Chris Barber

MEMORIES OF MY DEATH Influential jazz musician Chris Barber has died aged 90. Barber’s career started in 1950 and was to prove one of the most important in modern British music. His blues band included a young Lonnie Donegan, and the duo played on Rock Island Line, the single which inspired half the Beatles and […]

Carmel Quinn

IRISH ROVER RETURNS Entertainer Carmel Quinn has died aged 95. Quinn was an Irish stage entertainer before she moved to the US in 1954 to take up a Broadway career. Knowing for her singing, she performed for JFK and appeared in several musicals, such as The Sound of Music. She was a unique hit for […]

Ian St John

YOU KILL ME, GRIM-SY Scottish international footballer, and Liverpool legend, Ian St John has died after a long battle with cancer. St John scored eighty goals in three seasons for Motherwell before he moved to Liverpool to play under Bill Shankly. There he won two league titles and the FA Cup, and became synonymous with […]

Johnny Briggs

YOU’RE FINISHED, BALDWIN Corrie star Johnny Briggs had died aged 85. A child evacuee during the Blitz, Briggs was trained early as an actor. He had small roles in Sink the Bismarck, The Lavender Hill Mob, and three Carry On films. He was however best known for his long running role as Mike Baldwin, Coronation […]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

CITY LIGHTS DIMMED Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti has just joined the rest of sometime during eternity, and died a month short of his 102nd birthday. A contemporary of Burroughs and Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti served in the Navy during World War Two. In 1953, he found City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, an independent store that pushed […]

Ronald Pickup

BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD MORGUE Dependable film and TV actor Ronald Pickup has unfortunately died of cancer aged 81. Pickup’s career lasted 60 years, from a very early career launching role in Doctor Who, to appearances in The Crown as the Archbishop of Canterbury. The same Archbishop of Canterbury who coronated Queen Elizabeth II and, in […]

Peter Gotti

NOT SO TEFLON American mobster Peter Gotti has died in jail aged 82. The older brother of the Teflon Don himself, Gotti became the boss of the Gambino crime family in 1999 but didn’t have long to enjoy the role before being indicted and charged for federal racketeering. Attempts to get compassionate release for sciatica, […]

Raymond Cauchetier

FINAL WAVE FOR RAYMOND   French photographer Raymond Cauchetier has died aged 101.  A member of the French Resistance (I shall say this only once) in World War Two, he made his career as a photographer with a series of shots of Cambodia in the 1940s and 1950s. These photo collections latter met a critic […]