[Jack Lanigan’s wife is not named in the memoir. They and their daughters Lillian and Muriel moved to Manchester in 1922 when Jack was appointed as the city’s District Sanitary Inspector. He had performed song and dance numbers in the style (‘impersonations’) of popular music hall entertainers G.H. Elliott and Eugene Stratton at informal concerts since he was fourteen years old]

My wife was a very religious woman. I was still an agnostic, but we never argued about religion. She became a member of a Congregational Church and the children attended the Sunday school. At supper she told me they were having a Womens [sic]Weekend, and said, “Dare I ask you to sing at our concert?” “I would be very pleased. It is some time since I was on a concert platform”, I replied. It was all arranged and I did my usual impersonations. During the evening one of the Deacons of the Church asked if I would care to sing at their “Mens [sic]Weekend” in two or three weeks time. I agreed, the audience seemed to enjoy the novelty of the impersonations.