BECOMES PUBLICAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 June 1930, Page 11

BECOMES PUBLICAN

TO WIN A BET.

Meet Mr Will Bishop, proprietor of the only public-house in Park Lane. Mr Bishop is no ordinary publican. As a resident of the most exclusive thoroughfare in the world, he naturally considers it his duty to do as Park Lane does.

Therefore you must not show surprise should you find him wearing a well-cut riding habit and a stock collar. He will have just returned from a canter in the Row. When not engaged at his public-house he is usually to be founH with his string of thoroughbred horses or riding to hounds.

Mr Will Bishop is certainly no ordinary publican. But, then, why should he be? He is of Park Lane. In point of fact, he only became a publican because of a wager. When ho was contemplating retirement, George Graves, the comedian, het him £lOOO that he could not run a public house. Mr Bishop won that bet. All his life he has been an outstanding personality. In the old days he won fame in London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna as a dancer and singer. Now in his sixty-seventh year he likes to look back on those “crowded hours of glorious life.” “I first went on the boards, laddie, at the age of ten,” he told a “Sunday Express” representative. “I was doing a hornpipe before audiences that ato fish and chips and drank beer as they sat watching the show. A chairman announced each turn. My hornpipe went down well, but I tried to improve on it. Somebody suggested ] should sing a. song before doing the dance. “I tried the idea out before an audience of seamen in the East End, and had just sung my first line. ‘Say my darling Jack,’ when a piece of fried fish hit me, full in the face, and the audience started yelling. Well, that was the end of (hat song. We didn't • get much money in those' days. 1 remember after appearing in Newcastle-on-Tyne, I hadn’t enough money to take mo back to London. I went to the cattle market and sang and danced until I had collected twelve shillings. The bellowing of cattle in the slaughter-house made it a. nerveracking performance.

“The greatest thing and happiest moment of my life came when I was offered my first engagement at the Empire, Leicester Square. 1 had been earning £2 a. week, and an appearance at the Empire was beyond my wildest ambitions. I used to dream that, such a. thing could happen, but when the dream came true I was so bewildered I had no idea what money . to ask for. I tried to appear indifferent, and said I could not think of appearing for less than £4 a week. 1 learned afterwards I could have asked for £4O a week and got it. Soon afterwards I did get £4O. I was to appear at the Empire for a week, but I stayed there for ten years, and became principal dancer in the ballets.” Tho beautiful Gaby Deslys studied under Mr Bishop. “I advised her to give up singing and dancing, .and told her she could neither dance nor sing,” he added, “but, ah, I had not allowed for the magnetic personality which carried her from triumph to triumph.”