As of 2014 there are two public statues of Formby. The first, by the Manx artist Amanda Barton, is in Douglas, Isle of Man, and shows him leaning on a lamp-post and dressed in the motorcycle leathers of a TT racer. Barton was also commissioned to provide a second statue for the Lancashire town of Wigan, which was unveiled in September 2007 in the town's Grand Arcade shopping centre. [221] A bungling recruit begins his R.A.F. training and gets mistaken for a regularly enlisted airman, much to the annoyance of his strict sergeant major. In the summer of 1942 Formby was involved in a controversy with the Lord's Day Observance Society, who had filed law suits against the BBC for playing secular music on Sunday. The society began a campaign against the entertainment industry, claiming all theatrical activity on a Sunday was unethical, and cited a 1667 law which made it illegal. With 60 leading entertainers already avoiding Sunday working, Dean informed Formby that his stance would be crucial in avoiding a spread of the problem. Formby issued a statement, "I'll hang up my uke on Sundays only when our lads stop fighting and getting killed on Sundays... as far as the Lord's Day Observance Society are concerned, they can mind their own bloody business. And in any case, what have they done for the war effort except get on everyone's nerves?" The following day it was announced that the pressure from the society was to be lifted. [105]

Spare a Copper (1940)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 13 January 2009 . Retrieved 10 March 2014. Further information: George Formby on screen, stage, record and radio Formby in the early 1920s, when still playing John WillieBret goes as far as to call Formby and Howson "soul-mates", although he points out that "just how far their relationship progressed beyond the platonic is not known". [170] I See Ice!". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 11 July 2012 . Retrieved 28 May 2014. Although Formby had already made two moderately successful films ( Boots! Boots! and Off the Dole), No Limit was the film that put him on the road to stardom.

Formby was born blind owing to an obstructive caul, although his sight was restored during a violent coughing fit or sneeze when he was a few months old. [8] After briefly attending school—at which he did not prosper, and did not learn to read or write—Formby was removed from formal education at the age of seven and sent to become a stable boy, briefly in Wiltshire and then in Middleham, Yorkshire. [9] Formby Sr sent his son away to work as he was worried Formby would watch him on stage; he was against Formby following in his footsteps, saying "one fool in the family is enough". [10] [11] After a year working at Middleham, he was apprenticed to Thomas Scholfield at Epsom, where he ran his first professional races at the age of 10, when he weighed less than 4 stone (56lb; 25kg). [12] [13] George Perry wrote in "Forever Ealing", "the notion of unsuspected German spies in respectable positions was to recur in more serious Ealing films such as The Foreman Went to France and Went the Day Well? These comedy films were judged as very good for public morale at the time while delivering an important message." [5]A ukulele player is mistaken for a British spy and unwittingly foils a plot by German intelligence agents.