Having the time of our lives…” Gary Winstanley A collage of some of the many photos of the day I’m also very grateful to everyone who helped me with it too. With all the travelling, I’ve been left with some very fond memories of all my trips. I’ve enjoyed every minute of putting it all of this together. The day ended with a lovely Indian meal at the Naaz restaurant in Ulverston, where members of our tent (Dirty Work) enjoyed the company of the Our Relations tent of Chester. Our film show ended by showing The Lucky Dog. Others commented that there was information they never knew before and saw film clips they didn’t know existed.
I must’ve done something right! Several people spoke to me afterwards and said how much they enjoyed it. The new documentary ended with much applause.
Two classic sound shorts were shown ( Towed in a Hole & Helpmates.) A short interval took place, at which point I got a little bit nervous, knowing we were about to premiere my new film, just four months after all the work began. At 6pm, we began a film show in the Laurel & Hardy museum. On Saturday 7th August (the anniversary of Oliver Hardy’s death & my birthday), around 60 Sons of the Desert gathered in Ulverston for an afternoon of socialising. Also at this point, I had lots of photos and film clips to find to illustrate everything.
The end piece of the storyboard takes us up to the point where both Laurel & Hardy are working for Hal Roach.Īfter several re-writes in parts and lots of organising of the timelines to get them as accurate as I possibly could (based on the available information), I recruited several friends from the Sons of the Desert to help bring it all to life visually. The story then continues jumping back and forth from Stan & Babe’s careers, up until their chance meeting on the film “The Lucky Dog” in 1921. We then cut to 1892 in Harlem, Georgia, where Norvell Hardy was born. It then goes back to the beginning, with Stan’s early life, his family background and up to his backyard plays in North Shields with his brother Gordon & sister Beatrice. The timeline was then written into a storyboard, which began with an introduction, covering a lot of what we already knew regarding Laurel & Hardy’s work together. Working with specific years, I could then look at what each of them were doing at certain points in their lives. My notes were then transformed into a timeline, one section for Stan & One for Babe.