at Middleton Tower Holiday Camp, which later became Pontins, Morecambe, where he appeared unadvertised as the Sunday night special guest star. I nearly fell off my seat when he walked out onto the stage. It was the first time I had ever seen him live and as a lad of 17 who had gone there with a "Jolly Joe" uke to enter the talent contest playing The Window Cleaner, it was just one enormous thrill. Looking back I realised that it was Beryl's way of easing George back into the business after the serious illness he had suffered. I was able to get quite close to him when he left by the stage door and drove off in a light green open top Bentley with Beryl at the wheel.

In August 1953

George appeared in his first full show at Blackpool Lights Southport's Garrick Theatre billed as A Formby Comeback Special and at the end of the month he also switched on Blackpool's Illuminations. In September he consulted Sir Horace Evans again and there was talk of him replacing Reg Dixon in Zip Goes a Million as the audiences were waning. Instead he opted to share the bill with Terry-Thomas at the London Palladium in Fun and the Fair. George stole the show which should have run for six weeks but instead was extended to nine.

What’s My Line

At the end of 1953 George made two guest appearances on What's My Line, once as the mystery guest and once in the Christmas edition when he replaced Gilbert Harding who was indisposed. Now Gilbert Harding was a hard act to follow, he was bad tempered and very impatient with any contestant who gave confusing or indirect answers to the panel's questions. The viewers looked forward to his outbursts, I suppose it added a bit if spice to the programme. When George replaced him he was not very lugubrious and each time he spoke he looked to Beryl, who was off camera, for approval. This quite annoyed Lady Isabel Barnett and after the filming she complained to the director about it. At Christmas 1953 George was forbidden by his doctor to appear in Dick Whittington in Manchester, he said the strain would be too much for him. In February 1954 George's car was involved in an accident on the Great North Road just outside Peterborough. George was overtaking a lorry and his car hit an oncoming vehicle. No-one was injured and George settled the matter by buying the other driver a new car and the matter never went to court. George said "Oh well, it's just one of those things". Within a week George sold his own car and talked about giving up driving because he felt so ill, but Beryl talked him out of it and at the end of the month he bought another Rolls Royce.

Summer at Heronby

In the next three months George did one or two shows here and there, rejected a film script and turned down a recording session with HMV. On 25th June he opened at the refurbished Blackpool Hippodrome in a show called "Turned out Nice Again", sharing the bill with Josef Locke. The run was to have been thirteen weeks but it closed after only six weeks with George suffering from a recurring bout of Malaria. George and Beryl spent the rest of the summer at Heronby on the Broads, lazily cruising round the waterways in the "Lady Beryl". It was there that he re-established an old friendship with the Howson family who were down on the Broads on holiday. Fred Howson had looked after his cars and boat engines in the thirties forties and he was now Sales Manager at Loxhams, Preston, where George had bought most of his cars. They were invited to tea at Heronby accompanied by their daughter, Pat, who was now 29 and still single.

Return to South Africa

On New Year's Eve George performed a medley of hits on Ask Pickles and on 9th January he had a slot on the BBC's Top of the Town where he sang Pleasure Cruise, did a couple of comedy sketches and duetted with Terry-Thomas singing Leaning on a Lamppost. At the beginning of March 1955 George made his second trip to South Africa to raise money for the National Cancer Fund and from their base in Johannesburg they toured the whole of the Witwatersrand Region culminating in a show at the Witwatersrand University, the very first appearance there of a European entertainer. George ended the performance singing Sare Marias to a 5,000 strong audience. The song was recorded a few days earlier but was never released until after George's death. It was heard for the first time in England when he sang it on In Town Tonight on 16th April 1955.

Royal Variety Performance

On 13th April 1955 the Royal Variety Performance was held at the Opera House at Blackpool, the first time it had been held outside London since 1913 when George's father topped the bill at Knowsley Hall. George brought the house down when he sang "Sitting on the Top of Blackpool Tower", a song which was never recorded ("Spotting on the Top of Blackpool Tower", the same tune, was recorded during the war in 1943). It did wonders for George's career and, although he knew that his health was in a poor state, he embarked on a gruelling ten day tour of Canada, raising $50,000 for the "Variety Club's fund for crippled children for which he was presented with a gold life-time membership card. Sailing home on the Empress of Scotland he suffered with a bout of bronchial pneumonia, but as soon as he recovered back at home he toured with his first non musical play "Too Young to Marry". John Walley, one of George's biggest fans at the time told me that he saw the play in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, and George sang "If You Don't Want the Goods Don't Maul 'Em "at the end of the show. "Too Young to Marry" toured from September 1955 until November 1956 with concert appearances in between and, of course, the pantomime at Christmas, which was "Babes in the Wood", at the Liverpool Empire.

Beryl’s health deteriorates

In August 1956 Beryl was admitted to the same Norfolk hospital which she had attended eight years earlier. This time the news wasn't good, she was told that she had cancer of the uterus and only had two years, at the most, to live.

Dick Whittington

At about this time George confided to the Howson family in Preston and he poured his heart out to Pat who was now 30 years old. Later that year whilst George was on the stage Beryl stayed in the wings drinking considerable amounts of whisky to dull the pain that she was suffering. At Christmas 1956 the pantomime, Dick Whittington, was at the Palace Theatre in the West End of London and during the interval of the premiere the couple shared a pot of tea with the royal family. Part of the show was televised by the BBC but critics were not kind to George who was suffering from a throat and lung infection and he was soon pulled out of the production.

Beside The Seaside

From January until May George did nothing but rest. In June he hosted his own TV spectacular and at the end of the year he appeared in "Top of the Bill" for ATV where he sang "Trailing Around in a Trailer" as a tribute to Fred E. Cliffe who had recently died. Christmas came and went but in the New Year George was offered another play "Beside the Seaside". The play opened in Hull on 10th March 1957 and then moved to Blackpool out of season. From there it moved to Birmingham's famous Alexandra Theatre and finally to Brighton where, due to dwindling audiences, it ended in May. George wanted to take the play to Blackpool and add some songs but the producer wouldn't hear of it and George lost his temper, saying that he would never appear in a play again. One wonders at the planning for this play, the Blackpool audiences would have flocked to see the play at the height of the season and George could have slept in his own bed every night!

Atlantic Showboat

In 1958 George hardly left Beryl's side, even turning down a final recording session with HMV and cancelling radio broadcasts. He did, however, accept three TV appearances, the Frankie Vaughan show, ABC TV's second birthday show and his rock and roll debut with the Deep River Boys where he performed a medley of thirties songs. In October George planned to take Beryl on a Mediterranean cruise, knowing that it might be their last holiday together but instead Beryl insisted that they went on a twelve week cruise to the United States of America and Canada with the outgoing journey being paid for by ATV Television. Hughie Green was shooting a TV spectacular "Atlantic Showboat" aboard the Empress of Britain and George would sing four songs on the show. Sadly only two songs were left in the finished production, "Hello Canada" and "Pleasure Cruise". The show was screened on 10th January 1959. The couple spent much of the time on their trip in the cabin, George completely tired out and Beryl now suffering from pernicious anaemia as well as the cancer. I suspect that a great deal of alcohol was also being consumed. George emerged from his cabin to fulfil his contract in the show but when they reached Montreal they decided to return on the next available ship, the Empress of Britain, commencing their return journey on 28th October 1958 with Beryl being carried on board on a stretcher, according an eyewitness friend of mine who recently presented me with an original Passenger List.