Lee Mack Learns Of Ancestor's Role In 'Pals' Battalion | Who Do You Think You Are
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- āđāļāļĒāđāļāļĢāđāđāļĄāļ·āđāļ 10 āļ.āļĒ. 2024
- Lee travels to Liverpool to meet a historian and uncover more about Billy Mack, and his role in the war as part of the Pals Battalion regiment in Liverpool.
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Comedian Lee Mack was born Lee McKillop in the north of England, just like his McKillop great-grandfather, who was also a comedian, known as Billy Mac. Lee has a few playbills from Billy Mac's variety hall performances, but knows little more about him. Not long into his journey, Lee discovers that his great-grandfather was passionate about more than making people laugh. Billy Mac joined the first ever pals battalion in Liverpool at the start of the First World War and honed his act at the front lines in the Battle of the Somme. Lee is also curious about his maternal grandad Joe's upbringing - deserted by his unwed mother and raised by his grandparents in County Mayo at the time of the Irish Civil War.
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Lee Mack, creator of Not Going Out, has long been drawn to the figure of his great grandfather, Billy Mac. Autographed photographs and mementoes reveal that Billy was also a comedian and that he performed at the âChicâ Casino in Leeâs native Southport - can Lee find out more?
âAs I get older, Iâm getting more curious,â Lee says at the start of his episode of Who Do You Think You Are? He begins by ordering up Billyâs birth record. It shows that William Alexander McKillop was born in 1889, which means he was 25 years old when the First World War broke out. In August 1914, Billy volunteered for the Kingâs Liverpool Regiment as part of the first-ever Pals Battalion.
As Lee follows Billyâs wartime odyssey through training at Lord Derbyâs estate, Knowsley Hall, and then to northern France, where Billy advanced in the third wave of troops on the first day of the Somme, it emerges that Billy performed with a concert party, The Optimists, while in the military. Lee learns how the troupe even performed straight after taking part in a brutal battle at Ypres. âThatâs unbelievable to be actually shot at, or perhaps to kill someone, and then to walk on stage,â marvels Lee.
In the wake of the conflict, Billy carried on performing, but by 1922 he was working in the âwireless apparatusâ industry. But thereâs one last twist. Lee was curious as to why the family has publicity photographs of Billy that have been autographed. It turns out that he âended up marrying an autograph hunterâ, Leeâs great grandmother, Gladys.
Next, Lee researches the life of his maternal grandad, Joe, whose mother went to Canada and left her son to be raised by his grandparents. âIt does feel a bit cold,â says Lee after visiting his aunt in Southport and hearing her memories of a worrier and a âvery money-consciousâ man.
In Ballina in Ireland, Lee learns more. Joe was born out of wedlock at a time when there was huge stigma around illegitimate children. His mother, Delia, would have struggled to find work, making her decision to go Montreal, her passage paid by a domestic agency, far more understandable.
He also learns about Deliaâs parents, Thomas and Mary Farrell. Thomas was a labourer who lived in a two-room house and had a sideline in selling unlicensed booze in a âshebeenâ. He was often fined for his activities. Then, in 1922, he made an insurance claim after the doors and windows of his home âwere wantonly and maliciously damaged or injured by rifle fireâ.
This was the time of the Irish civil war when family fought family, but it may be the Farrells were simply caught in the crossfire. Whatever the truth, Joeâs worrisome nature is now easier for Lee to understand. His forebears, he says, have gone from seeming âabstractâ to being âreal people.â