The legendary comic duo had quit Hollywood for good by the time they arrived in the city, but they were still guaranteed a warm welcome – and not just at the Hippodrome, but also down in the Bristol suburb of Hengrove.
It was there that Knowle Stadium could be found. Set back from Wells Road, the place had originally been built for greyhound racing, in the days just after the First World War when the sport suddenly became popular. With its grass banking, narrow terraces, and few rows of seats, it started being used for speedway during the 1930s, as that sport too became popular.
That was the decade in which Stan and Ollie first toured Britain. The film of theirs they said they enjoyed the most was the cowboy spoof Way Out West. In the spring of 1938, it was shown at the Embassy in Clifton, the city’s biggest and most luxurious cinema. And the reviews were favourable, with the Western Daily Press telling its readers, “Laurel and Hardy provide a full hour of delightful nonsense”.
Summer schlep
Their second British tour took place in 1947 and though it was an arduous undertaking for men who were both approaching 60, it would provide their main source of income. A series of poor deals had left them earning little from their old movies. They had five divorces to pay for between them. And to cap it all, Ollie owed a fortune to bookies. So, they spent the summer schlepping around the country, performing not just in Birmingham, Liverpool, and Newcastle, but in Southsea, Swindon, and Skegness as well.
The tour reached Bristol on Sunday, 13 July. It was a lovely day, with the temperature nudging 80℉. And hundreds of people turned out to greet the boys, both at Temple Meads Station and at the Royal Hotel, near the Cathedral, where Laurel and Hardy would be staying.
The bill for the show at the Hippodrome included a juggler, a trapeze artist, singers, and a troupe of performing dogs. Laurel and Hardy ambled on stage after all that, and for a few moments did little but soak up the audience’s applause. Then they launched into a sketch about Ollie applying for a driving licence. This time, the Western Daily Press said they provided “25 minutes of nicely calculated nonsense and perfectly clean, wholesome humour”.
It was on the Friday of that week that Stan and Ollie paid their call at Knowle Stadium in Hengrove during a speedway cup match with Wigan. The Bristol Bulldogs were currently in the middle of a three-month unbeaten home run, with attendances regularly reaching 9,000. At that time, Hengrove was proving a busy place all round. Boxing matches had taken place alongside all the speedway and greyhound racing. There was roller-skating in a marquee. Plans were even being drawn up to stage ice-hockey matches as well.
Friar Tuck
The event had been eagerly anticipated, with advertisements for it appearing in local papers, and fans in distant Bath offered a special coach to get them to the stadium from North Parade. Once there, admission cost as little as 1s 9d (equivalent to about £3 in today’s money). And all of that helped push the attendance beyond 12,000.
It was a warm, close evening, with thunder in the air. Chairs had been set out on the patch of grass inside the speedway track, and the boys ambled over to them, Ollie wearing a dark suit and a too-short tie, Stan a baggy jacket and a bowtie. They said a few words to the crowd, through a microphone hastily patched into the stadium’s PA system. Then they were introduced to the Bulldogs team one by one.
The riders were all wearing their distinctive orange racing bibs with the bulldog’s head on the front. They included Bath-born Billy Hole, the captain of the team, even though he had only recently made his debut. Stan and Ollie also shook hands with Fred ‘Friar’ Tuck, a veteran rider, and an England international to boot, and with Mike Beddoe, who would shortly lose part of his foot in an accident but return to the track barely a fortnight later.
Neat bungalows
Then the racing began. Eric Salmon, Billy Hole’s brother-in-law, proved to be the star rider, winning four of his five heats. Billy, Fred, and Mike chipped in with valuable points. The Bulldogs won the match comfortably. Between the races, Stan and Ollie larked about and even managed to judge the ‘Speedway Queen’ beauty contest. Afterwards, it was announced that they had been enrolled in the Bristol Bulldogs supporters’ club.
The culmination of their tour was an appearance in the Royal Variety Show at the London Palladium, in front of the King and Queen, together with Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, who would shortly be getting married.
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, would finish the season in the lower half of speedway’s second division. They would go on to win promotion the following season, and to compete in the top division for a few years after that. But they never scaled those heights again. And though Stan and Ollie came back to Britain – and to Bristol and the Hippodrome – they never did manage to pay a return call at Knowle Stadium.
Crowds there gradually declined, and the last speedway meeting took place in September 1960. The stadium was sold to a builder after that. And it now lies buried beneath the neat houses and bungalows on Ravenhead Drive, Allanmead Road, and Long Eaton Drive.
Comments? We want to hear them. Please write to editor@westenglandbylines.co.uk
Bylines Network Gazette is out!
The latest Bylines Network Gazette is out now. Become a Friend of Bylines Network or upgrade to a paid Substack subscription, and you will get access to a vital collection of citizen articles and stories.
Journalism by the people, for the people.
