Perfect pad, especially if you like cleaning windows

The banjolele-playing entertainer is thought to have learned his ABCs in the North Yorkshire village's School House.

Now the property is for sale for 795,000 and, though it still has the same impressive Victorian architecture complete with a tower topped by the school bell, George wouldn't recognise it inside.

The large, Grade II listed building is now one of the village's most desirable homes, boasting a drawing room, dining room, bespoke kitchen, galleried library plus five bedrooms and three bathrooms.

Owner Steve McCann, who has spent 200,000 renovating the property and turning the playground into a garden, said: "I was told George went to school here and that seems likely given that he was a boy when he was here in Middleham."

Before he found fame on stage and screen young George, then George Hoy Booth, was an apprentice jockey in Yorkshire.

He began training at the age of seven in Epsom and rode his first professional race at Lingfield in 1915 aged ten before spending a number of years with various trainers in North Yorkshire.

George Formby Society archivist Neil Forshaw said: "I think he was there early in his career and then just after World War One. I believe George's time in Middleham was at George Drake's stable at Warwick House and he had connections to the Poulter family who were very kind to him.

"His racing career finished with Botterill at Malton when he was riding over the sticks due to his increasing weight."

George shed his jockey silks at the age of 17 in 1921 when his father died and at his mother's behest he took his father's stage name and followed in his footsteps as a comic entertainer.

Within ten years his hilarious "gormless Northerner act" had made him one of the world's biggest film stars.

He coined the catchphrases: "Turned out nice again" and "Ooh Mother!" and the 1930s and 1940s resounded with his saucy comic songs including Chinese Laundry Blues, When I'm Cleaning Windows, Little Stick of Blackpool Rock and Leaning on a Lampost.

But his musical talents had obviously been spotted early by locals in Middleham and put to good use. The George Formby Society has a photograph of George playing a mouth organ at the Whit Parade in Middleham.

Local Denny Gibson says he also had a reputation as a comic character and recalls an anecdote from her neighbour, the late Harold Render, from Birdridden, who, although not a trained barber, earned a few pence cutting stable lads' hair at the Lady Bab pub.

"He used to say he used a pudding bowl to get it straight," says Mrs Gibson. "Once when cutting George's hair, another apprentice came into the bar and told him: 'The Governor's vexed with you because you have not done your jobs'.

"George jumped off his bar stool and dashed off up the lane back to the stables with only one side of his hair cut

"Harold used to say: 'I'd clipped him very short over one lug but his hair was hanging down over the other lug'.

"It was a fortnight before Harold and George caught up with each other to complete the haircut and during that time George had been regarded as a very comical sight. A lot of people remembered George going around 'with a half-clipped mop'."

Mr McCann, who is selling the School House after moving south, adds: "I'd like to think he enjoyed his time here as much as I have. I swear the building likes nothing more than to be full of people."

n The old School House, Middleham, is for sale with Carter Jonas, Harrogate, tel: 01423 523423.

WHITE ROSE'S ROLE IN RISE of FILM STAR

He may have been a Lancashire lad but Yorkshire played a crucial part in George Formby's rise to fame.

Some of his formative years were spent at racing stables here but it was in Castleford that he met the woman who transformed him into one of the world's most famous film stars.

Beryl Ingham was a clog dancer on the same bill as George at the Theatre Royal in Cas in 1923. They married in 1924 and she masterminded his showbusiness career.

Barnsley also played its part. It was at the Alhambra Theatre in 1923 that he first played his banjo ukele and received a standing ovation.

He also helped keep spirits high during the war and came back to Castleford in 1940 to support a charity event.