Albert went to Ilkley National School where he met his wife Doris, they married on January 27 1927, at Ilkley congregational church, the rev Tomkin officiated.

Albert was originally trained by his father to be an instructor in physical training, he won the amateur boxing championship of Yorkshire in 1917. He was also a wharfdale diving champion.

 First he was a grocers boy, then he worked for the butchers, learning to ride on the butchers delivery horses.

Then he joined the railway looking after the parcels, many of which involved looking after the animal cargo, he would try to feed and water them because he felt sorry for them resulting in them escaping! He put his hand in a basket of monkeys to give them a drink of water and one of them went for him! So he let go of the lid and they all jumped out they tore up the place parcels and all! What a mess, so all he could do was wait outside with the police until the owner returned. Then once he tried to give a crust to a basket of pigeons he didn’t know they were prize-racing pigeons and they escaped! The owner was furious because they wouldn’t come down from the station roof  he said to Albert that they were almost responsible for winning the first world war!!

Doris was employed at Beanlands in Brook st in Ilkley, she was the one who prompted him to leave the railway for the club and concert work when it began to clash with his night shift work at  the railway , the railway workers thought he was crackers to leave after 7 years there , it has been truly said that if Albert had not gone into comedy the industry would not have been the same throughout that era. He started on this road by telling jokes to irate passengers who had missed their connections, cheering them up immensely.

After learning his craft on the many northern clubs, Albert had his first big success with Francis Laidler.

Who made him  principal comedian in Cinderella he played Buttons at the Alhambra theatre Bradford. 

This was to become the longest career of most performances amongst anyone else in pantomime, he performed in various panto’s from 1932 to 1960’s. During these years he embarked on many of his own shows ‘on with the Modley’ ‘Modley’s Merrymakers’  He worked for Ernest Binns on the Arcadian Follies in 1932. He worked for Lew and Leslie Grade on the Moss Empire circuit, which included such prestigious dates as the Leeds Empire, Newcastle Empire, Liverpool Empire,Sunderland Empire, Nottingham Empire and many more.

He made 3 films (which I have not got copies of!!! Any one out there with them please get in touch!!) Up for the cup, take me to Paris and Bobs your uncle. I have many pictures of these films and newspaper articles.

I shall elaborate on the above over the next few months.

He worked on ‘variety bandbox’ after the war. This popular programme began life   In December 1942, as ‘Bandbox Variety’ in the middle of the war, and a pretty grim uncertain period too, the B.B.C. launched a new programme for the forces. It was to be a weekly ‘command performance’ and it was to go out on a Sunday afternoon from the Queensbury club, the west end of London theatre where thousands of forces men and women had a taste of the bright lights and fun. With Cecil Madden in charge, Variety Bandbox took to the air and soon caught the ears of the whole country. 

Billy Ternent and his orchestra became the resident band, and the first compere  was at one of the weekly auditions Joy Russel Smith  held where  they heard a young man fresh from the forces with a wild look and a wild crazy style, so they went to work shaping his act Within a short period of time a new comic star had arisen—yes Frankie Howerd and you know the rest of his story! Frankie alternated weekly with another up and coming comedian Derek Roy.

To name a few other resident Bandbox comedians , Hal Monty, Michael Howard, Peter Cavanagh,  Arthur English, Max Wall and Reg Dixon with Albert Modley as alternating resident comedians.

Bandbox used to go out on B.B.C. overseas services, to commonwealth and empire countries, it had an audience of 10,000,000 to 14,000,000.

It  ran through the war and earned its permanent place, and that became Sunday evening – a quiet revolution had taken place without any one really noticing it!

In the late 1930’s Albert started his Road Shows. November 1937 headlines reads Albert Modley Gets Better and Better His road shows were a combination of his own stand up comedy and sketches with other artists. Song and dance artists which included The John Tiller Girls, (Which later included Leann’s Nana Pat Modley ) Enchanting Soprano Mary Hale, The Bonita sisters and Neaeen performed quick fire acrobatic work, a fine accordionist Harrision Viney, Skill combined with humour were shown by Reading and Grant who showed their work on a spring net. Another artist who gave a meritorious performance Du-Lay who was a magician, Percy Garside who had a magnificent baritone voice. It is only necessary to say that all the acts were always well staged and the dresses were in keeping with the show. Shows like this had the audiences mesmerised feeling that they had only been sat there an hour when in fact it was practically two hours.

Nearing the end of every performance Albert played his various instruments, theses included his Drums, Xylophone , Harmonica and Trumpet.

His sketches included ‘Cutting out the Middle Man’ where he plays a mischievous schoolboy being cheeky to his parents. He is at his very best. His action’s, facial expressions- which changed suddenly from grave to gay- and his playfulness with a toy Aeroplane, are in themselves a nights entertainment. In ‘cutting out the middle man’ he is ordered by his mum to call

the doctor as his father is ill and Albert obeys, during the wait he annoys his dad with bangs and crashes with his toy aeroplane, to cut a long story short there is a knock at the front door and mother answers, there is stood the looming figure of an undertaker!

mother is horrified, she explains that she has not called for him there must be some mistake? but Albert pipes up “ its ok mum i thought we could cut out the middle man”!

In ‘the lost property office’ he is the same mischievous school boy , he approaches

the lost property kiosk at the train station, whilst he is waiting to be seen he touches parcels on the counter and the porter who is dealing with some one else, protests and

tells Albert not to touch them! he keeps being mischievous and butting in! he tells the

porter his mum has lost her umbrella so the porter sympathetically rings the guard,

“what time did she loose it”? on the 3.30 replies Albert, so the guard checks the incoming trains, rings the other stations and after a while ,during which Albert is being a naughty boy touching things and generally being a nuisance, the porter informs him that the last train has come into the station for the day and it wasn’t on any of them! Albert replies” no! it wasn’t on a train it was on’t bus”!

He played several instruments skilfully, Whilst playing the mouth organ he would imitate the movements of a man with a piano-accordion. Albert added to the gaiety of thousands, and doing it without the necessity of introducing by word or action the slightest suggestion of vulgarity. in other words he was a clever artiste that he did not need to stoop low to create laughter.

He did a sketch on his Drums where he pretended to be a tram driver. He would talk to the audience as if they were on the tram lines looking backwards and upwards as he talked to his pretend passengers. His Tram always went to ‘Duplicate’ and the buses all went to ‘Private‘, the number of his tram was ‘92’

Our favorite joke when he performed his Tram Sketch was “ Eeeeh where did that low Bridge come from”? looking up at his tram, stopping to let a passenger on looks round at them and says “Don’t go up stairs they’ve gone heeee!”