Square Glosters And Organisms

Continuing from last week, AUSTIN MIDDLEMISS recalls some of the classic characters he’s known in the fancy, this time featuring the inimitable Big Lol and late great Billy Watson.

- Austin Middlemiss

HUMOUR

RETURNING to humorous characters, no article would be complete without a mention of Tony’s cousin Lawrence Thompson, or “Big Lol” as he is affectionately known. The stories are legion; sadly, many of the best can’t be repeated in polite company.

On trips down to the old National Exhibition, Lol would regale us with stories which had us in fits of laughter the whole way, and invariably he slept all the way home on the return journey. Hewn pretty much from the same rock face he worked at all his life down the coalmine, it’s fair to say that Lol’s skills were based on graft not craft. Tony and I went across one time to see the birds and the new block of cages Lol had built. We tended to put favoured birds in eye-level cages, but Lol wasn’t quite so fussy and had placed a batch of birds he liked along the bottom row.