With the orchestra playing and the audience still applauding they skipped and ran off the stage with boyish energy. They are supporting Marlene Dietrich in the show. The theatre impresario had had too many bad experiences with pop groups dying in front of indifferent mink-wearing Royal Variety audiences,and when he had booked the Beatles earlier that year, on the advice of his daughter Susan, he had never heard of them.
The primetime Dickie Henderson Show had recently finished on ITV it was a staple on the channel between and and that summer Henderson had been top of the bill of a popular show called Light Up the Town at the Brighton Hippodrome. His trademark was his breakneck banter, salty and censorious, and delivered in a strong Hull accent.
Photo by A. He took one look at the bride and gave me twopence back! Young Dickie is on the left. Henderson Senior, despite losing most of his life savings in the Wall Street Crash, was earning reasonably good money in the States where he was commanding top billing in the smaller houses, and was a much appreciated feature act in the bigger circuit halls.
His father turned him down, however, as the money was only half of what he was earning on stage. Ten years later, on 17 June , the Lancastria , sank in twenty minutes after it was bombed by the Luftwaffe near the French port of Saint-Nazaire. The sinking of the Lancastria has almost been forgotten but it was the largest loss of life from a single engagement for British forces in the Second World War β about 4, men, women and children died.
It was also the largest loss of life in British maritime history β greater than the Titanic and Lusitania combined. Looking back at this time he once wrote:. The time on the road, when not performing, we spent learning. Every morning jugglers, acrobats, dog acts and dancers rehearsed. Always rehearsing. In exchange for dance steps from dancers, the jugglers taught dancers how to twirl a cane. Acrobats put you in a harness and taught you back-somersaults.
