ENTERTAINER George Formby certainly started something when he began serenading Beryl Ingham on his ukelele outside her home in Richmond Terrace, Darwen, in the early 1920s.
It seems that within a few years everybody in town was playing a stringed instrument.
This is a photo of Darwen Harmonic String Band which flourished in town before the Second World War and has been sent in by Harold Heys.
The group was formed by Charlie Lord who is on the left of the back row, playing what looks like a banjo, although better-informed readers may tell us it’s a ukelele or even a banjolele which, seemingly, was George’s instrument of choice.
It was a sort of cross between a Hawaiian ukelele and an American banjo.
Among the other stringed instruments played by the band appear to be violins and a guitar.
Charlie went to live in Bury in the late 30s and there the trail ends — unless anyone has any further information on him or his amateur group which was popular at social and charity events in Darwen for several years.
As Harold points out, it seems that an amazing hairstyle was one of the criteria for entry into the group...
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