NOVEMBER 2020 THE RIDER/ 7
Tom Bishop Sr.
By Bruce Ionson. Growing up on a
Horse farm with over 100 head for sale you get to meet some very cool peo- ple like Ian Tyson and Mr. Dressup from TV but a
man that you would see time and time again on your TV’s over the years as a stuntman or driving a wagon or riding horses was Mr. Tom Bishop. The Bishop family are the founders of Rodeo here in
Eastern Canada. From the early 1900’s The Bishop family has operated a Wild West show and passed from generation to genera- tion. Tom and his wife Jan were wonderful people and Tom’s sister Lorna married a guy with movie star looks Mr. Chuck Aylett and the 4 of them performed there shows all over Canada and Eastern USA. I can tell you they were really cool people ! I would like to thank Tom Jr for sharing with us a bit of the Bishop story below.
Bruce Ionson Bio
His father,
Thomas W Bishop had been putting on Wild West shows since 1914. Tom was born into the cowboy and Wild West lifestyle in 1938 and he and his sister Lorna were soon per- forming together, as a child he trick roped in an early CBC tv Show the Cliff McKay Show and
met Roy Rogers who was appearing at a rodeo at maple leaf gardens and even got to sit on his horse - he told his classmates and they could not believe it and teased him so badly he never talked about it until decades later. His father died when
he was 15 and so he left school and started working for various radio stations in niagara eventually hav- ing his own show called the Melody Corral all the will performing trick rid- ing and trick roping at rodeos and events with his sister including working with television’s Cisco Kid as a stuntman/outlaw who was hired to perform at the CNE. In 1965 he and his
soon to be wife Jan and a number of Ontario horse people including Roy and Joan Ionson were invited by George Hewitt to per- form in Blackpool Eng- land in 1965. As soon as they reached Blackpool they were to discover that the exhibition had gone broke. Taking the equip- ment they had they put to- gether a Wild West show performing all summer in order to raise the money to get their horse back to
Canada Returning to Canada
Tom decided to relaunch his fathers Wild West show but include rodeo with and so Tom Bishops 4B Ranch rodeo toured Eastern Canada and the northeast- ern US from 1966-1975. Selling some of his stock and equipment to Mel Wakefield, Tom focused on performing, radio work and film and television work as a stuntman and animal wrangler. He was to work on The Forest Rangers, Road To Avon- lea, Mrs Soffel with Mel Gibson and Diane Keaton, Matt and Jenny, The Campbell’s, Anne of Green Gables, Murdoch Mysteries and live per- formances all across Canada and into the US. As a side project he built and designed from the ground up a steam cal- liope, machining the whis- tles, carving the carvings which he then was then hired to take in parades in- cluding the Grey Cup pa- rade in Edmonton. All the while during
this time still taking out a Wild West show - increas- ingly as his kids got older
and joined him in perform- ing.
Tom was to continue
performing with his horses in our Wild West shows and wrangling animals in film and television all the up to his passing in 2017
If you have old pho-
tos and you were involved in the 60’s,70” and 80” and have a story to tell please send it to me at b r u c e . i o n s o n @
klingspor.ca
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