The Laurel & Hardy Museum

Some years ago, before my mother died, I was in Ulverston with my wife and we happened to come across the Laurel & Hardy Museum, purely by chance. On entering and paying I said that I was related to someone who had been in a film with Laurel & Hardy. There was a shout from behind the scenes and out popped the late Bill Cubin, the founder of the museum. He immediately asked if it was Dennis King I was related to and he said that he had been hoping to meet a lady he thought was still alive who used to be married to Dennis’s brother. “That’s my mother,” I replied!

In wandering round the museum we found Dennis’s signature in Stan Laurel’s Visitors’ Book although I cannot now remember the date of the entry or where Stan was living at the time.

I gave Bill details for contacting my mother in Birmingham and he did eventually do that, hoping to entice her to go to a meeting of the Sons of the Desert. My mother was pleased to see Bill but she declined the invitation. Luckily Bill did have his picture taken with my mother with both of them wearing the customary fezzes:

My Father and Me

I was a year old when this photograph was taken in our front room which was only used on special occasions.

My mother told me that I was named after Dennis’s son, John Michael, but with the names switched round I became Michael John.

My first memory of Uncle Dennis is from when I was about 7 or 8. He visited the UK and there was a get-together at his mother and father’s house in Birmingham. I only have a hazy memory but it revolves around a piano with Uncle Dennis by the side of it, singing. I am told that he would have been accompanied on the piano by his sister, my Aunty Marie. That is all I can remember but it obviously made an impression on me.

At some stage I became aware of the scrapbook that my father kept about his brother. I was aware that Dennis was a star but I didn’t see any evidence of that until the fifties when Fra Diavolo was shown at a local cinema – The Alhambra on the Moseley Road in Birmingham.

The main reminder of Dennis when my father was alive was the hamper that arrived at Christmas from him. I pictured it coming from the States but it probably came from a supplier in the UK. It was full of things that we wouldn’t normally have (like tinned tongue!) and it was great fun to unpack and to consume.

I have an idea that Dennis visited my family home twice but I only really remember the last time. It was after my father died. Dennis came in a chauffeur-driven car. He was well dressed, wearing a hat, possibly a bowler. My mother invited him into our front room and he sat by the window almost where I am in the photo above. He commiserated over the loss of his brother, my father, and said how close he was to him when he was growing up, even walking him to infant school in Dennis Road, Moseley, Birmingham. I remember his imposing voice and his bearing and he left a lasting impression on me.

Daisy Farm Road

A story that my mother told many times was that Uncle Dennis turned up once unannounced in Birmingham when my family was living in Daisy Farm Road. This was before I was born and will have been during one of Dennis’s performances in London during the 1930s.

He arrived when my father was at work and surprised my mother not least because he was in a white Rolls Royce that belonged to Ivor Novello! I have always assumed that he was chauffeured from London although I suppose it is possible he drove. It must have impressed the neighbours no end!

I have been able to verify that Ivor Novello had a Rolls Royce but not that it was white but I have no reason to doubt my mother’s story.