NEARLY four decades after his death, the legend of one of the world's best-loved comics is being kept alive in a North-East town.

Fans of Stan Laurel have a new reminder of his early years in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, the town which gave him his first taste for entertainment and influenced his legendary film partnership with Oliver Hardy.

A blue plaque erected on one of the family homes at the weekend helps mark a trail followed by Laurel and Hardy fans from around the globe.

It was unveiled by his 81-year-old nephew, Huntley Jefferson Woods, whose mother, Beatrice Olga Jefferson, was Stan's sister. She was born in the house, in Waldron Street, in December 1894.

Appropriately for an occasion dedicated to a king of slapstick, the ceremony was not a dull affair.

The small band of devotees who keep his legend alive in Bishop Auckland, the Hog Wild Tent of the Sons of the Desert, the Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society, never pass up a chance to dress as their heroes in bowlers and moustaches.

They marched round the town and passed other points on the trail. They included St Peter's Church, where Stan was baptised, the site of the Eden Theatre, which his father managed, and the former King James Grammar School, where he first showed his talent by putting on impromptu performances for teachers.

Mr Huntley Woods, from Blyth, in Northumberland, met both men backstage at the Newcastle Empire in 1952.

He said: "Stan was very down to earth, a really nice person. I have been in the music business most of my life as a pianist and organist, and so many people are over the top. They were not."

Stan was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in 1890, not in Bishop Auckland but at Ulverston, Cumbria, where his grandparents lived.

He suffered from illness as a child and his parents, Arthur and Madge, a talented actress and stage designer, left him there while they got on with their busy lives.

Stan's time with his parents was limited to holidays and Christmas, spent first at 66 Princes Street, and later in Waldron Street.

After school, he defied his father's wishes to join him in theatre management, and worked in pantomimes in Newcastle. He then teamed up with Charlie Chaplin in the Fred Karno company, and left with them for the US.

Stan died in February 1965 aged 74.