The Story of the "Laughing Gravy" tent of
Birmingham UK begins in the autumn of 1992. John Ullah
placed
an advertisement in the "Helpmates" UK magazine for
someone in the Birmingham area to help create a
Laurel and Hardy tent in the city. John felt that Birmingham's
lack of a Sons of the Desert tent must be
remedied, as the city was the "foundation stone" on
which the Sons of the Desert was built, with the first
meetings between the Boys and John McCabe. The city was
also the birthplace and still is the home of the
family of one of Laurel & Hardy's team - Charlie Hall.
John's Advertisement was answered by two people,
Steve Smith, a television broadcasting engineer, who has an
interest in film comedy and cinema theatres and
the late Barrie Finney, a graphic designer and Collector of
L&H memorabilia.
The first "meetings" of the then un-named tent were
between these three people in the "James Brindly"
public
house, in the city centre of Birmingham. Over the weeks, the tent
was given a name "Laghing Gravy" (John's
favourite L&H film). Graphics for tent publications
were agreed upon, in addition promotional material and
publicity appearances on local radio was organised. The style of
the tent developed, in that it was agreed that it
should be a "hands on" tent with meetings each and
every month, with the films of the boys as the priority
shown on a large screen. Finally a venue was found for the
meetings, "The Barn" social club in the Witton area
of the city, later a move was made to its present home of the
"Bromford Club" Erdington. All then was in place,
but what date to start the tent ?, in the minds of the three
founders there was only one choice, it had to be "April
Fool's Day", so on Thursday 1st. April 1993 the first
meeting of the Laughing Gravy - Birmingham tent of the
Sons of the Desert (Oasis # 167) took place.
This meeting was successful beyond every hope of the founders, 72
people were present to see the screening of
the first film, ("Laughing Gravy", of course) and the
newly born tent had 35 members in it's first month.
From the second meeting we were
honoured by the attendance of Charlie Hall's brother, Frank. and
nephew,
Ron. Unfortunately, Frank Hall passed away shortly after the
forming of the tent but we understand from his
widow that he was proud that a Sons of the Desert tent had been
founded in Charlie's home town. Charlie's
nephew Ron remained a member of the tent until his death, in
addition,we have been visited by other member's
of his family, some of whom were oblivious to the part their
relation played in the story of the screen's best
loved comedy duo.
The tent now has a membership of around 160, and meets every
month with an average attendance of 110
people. As mentioned earlier, the key to all of the meetings is
the showing of L&H films, to this end, the club
owns a library of 16mm prints, of sparkling quality (being direct
reductions from 35mm negatives) and
alternates the showings with a professional video projector,
which makes available to the meetings the vast
amount of the taped material now available.
In July 1996 the tent was awarded the great honour of being
chosen to host the 1998 International Convention
of the Sons of the Desert and the 2003 UK Convention. In addition
the tent is hosting the 2003 UK Convention.
Laughing Gravy Birmingham meets on the first Thursday of each
month comencing at 8p.m. The venue is:
The Bromford Club,
Church Road,,
Erdington,
Birmingham (UK)
For more information please