Jitterbugs Tent meeting
|
I was looking forward to the Jitterbugs Tent meeting on 17th November. It was to be held in the newly refurbished Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire. This magnificent Victorian building had undergone extensive renovation over the previous four years, but had thankfully retained its fantastic façade. I had heard that one of the bars was to be named after Oliver Hardy as a mark of note that the Boys had stayed there for an unusually long length of time from 9th September to 13th October, 1953. It was here that they roomed as they rehearsed Birds of a Feather in Dublin's Olympia Theatre. Back to the present day and "Hardy's Bar" was now the venue for a Jitterbugs meeting. Stephen O'Crowley and I had visited the hotel to see how suitable it would be for a tent meeting and were thrilled to see the walls tastefully adorned with large canvas prints of the Boys in various shots from their movies. A subsequent conversation with the powers that be at the hotel and we were given a trial run. The word went out and we were looking forward to having a great night. John Ullah and Mandy Finney had expressed an interest in joining us if we could wing a meeting there and once they heard the news they had booked a flight to Dublin quicker than you can say "Jack Robinson!" The day itself was a dreadful, wet, wintry day and I thought we might have a low turnout. However, I'm glad to say that this wasn't the case. I arrived and entered the bar and as I carried the projector and screen up to our reserved area I passed a table and thought to myself, "That looks just like Laurie Young!" He was sitting with another shady-looking bloke who looked very like Roger Robinson. My Fin double take was rewarded with my best fears being realised, as indeed it was "Messers" Robinson and Young in the flesh, all the way from Southend's Saps at Sea Tent on very early flights. A great surprise. |
|
|
|
John and Mandy arrived and it was great to have them all there and it made the night very special. We set up and the Jitterbugs members and their families and friends arrived. I had contacted the local papers and I'm glad to say that it furnished us with at least another ten attendees. A nautical theme was the order of the night, seeing as we were in the port of Dun Laoghaire and we got underway with Why Girls Love Sailors. We followed with Any Old Port and Towed in a Hole. The laughter flowed and it was a great night. Roger and Laurie had told me how an elderly man who had come to the bar for lunch and forgotten to go home had latched onto them earlier. You know the type, every Irish bar has one. . . an Arthur Housman type, shall we say, only a trifle more annoying! Well, this gent was a bit interested in the Laurel and Hardy goings on and had wandered up to our area and sat down. I'm not sure how clear the screen was to him or indeed if he could even see the screen, but he joined us for one of the films before deciding that the room was spinning enough and it was time to go home. He had, however, taken a shine to some of our raffle prizes and had helped himself to one or two, concealing them in his pockets. We Jitterbugs are a quick-witted lot and he was stopped on his way out and gently relieved of his ill-gotten gains. Our four English guests proposed our toasts and we sat down to watch The Live Ghost. As I looked around the room and saw everyone laughing and smiling, it added to the very special feeling of the evening. |
|
As we finished a hotel manager came up to me and asked if everything was OK and did we enjoy ourselves? Suffice to say, they were very pleased with the turnout and are very keen to host us again. She thought we were an ideal bunch and very well behaved! I'm sure we can do something about that, though! My thanks to everyone for helping to make it a great night and especially to John and Mandy for hosting a sales stall for us. Also to Roger and Laurie for coming to see us again. Saps at Sea Tent members are great fun and I'm so glad that they came. I'm sure Laurie has recovered from the afternoon walk that he and Roger had taken that day, all the way to Dalkey, Co Dublin. Let me tell you that it's quite a distance and, to top it all off, they finished the walk by going down onto the beach. A quick synopsis is. . . they ran out of beach and the tide was coming in. Climbing up a large cliff side, they found themselves in someone's garden and the someone in question came out and wasn't very pleased to find two Saps on his property! Making a hasty exit, they managed to find a nice looking hostelry in which to recover over a liquid beverage or two, only to hear from me later that it was a famous homosexual type of establishment! "Oh, the Sons of the Desert!" Liam Muldowney |
|
