Bournemouth's hairdresser to the stars: life of George Fairweather remembered

George Fairweather will be forever remembered as the mentor to one of Britain’s greatest comedians, Tony Hancock.

But he was a successful entertainer himself as well as running a popular barbershop in Westover Road.

Many of his celebrity pictures were bequeathed to his friend and local historian John Walker, who gave the Daily Echo a look at the collection.

“All the Pavilion people would come in for their haircuts,” said Mr Walker.

“He did haircuts for anyone or any local shows that needed them. He was really part of the local show business scene”

George Fairweather, born in 1910, went to Alma Road School. He was singing with his parents’ Magpies Concert Party by the age of 17.

He was a member of Willie Cave’s Revels, a pierrot company which used to entertain on the sands at Bournemouth’s West Cliff before World War II.

When the company’s theatre was washed away in a gale, George went on to take part in WH Lester’s Good Companions at the town’s Palace Court Theatre, where he teamed up with Phil Lester to form a successful double act.

At the outbreak of war, George was singing with the Blue Orpheans at Beales’ restaurant by day and organising shows for the War Service Organisation at the old Theatre Royal in the evenings.

Later, invalided out of war service, he joined Walter Paskin’s Come to the Show at the Pavilion.

There, he got to know his future wife Marjorie, who was one half of the Clayton Sisters, with whom he had shared the bill in Scvotland in 1938. They were married from 1946 until her death in 1991.

George had met Tony Hancock’s father Jack, a performer himself, in the early 1930s. The Hancocks had moved from Birmingham to take over the Mayo Hygienic Laundry at Strouden Road, before Jack became the landlord of the Railway Hotel in Holdenhurst Road. They soon moved on to run a 40-bedroomed hotel, which they renamed Durlston Court.

In 1940, Tony’s mother Lily, by now widowed and remarried, got in touch with George to ask him to help 16-year-old Tony break into showbusiness.

George taught Hancock how to impersonate Winston Churchill, Charles Laughton as the Hunchback of Notre Dame and George Arliss.

Hancock impressed an audiences at Avon Road Labour Hall, with some risque jokes, but George advised him against using the same material when he played the Sacred Heart Church Hall in Richmond Hill. The show bombed and the woman who had booked him told Hancock not to return for his second slot. “We want to fumigate the stage,” she said.

A despondent Hancock never tried blue material again.

George opened a first floor hairdressing salon in Westover Road but for a while remained involved in show business, running the Fairweather Follies cabaret act before retiring from the profession in the late 1960s.

He returned to the stage to compere a Silver Jubilee concert at the Winter Gardens in 1977 and the event led to other shows and cabaret work at hotels, before he retired again in 1982.

George gave up the salon in 1985. Today, it is owned by the family jeweller Franses, which has the shop below and uses the space as an office.

George, who lived on Westover Road for 43 years before moving to Sea Road, remained a familiar figure around town. He had coffee at Fortes in Westover Road most mornings, holding court among a group of businessmen who enjoyed his showbiz stories.

He joined the Constitutional Club on Richmond Hill and played a lot of golf. John Walker said: “George was a great golfer, one of the few to have got two holes in one at Meyrick Park.”

Ever the entertainer, he once awoke from a cataract operation to find he had an eye patch on – and instantly began an impression of Long John silver.

Echo journalist David Ross, who became a friend of George, wrote after his death in 1999: “To spend an hour in his company was to see a curtain rise on a brightly lit stage bustling with activity – a world of jollity, flirty soubrettes and suave, nimble-footed men in top hats.”

At his funeral at St Andrew’s Church in Charminster, a cane and a straw boater were placed on his coffin – a final tribute to his impression of Maurice Chevalier singing Thank Heavens for Little Girls.

Hairdresser to the stars

The stars whose autographed portraits were left by George Fairweather to John Walker include:

* Tyrone Power (1914-58), Hollywood star of such swashbucklers as The Black Swan and Prince of Foxes.

* Deryck Guyler (1914-99), comic actor of TV series Please Sir! and Sykes and radio’s Men from the Ministry.

* Film and TV star Jack Warner (1895-1981), best known for his long-running portrayal of Dixon of Dock Green.

* Actor Wilfred Pickles (1904-78), known for a host of radio appearances and the TV series For the Love of Ada.

* Richard ‘Stinker’ Murdoch (1907-90), stage partner of Arthur Askey and radio star of Men from the Ministry.

* Richard O’Sullivan (born 1944), star of the hit sitcoms Man About the House and Robin’s Nest.

* Windsor Davies (born 1930), best known as the intimidating Battery Sgt Major Williams in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

* A young Lenny Henry (born 1958) early in his stand-up career.