How former Butlins Redcoat Clinton Ford became a Blackpool bill-topper in Those Good Old Days

It's dinner time. That's Dinner for One, the comic sketch that made Freddie a star on television and was seen several times on Blackpool stages.

It appears to have a cult following on German TV every New Year's Eve.

Freddie is togged up as James, the elderly butler to the dowager Miss Sophie, who annually gives a five-course dinner for friends who exist only in her mind.

The butler's key line, asked before each course, is: "Same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?"

The lady replies: "Same procedure as every year," whereupon the butler voices and drinks a toast to each invisible guest, getting progressively drunk.

Each time he walks round the table to serve a new course, he ritually avoids a tiger skin rug - until Miss Sophie announces it is time for bed.

The butler, drunk as a coot, asks with a certain dread: "Same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?"

The sprightly answer is: "Same procedure as every year, James" and they leave the room, arm-in-arm.

Although reference was often made to actress May Warden playing Miss Sophie, for the first Blackpool visit, in the 1954 summer show at the Winter Gardens Pavilion, the Gazette review named Stella Moray.

May Warden took the part in Freddie's 1956 and 1960 Opera House seasons.

Freddie Frinton (1911-68) had appeared in other sketches in the 1949 season show at the Opera House, and in the early 1960s he starred with Thora Hird in two comedy plays, each for a summer season.

They were 1962's The Best Laid Schemes and 1965's My Perfect Husband. At the Grand in 1967 Freddie stepped in at short notice when Sid James was taken ill before the summer season comedy play, Wedding Fever.

Morton Fraser's Harmonica Gang added so much to a variety show. Their founder, Leeds-born Mannie Fish (1905-82) honed his craft in America before launching his nine-man Harmonica Rascals in the Thirties.

They often played the old Blackpool Palace Varieties but in 1948 had to change their name to Harmonica Gang because an American act had prior claim to the name Rascals.

The Gang several times topped bills at the Palace and were featured in three Blackpool summer shows, the Winter Gardens Pavilion in 1952, the North Pier in 57 and the South Pier in 58. Their last local visit was for Sunday concerts at the ABC in September, 1968.

Clinton Ford (1931-2010) is remembered for his novelty hits Fanlight Fanny (the Frowsy Nightclub Queen), The Old Bazaar in Cairo, and his first chart entry, Old Shep.

The Salford-born star, real name Ian George Stopford, began as a Butlin's Redcoat and sang with jazz bands before going solo.

He did many TV shows like The Good Old Days and was a regular on radio's Saturday Club but Blackpool also saw him in four Central Pier summer shows.

He was the bill-topper in the pier's 1971 and 72 seasons of Those Good Old Days. He once signed my notebook Clornton Fydd. Wish I'd kept it!

Next week: It's George Formby.