LIVING HISTORY – Long before the National Lottery, Beverley had a lottery of its own. And according to a remarkable piece of local history, one of its winners received a visit from one of the biggest comedians in Britain: Les Dawson.
The year was 1978. Dawson was already a household name, famous for his gloriously miserable delivery, mother-in-law jokes and deliberately catastrophic piano playing. His television career was flourishing and, in January that year, The Les Dawson Show had begun a new run on BBC One.
Meanwhile, something rather different was happening in Beverley.
In April 1978, the town launched its own lottery. Contemporary newspaper reports show that tickets cost 25p, with draws taking place every fortnight. The scheme was operated by Competition Management Services Ltd, a subsidiary of Vernons, a name much more familiar to generations who grew up with football pools and coupons arriving through the letterbox.
The Hull Daily Mail reported the launch on 20 April under the headline “Sue sets Beverley lottery rolling”.
It is against that background that one of Beverley’s more extraordinary memories emerges.
Les Dawson is remembered as coming to the town to meet a lottery winner at the Beaver pub, on North Bar Within.
For anyone who only remembers the lottery era beginning with Noel Edmonds and those numbered balls in 1994, the story initially sounds chronologically impossible. Dawson died in 1993, more than a year before the first National Lottery draw.
But Beverley’s own lottery changes the picture completely.
In 1978, someone could indeed have been described quite literally as a Beverley lottery winner.
And the Beaver would have provided a wonderfully appropriate setting. Sitting close to Saturday Market and North Bar, it was already part of the fabric of the town. Imagine the scene: Beverley in the late 1970s, a local resident suddenly finding themselves a lottery winner and then one of the country’s best-known television comedians walking through the door of their local pub.
It is exactly the sort of event that would have become part of Beverley’s collective memory.
There are still tantalising gaps in the story. We have yet to establish conclusively from contemporary records who the winner was, how much they won and precisely why Dawson came to the Beaver. Nor have we yet located the original newspaper report or photograph recording his visit.
But the wider circumstances are now firmly rooted in 1978.
Beverley’s lottery existed. It began that April, operated by a subsidiary of Vernons, and contemporary newspapers subsequently carried details of local lottery winners. Dawson was simultaneously at the height of his television fame.
Nearly half a century later, the final piece of the puzzle may still be sitting somewhere in Beverley: in an old photograph album, a newspaper cutting tucked into a drawer, or simply in the memory of somebody who happened to be drinking in the Beaver when Les Dawson walked through the door.
So we would like Beverley Review readers to help us finish the story.
Do you remember Les Dawson visiting Beverley in 1978? Do you know the name of the lottery winner he came to meet at the Beaver? Perhaps you were there, knew the winner or, best of all, have a photograph of the occasion.
If you do, we would love to hear from you.
Because somewhere behind this extraordinary little piece of Beverley folklore is the full story of the day one of Britain’s greatest comedians came to town to meet a very lucky local.