Web Page 3075 9th June 2023 First Picture: Harry Worth

Second Picture: Typical scene

Third Picture: This is Your Life

Forth Picture: Blue Plaque

Harry Bourlon Illingsworth (20 November 1917 – 20 July 1989), professionally known as Harry Worth, was a comedy actor, comedian and ventriloquist. He portrayed a charming, gentle and genial character, totally bemused by life, creating confusion wherever he went. He was born in Hoyland Common, Yorkshire, the youngest child of a miner. He had ten siblings. When he was only five months old, his father died from injuries resulting from an industrial accident. He left school at 14 and was a miner for eight years. He earned 2 shillings 2½ pence a day and worked near the lift in the mine; he said he hated every minute of it. He joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1941. As a teenager, he was in the Tankersley Amateur Dramatics Society and taught himself ventriloquism from a book he borrowed from the library, buying his first dummy in 1936. During the Second World War, he performed in an RAF variety show in India. He warned his audience beforehand that he was not very good andthis was the start of his apologetic and inept style. He was a variety act for many years before he became well known and was often at the bottom of any 'bill'. Having left the RAF, and adamant he would never go down the mines again, he started in show business with his first booking at the Bradford Mechanics' Institute in 1946. In 1947 he married his wife Kay and in 1948, like many other comedians from the forces, he got an audition at London's Windmill Theatre. He passed, along with Morecambe and Wise and Tony Hancock. He did six shows a day as comedian between fan dancers. In 1948 he also made his first radio appearance in a show New to You. He now had two dummies for his ventriloquist act, Fotheringay and Clarence, but meanwhile developed his performing voice. He toured for two years with Laurel and Hardy towards the end of their careers. He said he could always go in and talk with them and they told him about Hollywood and their work there. When Oliver Hardy watched his show in Nottingham in 1952, he persuaded him to drop the ventriloquist routine and concentrate on becoming a comedian, which he then did. His first stage act without ventriloquism was in Newcastle. He continued to include ventriloquism in his cabaret act through his career, performing much of the material that he had used during the war. This included three appearances in the Royal Variety Show. After appearing a number of times on Variety Bandbox, he gained his own radio show, Thirty Minutes Worth. He took his scripts seriously and did not ad lib. He said he built a style of dithering in his shows without even realising it. His first television appearance was a five-minute standup on Henry Hall's Guest Night in 1955. He became well known to the public and even appeared at the London Palladium. In 1960, the television programme The Trouble With Harry was broadcast. He made this style his own by creating a character with whom the public could connect. He once said, "If Harry (the character) ever looked directly at the camera, or the audience, it would all be over". The character was Harry and everyone saw Harry as Harry. He is now best remembered for his 1960s series Here's Harry, later re-titled Harry Worth, which ran for 10 years and over 100 episodes. The opening titles of Harry Worth featured him stopping in the street to perform an optical trick involving a shop window: raising one arm and one leg which were reflected in the window, thus giving the impression of levitation. Reproducing this effect was popularly known as "doing a Harry Worth". The shop window sequence first used in Here's Harry was filmed at St Ann's Square, Manchester, at Hector Powes tailor's shop. One famous comic sketch involved Worth and his family preparing for a royal visit to the area, during which the Queen was to visit his house. His fussing about the house drove his family mad. Just before the Queen was due to arrive, a beggar arrived at the door and kept coming back as an increasingly frustrated Harry Worth tried to get him to go away. When a knock came on the door one more time he grabbed a bucket of filthy water and threw it out of the door at the caller, only to find that it was not the beggar but the Queen standing there, and he had just soaked her. Although never scripted, his catchphrase was generally known as "My name is Harry Worth. I don't know why – but, there it is!". One running joke in the television show involved references to Harry's never seen aunt known only as "Auntie. He was the subject of This Is Your Life in October 1963 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at Manchester's Gaumont cinema. By the early to mid-1980s he was forced by health problems to retire early from his shows, but he continued working in radio until a few months before he died. Among the last regular appearances of his career were leading roles in the sitcoms How's Your Father? ) and Oh Happy Band! (BBC TV 1980). His last TV appearance was on Comic Relief in 1989 where he appeared with Melvyn Hayes in the BT Tower taking donation calls. He married Kay (Daisy) née Flynn who was a Principal boy. They decided early on that he would continue with his act whilst Kay became a housewife. They had a long and happy marriage and she cared for him during his long illness with cancer. After several short-lived recoveries, He finally succumbed to spinal cancer. He died at his home in Berkhamsted with his wife, daughter (Jobyna) and grandchildren (Dane and Emma-Jo) at his side. Kay lived on for another 10 years. Harry Worth resisted attempts by publishers to write his biography; it was over 16 years after his death before a book, My Name Is Harry Worth, was published. At his memorial service, Sir Harry Secombe said "Harry has left a legacy of laughter and we have all been enriched by his presence here on Earth". On 20 July 2010 a British Comedy Society blue plaque was unveiled by comedian Jimmy Cricket, a friend of Harry Worth, on the house where he was born in Hoyland Common. He has also been commemorated by plaques elsewhere, including those at Teddington Studios, BBC Television Centre and Blackpool Comedy Carpet. Griff remembers the Coronation:

I was living in Purbrook for the 1953 Coronation where a big street party was laid on for us Kid's including a Magician who pulled a bright new shiny 1953 penny coin from behind my ear and gave it to me. Now that's magic to a 7 year old Kid with no money. There was a band and a Punch and Judy show which made the afternoon and early evening turn into a big event. The Kid's fancy dress competition was very well supported and my Mum decided that I had to go in dressed as Robin Hood. I had no idea who he was but as I had a bow and arrow set and a side sword and dagger it was okay by me. Cute picture eh! No, I didn't win which is hardly surprising. I now know my Robin Hood hat looked more like a flying saucer from War of the Worlds than a proper Sherwood Forest side cap with a big feather to the side like Errol Flynn wore in the 1938 movie. I probably got marked down for that dress error. At least I was dressed correctly in Lincoln Green and had my photo taken! I remember Dad (ex RN) took the family to the top of Portsdown Hill when the Queen's Royal Coronation Fleet Review took place. What a glorious and magnificent sight that was and I remember it so very well especially the fireworks display afterwards. The RN Fleet was all lit up and there were row after row of Royal Navy ships. Could never happen today on that scale. Take Care Everyone Melvyn ( Griff ) Griffiths. Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com