WE were all extremely saddened to hear of the death of popular Weymouth entertainer Harold Crump.

Harold, whose stage name was Harold Cordell, delighted thousands of people over the years with his ventriloquy, comedy mimes and compering and reviews and reports of his shows were a mainstay in the Echo's entertainments pages over the years.

It seemed appropriate to put together a Looking Back tribute to this remarkable Weymouth man, who was born in 3 Newstead Road in the town and apart from a short stint living in Manchester called the resort home all his life.

Harold leaves wife Daphne and children Brian and Lisa. Thanks go to Brian for sharing these wonderful photos and tales with us documenting his father's 50 years in showbiz.

Brian said: "My father's pavilion shows throughout five decades brought escapism and entertainment to thousands of theatre goers as well as giving the opportunity to many local entertainers to perform on the stage of a 1,000 seater theatre."

Harold's career in entertaining began when the group of amateur entertainers he was in, the Young Revellers, performed a show called The Mad March Hare at Upwey and Broadwey Memorial Hall. He performed a sketch called Life On The Railway.

In December 1957 the group stepped in when Weymouth's professional pantomime at the Alexandra Gardens theatre was cancelled that Christmas at short notice. Harold and his fellow entertainers gamely stepped in to perform Winter In Wonderland which ran for three nights. One of the highlights of the show was Harold, along with Douglas Thorne, performing a comedy mime to the song Sisters from the film White Christmas.

It was the perfect match for Harold when he met his future wife Daphne Gill, whom he married in 1961. Daphne also loved being on the stage, was training to be a ballet teacher and was also a member of Weymouth Operatic Society.

Harold was a self-taught ventriloquist who learnt his art from a booklet called Secrets of Ventriloquism and How to Acquire this Amusing Art by Professor Foxtone.

Later that year during a trip to London, Harold visited Davenports magic shop and made an impulse purchase that would define the rest of his life; He paid £21 for a ventriloquist's dummy - cheeky boy Jimmy Green - with delivery in six to eight weeks.

In 1961, Harold made his first TV appearance on Home Grown - a talent show filmed in Southampton TV studios - with Ginger the cowboy.

Wanting to expand his act and also have a unique feature, Harold commissioned a full size ventriloquial horse figure to be built by a theatrical prop maker in London. With 'Sunshine' the horse, Harold performed a wild west act with his cowboy figure, indian chief and indian squaw.

In 1968 Harold organised his first show at the Pavilion Theatre in Weymouth called June Revels. Harold and Doug performed a double act and Harold was billed as 'novelty ventriloquist'. Dancers from Daphne's dance school, the Weymouth School of Ballet also featured in the show.

A month later, Harold was invited to compere the Sunday Night At The Pavilion weekly shows for the summer season and his stage name Harold Cordell was born. Another show he did at the Pavilion was Variety ahoy in October 1972, this time was a dummy sidekick called Benny Cordell, who wore a made to measure evening tails dress suit. It was the next year when he appeared on stage with his favourite ventriloquial figure called Jimmy Green.

His successful Music Hall shows at Weymouth Pavilion started up in 1974 and ran for 33 years, raised more than £150,000 for charity and were attended by Royalty.

A 20th anniversary show in 1993 featured special guest star Don Maclean and 1998's Silver Jubilee show featured Madge and Alwyn Moon's grandson, local boogie woogie pianist Ben Waters.

In 1979, Harold took part in Westward TV's 'Southwest Showcase talent show which was filmed in Plymouth. Harold's routine featured Socksy, Jimmy Green and Sunshine the horse and the judges commended his technique and fast paced finale.

Harold became known locally as 'The man with the horse' performing children's parties in Dorset and beyond. He always guaranteed a 45 minute show but his shows were regularly at least an hour long. His record was 1 hour and 20 minutes. The children got to ride on the horse and Harold also included balloon modelling at the parties.

Former entertainments manager Bob Fox paid tribute to Harold. He said: "Thousands of people will have attended the shows he put on, and he organized many more at senior citizen's clubs and the like over many years.

"I always felt that if anyone in Weymouth should receive an honour for a contribution to entertainment and charity in the area it should be Harold, but sadly it never happened."

A former colleague of Harold's who worked with him at the admiralty in Bincleaves, Weymouth, said: "He was a really nice chap, and made lot of people happy. Thank you Harry."

*These sentiments are surely echoed by the thousands of people who have been entertained and given an opportunity to entertain by Harold over the years. Thanks to Harold's family for this tribute to a special man.