Morecambe and Wise visit Leo’s
Leo’s Supermarket traded successfully for many years on Kingswood High Street. The Kingswood Heritage Museum archives include a number of photographs of the site on which the store stood. These include photographs illustrating a visit to the store in 1971 by the famous and well-loved comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, one of which is reproduced here.
Morecambe and Wise worked together for over 40 years in variety, radio, film and television. During the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s they were extremely popular and their shows regularly attracted huge numbers of viewers. Their Christmas Show on BBC in 1977 scored one of the highest ever audiences in British television history with over 20 million viewers.
The photograph (below) shows the Leo’s store when it was in its heyday. The store sadly closed many years ago, and the site is now boarded up and unused. However, the site of the supermarket has a long and interesting history.
As shown in the photograph (below left), it was once the site of the Regent Cinema, and Aaron Jackson’s foundry. It was then the site of the Regent Garage and an earlier Co-Op store.
