The John Mellor Column

IT'S A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY - FROM STALYBRIDGE OR OLDBURY

31-07-2006

"It's a Long Way to Tipperary" is one our nation's best loved tunes; redolent of World War One and other military conflicts. Not surprisingly, the man who wrote it - Jack Judge - has been honoured. But where should the monument be? In Stalybridge in Cheshire where a statue has recently been unveiled in his memory? Or Oldbury in the Black Country where new columnist John Mellor thinks the tune was written?

In the current edition of the Royal British Legion magazine,there's a photograph of the unveiling of a statue to Jack Judge -the composer of "Its A Long way To Tipperary."

The monument is at Stalybridge Market, and the description claims him as "Cheshire's Tipperary Market hero" It's alleged that he wrote this most famous of tunes with a friend Horace Vernon in the Newmarket public house there on the 31st January 1912.

That doesn't tally with what I know.

I was once privileged to be the superintendent of police in Oldbury and was constantly regaled with stories of Jack Judge who, I was told, wrote the song in a public house in the town - in Birmingham Street to be precise.

I was informed that Jack was an Oldbury man who had a stall in Oldbury market.

Oldbury seems to have lost its hero to Stalybridge so local historians will you put the record straight for my benefit?

Do you know where Jack Judge wrote "It's A Long Way To Tipperary"?