Long Pilgrimage By Twin Formby Fans

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 233, 30 June 1939, Page 14

Long Pilgrimage By Twin Formby Fans

A HAPPY ending to an amusing story of two Formby fans in Australia was given when Marie and Betty Kingham, twins from Ormond, near Melbourne, arrived at the Ealing Studios, England. Six years ago, when Formby pictures were not released in Australia or New Zealand, he received a fan letter from the twins asking for a photograph, and wanting to know if George liked horse riding. George obliged them and a steady stream of letters passed to and fro. The twins mysteriously got hold of a gramophone record of George singing “Chinese Laundry Blues.” It was at that time the only Formby record anywhere in Australia. The twins began playing it to an ever-increasing number of their friends who liked thb way George Formby sang, and the strumming of his ukulele. The demands on this one record increased so rapidly that letters started arriving at the offices of the Australian Broadcasting Commission asking that they should broadcast it. All the twins’ friends telephoned the radio station with the same request. The A.B.C. decided to broadcast the record and had to borrow the twins’ copy of it. One broadcast of the record was followed by 10 further broadcasts, and at this point Formby’s first pictures were just being released in Australia. The twins then became known as the “Formby Twins” and. their father went to great trouble to get some more records sent out from England. This year the twins were nearing their twenty-first birthday a,nd were asked what they would like best for a coming-of-age present. They said that a trip to England to see George and Beryl Formby would please them more than anything else, and to this their father agreed. Recently they arrived In London and met Formby, who invited them to the Ealing Studios to meet him for the first time. On their twenty-first birthday and excited beyond measure, they arrived at the studios and spent the best part of the day with George and Beryl. The first person they met on the set of George’s new film, “Come on George,” which followed “Trouble Brewing,’’ was a man who lived three doors away from them in Melbourne, Joss Ambler, who has a featured part in the film. The twins were also introduced to Jack Kitchin, the producer. At the end of the day the twins left Ealing with two autographed plaques of George Formby. In Australia they have a collection of 56 Formby records.