TSK! Talk about galloping senility; yesterday we credited television’s western star Hopalong Cassidy with the greeting “Hi yo Silver!” To our old buddy Alan Kelly, now gracing the Queensland coast, plus several other passionate readers with long memories, we offer our abject apologies and confirm that the equine greeting came from Clayton Moore, who played the Lone Ranger on radio and television.
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SILVER was “a fiery horse with the speed of light”. Just as the Superman radio series began with “sweeping low over the city of Metropolis in an endless search for crime and criminals … Superman!”, so the Lone Ranger began “out of the past come the thundering hoof beats of the great horse Silver!”
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TWO horses played the role; Moore selected the first from a ranch in the San Fernando Valley in 1949. Over 17 hands tall with a majestic air, the first Silver’s real name was White Cloud, and he was 12 years old. As for Hopalong Cassidy, the legendary western plainsman was acted by William Boyd, who rode firmly in the saddle of Topper.
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BOYD acquired both the horse and a wife in the same year, 1937, and Grace Bradley Boyd named the horse Topper after a series of books by Thorne Smith that she was reading at the time. Topper is buried at the Los Angeles Memorial Park at Calabasas in California. Hopalong Cassidy’s adventures embraced 66 feature films, 54 television shows and 104 radio programmes.
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WELL then … hopefully Hopalong, the Lone Ranger and their respective mounts can now be left to history. We turn to the patient David Wissink who has been trying to tell us about Leonard Cheshire for the past 48 hours. You’ll recall that we left Cheshire as he became an air force reservist at the beginning of WWII. Over to David ...
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“CHESHIRE flew a record 100 bombing missions and was the most highly decorated bomber pilot of that war; awarded the Victoria Cross, he dropped a rank to take command of the famous 617 Squadron, the Dambusters. Film addicts will recall the movie of that name …”
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JOIN us tomorrow for more about Cheshire and his life. Cheers!
– Dee Nesenolis