January 22nd 1943;

Editor's Note: Askey had no desire to work with Dandridge or the All-Stars, despite all of Dandridge's letters, promises, enticements, desperate pleas, and finally, threats. Askey's resolve to have nothing to do with him did not deter Dandridge. He had a plan.

January 28th 1943; Aha! (The rest of this entry is unfortunately missing.)

Editor's Note: Dandridge and the All-Stars would patiently wait until Askey was in the middle of doing his act on stage. They would then barge out, with Dandridge shouting:" It's The All-Stars! Arthur Askey and the All-Stars!" and proceed to do their act around Askey. They would attempt to include him in their patter and routines, while disrupting his own act so he could not continue. His endeavours to walk off stage were usually prevented by the All-Stars wrestling him to the ground, until the curtain was eventually brought down. Dandridge assumed that they could keep doing this until Askey capitulated and joined the act willingly. Regrettably this was not to be. One night, while Dandridge was trying to force him to participate in a plate-spinning routine, with the repeated assurance that it would be "really funny", Askey quietly slipped away into the audience. They never spoke again.

March 23rd 1943; My old pal Arthur Askey has mysteriously left the All-Stars, without so much as a by-your-leave! And it was all going so well, too. Just goes to show you never know where you are in this game. I thought I saw his exact double sitting in the audience the night he vanished. It's a lesson to all of us. Made me conscious of my place in the scheme of things, I can tell you. I nearly dragged him up on stage, to make sport of his uncanny resemblance to our evanesced comrade. But no. That would have been too cruel in the circumstances. Best not to tempt Fate. He was a sublime wag. I'll not see his like again. Except maybe staring up at me from the audience. Staring. Staring. Haunting. Staring haunting. Haunting staring. Oh, leave me alone! Oh, how I'll miss him! Still, things are looking up. Apparently I've won some sort of award. About time too. I hope it's big.

Editor's Note: In March 1943, Chuffer Dandridge was voted "Man Most Women would like to be in a Trench With!" Although it was never specified, it was always assumed it had something to do with his boiling kettles! Behind the scenes with the All-Stars however, all was not well! Bunty Beauchamp, Dandridge's loyal ame damnee through four incarnations of the All-Stars, now wanted equal billing with Dandridge. This meant that the name of the act would have to change to: Chuffer Dandridge, Bunty Beauchamp and the All-Stars! As this would only leave Jumbo Carstairs to fulfil the function of "All-Star", Dandridge felt it made no sense, and dismissed it out of hand. Beauchamp's ambition also caused ill feeling between him and Carstairs, resulting in protracted bouts of gouging and kicking on stage, which even Dandridge was hard-pressed to pass off as part of the act. Bunty Beauchamp was something of an oddity, even for the catch as catch can world of wartime show business! Reputed to be a woman in male drag (in the style of Cary Grant) by many, and a twelve year old boy serving his country in a lie by others, Bunty's act was strictly for the connoisseur. Bunty would stand centre-stage, hurling vituperative cat-calls at all and sundry, red faced with puffed-out cheeks. This act was met with either thunderous applause or dumbfounded silence, depending on the audience. Intriguingly enough, Beauchamp believed himself to be performing an escapologist act, which he always ended by showing his extended palms to the audience and proclaiming: "Easy as Pie!" What he believed himself to be escaping from is uncertain, even with the benefit of hindsight. (His later attempts at a conventional escapologist act are detailed in subsequent diary entries). Suffice to say, in May 1943 due to his overweening ambition and the inexorable attitude of Chuffer Dandridge, Bunty Beauchamp was forced to quit the All-Stars. It was an "escape" he had not foreseen. In one way an "escape", in another a "ruthless savage betrayal of unequivocal trust", the future was already the past. The break severed the friendship Beauchamp felt for Dandridge. They didn't speak again for many years.

Oh Bunty .......

May 12th 1943; Poor Bunty. It's better this way. He just wasn't ready for the big time! It's so sad when that happens, but so much kinder to him in the end. He'd be much better off forgetting all about show business, or being brutally killed in action or something. He'll never be a star. Hasn't got what it takes, y'see. I tried to help him be of some use, but I draw the line at sharing top billing! I'll get by. Jumbo Carstairs will just have to pull his socks up, and work twice as hard, until I find another starry-eyed talentless hopeful to replace Beauchamp. This war seems to bring them out in droves, so it shouldn't be too difficult!

Editor's Note: As it turned out, it wasn't. Dandridge and Carstairs worked as a double-act for three months, with Carstairs under instruction to "move about a lot, to create the impression of a small group of potentially funny people!" Then, at the end of August 1943, a dream came true for Chuffer Dandridge. The team of "Tosser", "Touch", "Tufty" and "Titch" broke up in acrimonious circumstances! Delighted by this unexpected turn of events, Dandridge seized on a brainwave. Although he would always view Tosser Strangeways as his nemesis, he bore the rest of the team no enmity. So it was, on August 24th 1943, Dandridge extended an open invitation to Strangeways ex-cohorts to join the All-Stars. Dickie "Touch" Tingles declined, saying a working relationship with Dandridge was not what he was looking for ! Tufty Abernathy and Titch Kitchener, however, had no such reservations. They mistakenly imagined that membership of the All-Stars would give them both the creative freedom they craved. "Tufty", a rubber-boned tousled zany, felt his wacky antics didn't sit well with Strangeways' group. "Titch", a diminutive lugubrious tumbler, felt he had been sorely underused by the ensemble ! Cajoled by Dandridge, with promises of "Artistic Control" and "The biggest spotlight they'd ever seen!", they had no hesitation in becoming the next members of the All-Stars! But as the entry from Dandridge's diary for February 12th1944 shows, the garden didn't stay rosy for very long: