MRS ANN WOLFENDALE, of 8 Mill Street, Stalybridge, has been most interested in the recent articles in the Reporter about the writing of the song “Tipperary”. For Mrs. Wolfendale, now 85 lived at the Newmarket Tavern, Stalybridge, and can remember hearing the song when it was sung there for the very first time!
“I can remember Jack Judge singing the song in the tap room. We didn’t think much of it then - it was just another song,” Mrs. Wolfendale told the Reporter.
There was a piano in the room - I can’t remember who was playing – but Jack Judge got the lads from the room to join in the song with him.
Then he took them across to the theatre with him. I suppose that was so that they could sing it there. Afterwards, he came back to the pub with them, and bought them a drink.”
Later, Mr. Judge and friends went to the “Shepherds” pub up the street, Mrs. Wolfendale recalls. “Jack Judge was a big man, jolly and bright,” she comments.
Room at the inn
If an artiste in those days found himself in Stalybridge without accommodation, Mrs. Wolfendale’s parents sometimes found them a room at the pub. Mr. and Mrs. LIoyed later kept the Stop and Rest pub, Grosvenor Street.
At the Tipperary celebration at Stalybridge in 1953, when the commemorative piaque at Corporation Street was unveiled by Jack Hylton (Himself from Stalybridge), Mrs. LIoyd and Mrs. Wolfendale were present and Mrs. LIoyd was presented with a bouquet to mark the link between the Newmarket and the song. Also attending the ceremony was Mr. Ted Judge, of Oldbury, brother of Jack Judge, the song’s composer.
Mr. and Mrs. LIoyd’s daughter-in-law, Mrs. Nora LIoyd, now lives at 62 Mottram Road, Stalybridge. She recalls that her late husband, Mr. George LIoyd, when a youngster, used to sell chocolate at the Grand Theatre, scene of the launching of “Tipperary” and of the celebrations in 1953.
Article date estimated 1977 article donated by Peter Taylor
