I knew Jean Darling quite well in Dublin in the 1980s when I worked for RTE, the Irish national broadcaster, and she was there recording the children’s stories she wrote as “Aunty Poppy”. She was a fascinating person, and often kept a table in the canteen enthralled with stories of her life as a child star in Hollywood in the 1930s. She had been a friend of Stan Laurel’s daughter Lois, and I remember her telling me how kind and supportive Stan was towards his friend “Fatty” Arbuckle after the comedian’s career was destroyed by a sex scandal. When I left RTE Jean gave me a picture of herself from the Our Gang days, inscribed: “To Stephen, from a little girl of long ago.”
