Final Pantomime - Aladdin

George rehearsed his final pantomime Aladdin at the Hippodrome, Bristol with a heavy heart knowing that Beryl was grievously ill. On 24th December, just before the performance, George received a phone call telling him that Beryl had lapsed into a coma and two hours later another phone call informed him that she wasn't expected to last through the night. After the performance George signed a few autographs and then left Bristol in his car to make the journey to St. Annes. On the way back he called at the home of his great friends, Fred and Jessie Bailey, in Warrington, for rest and refreshment and on ringing Fairhaven Harry Scott told him that Beryl had passed away half an hour earlier. One wonders why George accepted a lower fee and a greater travelling distance to appear in the pantomime in Bristol when he had been offered more money to appear at a pantomime in Liverpool. I suppose arrangements would have been made some months before he knew of Beryl's severe condition. This brought the 36 year partnership to an end. Beryl was cremated with little ceremony at Lytham St. Annes Crematorium on the day after the Christmas holiday and George returned to Bristol having missed four performances. He was to pull out of the show on doctor's orders with a heavy cold on 14th January.

George and Pat Howson

On his return to Fairhaven he was booked into Blackpool Victoria Hospital where he was to stay until the end of January. George discharged himself from the hospital and went to the Howson's in Preston to see his old friends and confidantes. In 1961 Fred's daughter, Pat, was now 36 years old and still unmarried. She was a school teacher in a town centre junior school. Pat had always liked and sympathised with George and when George asked her if she would like a drive in the Rolls to an inn in the country for lunch she agreed. During this meeting George poured out his heart to Pat and confessed that he needed someone to look after him now that Beryl was no longer there. At this time he thought that he only expected to live another eight years. She agreed to think about it and later that evening told her mother that she had been taken by surprise by George's suggestion of marriage and that she liked George a lot. She said that he was such a nice man and she was prepared to give it a try. At this time, in February 1961 I was working as a telephone engineer and I had seen George's smoke green Rolls parked outside the house in Liverpool Road, Penwortham, when returning from work on the south side of Preston. It seems that reporters had also seen the car and this led to rumours and speculation.

Engaged To Be Married

The engagement was due to be announced on 14th February (Pat's birthday) and George gave an interview the day before to an old reporter friend on the Daily Mirror. He told him in confidence that his marriage to Beryl had been very much a front for the last 15 years. He said "The public have built up a certain image of us and I have no wish to shatter the illusion." With his dying wife taking to the bottle for the last couple of nightmare years, he hoped that the public would understand why he had decided to remarry so soon after Beryl's death. George had hoped that his reporter friend, Michael Walsh, would show George in the best light and not to mention what George had told him of the last fifteen years of unhappy marriage, but it was not to be. The press had a field day, pillorying George with the harsh truth for the world to read about. On the Friday night, 13th February, George and Pat visited Hill Chapel, near Preston, to see the priest about a quiet wedding ceremony, and afterwards had a drink in the local hostelry, Ye Horns Inn, just further up the road from the chapel. Another friend of mine, who was arranging seating plans for her marriage on the following day, saw them there that night and asked George for his autograph on a table napkin, the only paper available at that moment. George obliged with a smile and good wishes for their marriage on the next day, St. Valentine's Day. In the next ten days George put the house in St. Annes up for sale and arranged to buy a Georgian farmhouse, Clock House, in Lea Road, Preston. The builders had been called in to make alterations to the large farmhouse and it was at this time that the story was printed. George's reaction was to bring the date of the nuptials forward from May to April, but with all the pressure now on him he started to feel the strain and was ordered to St. Joseph's Private Hospital in Mount Street, Preston, only just across the road from the Junior School where Pat was a teacher.

Last Rights Posthumously

Pat visited George several times a day and in the late afternoon on 6th March George seemed to be in good spirits. They discussed the wedding plans and Pat showed George the wedding ring which she had just bought just yards away, in Preston town centre. Pat noticed a change in George's colour and he said he was starting to feel unwell, and as the medical staff were called he passed out. Fearing the worst Pat rushed round to St. Wilfrid's Presbytery in the next street and arrived just as Fr. Thomas Lakeland was leaving the building. He quickly followed Pat round to the hospital where they found that George had slipped away peacefully and all the young priest could do was to administer the last Rights posthumously. George's remains were removed by McKenna's, a Preston firm of undertakers but when George's mother found out she insisted that the funeral was conducted by George's old friend, Bruce Williams, aka Eddie Latta. The coffin was taken to the Chapel of Rest in Liverpool and the funeral was conducted from there with the assistance of the Preston company. He was laid to rest with his late father in the family grave in Warrington cemetery. It is estimated that 100,000 people lined the two mile route from the Chapel of Rest to St. Charles Roman Catholic Church in Aigburth, Liverpool. After the service sobbing crowds lined the twenty mile route to watch their old friend pass for the last time as they watched the twelve car funeral cortege on its way to Warrington. A newly completely will was contested by the family and after a long and expensive fight its validity was upheld, but only after a great deal of the proceeds were lost in legal costs. It's a great shame that someone who gave so much of himself, bringing happiness and laughter to millions of people all over the world was denied just a few years of contented retirement which I am sure he would have had, had he survived that final heart attack.