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Just whistle a happy tune!

Just whistle a happy tune!
by Graham Smith

Freelance journalist Graham Smith, of Mediaworld, remembers a happy whistler
– and looks at news from around the world.


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I honestly thought Ronnie Ronalde had run out of puff. Do you remember him?

Way back in the last century this extremely talented man whistled his way around the theatres and variety halls of the world. That’s right, he just whistled, although I believe he sang a bit too. When he ambled on stage at a recent tribute show you could have blown me down, I honestly thought he had left us, but no there he was twittering like a bird, all puckered up and blowing his brains out for all he was worth.

Amazing. Apparently he’s alive and whistling and lives in New Zealand now and still makes a handsome living whistling and twittering like a bird. I don’t know if he does a Kiwi singing “In a Monastery Garden” but his rendering of the same at the show was unbelievable. Three people in the front row ducked in case the bird swooped low with weak bowels and I’ll swear the usherette was selling Trill alongside the ice cream at the interval.

The show was a tribute to Frankie Vaughan, old Mr Moonlight, and there were some great old troupers on the stage. Roy Hudd did his classic take off of Max Miller, although if he puts much more weight on they’ll need an extra million or two sequins for his suit. Nicholas Parsons popped up with his perfect diction, and a pressed blazer, to give a rendering of Eskimo Nell, and Bernie Clifton, who has spent half his life getting his leg over an ostrich, changed costumes for a barmy number from The Desert Song. And there was Gorden Kaye, formerly Renee of Allo, Allo, adding his tribute but refusing to rise to the bait of a lady in the audience who shouted “Allo, Allo” and saying: “I’m sorry I don’t speak that language” …well he could have said it just the once couldn’t he?

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