THE FUN OF REMEMBERING
STAN AND OLLIE ...

Plans are afoot to mark the grave of Stan Laurel's mother Madge in a Glasgow cemetery. GORDON IRVING looks at the Scottish connection of Laurel, who spent part of his schooldays in the city by the Clyde.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy muddled through life - and enjoyed the fun, both on-stage and off. Their showbiz spirit lives on in a unique worldwide fellowship which few other theatrical luminaries have enjoyed.

That joyful sense of fun, so needed in today's often so serious life, is reflected in the antics of one of the world's most offbeat organisations, the Sons of the Desert.

These are the fans and supporters of that much-loved comedy twosome of stage and screen, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, who keep enjoying popularity revivals galore.

They wear colourful fezes and bowler hats, look bemused, meet in lounge-bars and holiday camps, and can be spotted anywhere from Penzance to Peterhead, from Ohio to Osaka.

"Call us crazy, zany, daft - we just love following in the bewildered footsteps of Stan and Ollie," said Janice MacNicol, 30, of Glasgow, who works in the financial world when she is not wearing her other hat, a colourful fez.

The Sons (and Daughters, too, of course) are an international confederation of 12,000 men, women, teenagers and youngsters, all for ever young in heart. They worship at the feet of Stan and Ollie in more than 20 countries.

Normally serious-minded teachers, bankers, solicitors, plumbers, civil servants, joiners and students, they are bewitched, worldwide, by the universally-welcome and boyish humour of Stan and Ollie.

Each Sons of the Desert branch, known to L&H maniacs, as a tent, is named after a Laurel and Hardy movie.

There is one at Allentown, Pennsylvania, rejoicing in the title of The 'Why Girls Love Sailors' Tent.

In Sacramento, California, and other parts of the world, there are "Another Fine Mess" tents, though the words big Ollie Hardy actually used were really "That's a NICE mess you've gotten us into!"

Men on Death Row in a Connecticut prison were members of a "Pardon Us" Tent.

Over 30,000 visitors a year call at the Laurel and Hardy museum at Ulverston, on Morecambe Bay, Lancashire, the boyhood home of Stan Laurel.

Stan's father, Arthur Jefferson, ran theatres on Tyneside and in Glasgow. At the latter he was licensee of the Scotia Music-hall, which later became the Metropole.

Stan went to various schools in Glasgow and made his first-ever comedy appearance on any stage at the old Britannia or Panopticon Theatre in Glasgow's busy Argyle Street.

Some of the keenest fans of Laurel and Hardy are to be found in Germany and Holland.

It will be a sad day, indeed, if we ever lose our sense of fun and have to ban the admirers of Laurel and Hardy from making their joyful noises at meetings, club conventions and rallies.

I am certain that Stan and Ollie would have wished it just as it is. Going through life with a lightsome sense of the ridiculous is exactly what they were aiming for.

Click here to meet Author Gordon Irving

Links:

Sons of the Desert Links - Great Place to Start!

Sons of the Desert Convention - July 2000

The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall

Biography of Stan Laurel

Laurel and Hardy Museum, Ulverston, UK

Laurel and Hardy Magazine