Jack Howarth (19th February 1896 to
31st March 1984)
After a long weekend at Llandudno I set off home early due
to thick fog (I couldn’t even see The Great Orme from the promenade.) I went to
find the crematorium where the actor Jack Howarth disappeared into the ether.
He had spent his final years with his wife living nearby in Degany
but I knew he had been cremated at Colwyn Bay (where he had once ran his own
theatre.)
When I arrived
on that Bank holiday Monday fog was still down but not thick enough to deem
photos useless. As I strolled around the graveyard I couldn’t help see rabbits
darting around. Some holes they jumped into were alongside graves (do rabbits
burrow down 6 feet?) I saw the church where a funeral service was held then the
crematorium where Jack will have gone up into the ether.
This was no
actor who’d got lucky playing an old man in a soap opera. He appeared in 18
films, various theatre productions, a radio series and about 1700 episodes of
Coronation Street. He was born in Rochdale and, as a lad, sold theatre
programmes at the Theatre Royal, Rochdale (he was even at school with Gracie
Fields.) At 12 he starting playing juvenile roles on stage and ran his own
theatre company after the First World War. Men were scarce and he often played
many male roles in the same production.
This was one
diamond dude - he was made an MBE for his charity work, especially for disabled
children and those with learning difficulties. His first Coronation Street appearance was in 1960 and the last in 1984. He
was due to re-appear after a spell away but died in Llandudno General Hospital
from a liver complaint. His wife off 55 and son and daughter were at his
bedside. Six days later he was cremated here.
Service in
there….then cremation in there?
One of the many
rabbits…
Game
over…outside the crematorium…
Note the four
war graves…
