“STOP, LOOK, LISTEN”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21596, 6 March 1940, Page 8

“STOP, LOOK, LISTEN”

LONDON TRANSPORT ADOPTS ROBEY PHRASE (Special —By Air Mall) LONDON. January 27 “In Australia I had people come up and quote those words, and ask for the music” said George Robey this week, when told that London Transport had borrowed his famous phrase “Stop, Look, Listen” for part of their new safety campaign. The song, he said, which he first made popular in “The Bing Boys” in the last war, had gone round the world. Ten thousand bills bearing the words “Before stepping off the kerb, Stop, Look, Listen” will be placarded all over London. Mr Robey was asked whether London Transport had consulted him, and what he thought about it. “I am delighted, of course,” he said. “London Transport had no need to consult me, because ever since I sang the song the words have become a household phrase. “It is my signature tune. It was by accident that the song was ever heard outside the theatre. During an interval in a rehearsal of “The Bing Boys” I heard Nat D. Ayer, who was at the piano, strumming over a catchy little tune. “I asked him what he was playing. ‘Just a little thing I like,’ he replied. ‘And so go I,’ I said, ‘and I am going to put it in the show if you’ll let me.’ In it went, and it was popular from the start.” An official of London Transport said that as the words were so well known he did not think it necessary to get permission to quote them. For many years the slogan has been used by all American railways at level crossings.