Sandy Powell (comedian)

[citation needed] Born in Rotherham, Yorkshire, England, in 1900, he attended White's school in Masbrough, where he helped his mother (stage name of Lily le Maine) to put on a marionette show.

After he left school he became a music hall entertainer, often wearing a kilt in the guise of a Scottish comedian.

During this part of his career he was associated with the singer Gracie Fields, and released several records where he collaborated with her.

From 1930 he took his own revue, Sandy Powell's Road Show, on tour – it ran for ten years and was extremely popular despite having only a handful of performers and two backdrops.

[2] In the 1930s he began to work on the radio, always introducing his show with the catchphrase "Can you hear me, mother?"

Powell said that the catchphrase originated on an occasion when he had dropped his script and was killing time at the microphone while rearranging the pages.

[5] For a day or two, he thought he had bad indigestion, but it was worse than he realised and he died of a heart attack in Eastbourne on 26 June 1982, aged 82.