HAPPY BEARTHDAY

The famous, fuzzy, and funny Sooty, turned 70 two days ago.

It all started when Harry Corbett bought a bear glove puppet on Blackpool's North Pier in 1948 to entertain his children, on a family holiday blighted by bloomin’ awful British weather.

Sooty became a star… and he still is. He has hardly been off the television screen, and he has appeared on stage too, in pantomimes and Christmas shows for decades. Long may he continue.

I saw Harry and Sooty at Dewsbury Town Hall, way back yesteryonder. They were funderful.

According to the BBC… who introduced Sooty to the television public in ‘Talent Night’ on Saturday 3 May, 1952… “Richard Cadell, who has been keeping Sooty in check since 1998, said it was "an amazing achievement that Sooty is so popular after 70 years". But for him, the "secret is absolutely the simplicity of it all - everybody knows The Sooty Show".”

Basil Brush came into being in 1962 and 2018 celebrates the 50th anniversary of the start of his Basil Brush Show. No… I am not going to say, “Boom… boom!” Ooops… I just did!

So you see… if it’s good it doesn’t date… Punch and Judy, Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles…