Wickerman

New York Times reporting the death of Brian Urquhart ..... and my shadow list moves forward with its first success of 2021.

The Wickerman’s Shadow List for 2021 17/50 Dead 1) Gottfried Böhm 1920 (Build ‘em high) 09/06, 2) Bob Dole 1923 (Candidate) 05/11, 3) Patrick Duffy 1920 (Labour MP & NATO [NAA President]), 4) Benjamin Berell Ferencz 1920 (Last Nuremberg prosecutor), 5) Johnny Johnson 1921 (Dambuster), 6) Ted Luscombe 1924 (Bishop - Scottish Episcopal), 7) Leslie Phillips 1924 (Left hand down a bit), 8) Larry Storch 1923 (Comic), 9) Betty White 1922 (Hollywood mayor) 31/12, 10) Bob Barker 1923 (Price is Right), 11) Ronald Blythe 1922 (Akenfield) 12) Mel Brooks 1926 (Cone of Silence Awaits?), 13) June Brown 1927 (Dot Cott), 14) Jimmy Carter 1924 (Peanut farming), 15) Paul Fox 1925 (Controller at Beeb), 16) Ian Hamilton 1925 (Stone Thief), 17) Carmen Herrera 1915 (Minimalist), 18) Hal Holbrook 1925 (Film Guy) 23/01, 19) Marsha Hunt 1917 (Blacklisted), 20) Norman Lear 1922 (TV Prod), 21) Norman Lloyd 1915 (Perlmutter?) 11/05, 22) James Lovelock 1919 (Gaia), 23) June Spencer 1919 (Peggy), 24) Brian Urquhart 1919 (UN Under-Sec-Gen) 02/01, 25) Murray Walker 1923 (Legend) 13/03, 26) Donald Zec 1919 (Daily Mirror Journo) 06/09, 27) Stanley Baxter 1926 (Unhappily Gay), 28) Rob Burrow 1982 (Rhino), 29) Beverly Cleary 1916 (Dead Legend) 25/03, 30) John Cruickshank 1920 (VC), 31) Ruth Dayan 1917 (Mrs Moshe) 05/02, 32) Tracey Emin 1963 (Bed), 33) Edmond Fischer 1920 (phosphorylation) 27/08, 34) David Gulpilil 1953 (Tracker) 29/11, 35) John Hemingway 1919 (Last of the Few), 36) Esther Cooper Jackson 1917 (Freedomways), 37) Francis Jackson 1917 (East Acklam), 38) Glynis Johns 1923 (Send in the Clowns), 39) Larry King 1933 (Host) 23/01, 40) Dilip Kumar 1922 (Honorary Sheriff) 07/07, 41) Bernard Lown 1921 (Defibrillator) 16/2, 42) Tom Moore 1920 (National Treasure) 03/02, 43) Anne Nolan 1950 (Sister), 44) Linda Nolan 1959 (Sister), 45) Tom Parker 1988 (Wanted), 46) Art Rupe 1917 (Specialty Records), 47) Dennis Skinner 1932 (Beast of Bolsover), 48) Tom Smith 1971 (Loosehead), 49) Doddie Weir 1970 (Lock), 50) Frank Williams 1942 (F1) 28/11.

How many more have the committee got wrong over the years? Your chance to remind the committee here. The big question now is who on the 2020 list will survive, be dropped from 2021 and then die? Your thoughts and suggestions.

However I have to admit that the 1991 list was a brilliant and shining example of the committee’s genius

What a most wonderful idea

Very true, however accurate research was still possible with many reference sources and other resources available. University and community libraries are wonderful things

It just keeps getting better and better

Making his first appearance at number 8 in the 1989 DeathList was Wilfred (sic) Bramble (sic) - age 77 - Steptoe. Wilfrid Brambell (correct names) who played Albert in the BBC sitcom Steptoe and Son in fact died on the 18th of January 1985 Aged 72. DeathList mistakes don’t come much bigger than that. Do they?

It’s all just a bit of harmless fun. Isn’t it?

And each December all of us with Dead pool and shadow list entries, musing who stays and who goes. For several years I had John Hume in my list, dropped him from the squad for this year - and he pegs

Eric Bentley moves me up to 16 for the year and flying high WM: 16 CS: 14 DL: 12

15 folks, and there’s more to come. Or rather Go. It’s the going not the coming that we want more of Many more, many many more.

I’m with you on that QR. 15 is a lovely number in July.

12 weeks without a hit (Bill Frankland 2nd April) and now 4 dead in 10 days: Joe Sinnott 25/6 , Carl Reiner 29/6 , Everton Weekes 1/7 , John Papworth 4/7 . Things are looking up, that’s My total up to 14

And Papworth’s demise gives me my 14th Shadow List hit of the year

12 weeks without any deaths on my shadow list (last was Bill Frankland 2nd April) - but finally Joe Sinnott moves me forward being the 11th death this year. Always seems to run the same for me every year, deaths every week to hit double figures by April and then the drought begins

Maj Sjowall has died age 84. Along with her partner and co-writer Per Wahloo she gave us the original Scandi crime fiction with a series of ten novels centred on the investigations of Stockholm detective Martin Beck.

That climb of the Old Man of Hoy, groundbreaking coverage on the BBC - wonderful to watch (even in B&W)

Born 19 March 1912 (108 years of age on this day I create the topic in his name). A collaborator with Alexander Fleming in the development of penicillin. Frankland taught that increased levels of cleanliness and hygiene in modern life account significantly for the rise in allergies, the so-called Hygiene Hypothesis. He has said that "We don't set off our immune system early on, we are too clean. In the former East Germany for instance, with very poor work and housing conditions, people were less allergic". I recall my own GP in Birmingham (Mary Stone) who met Frankland - telling my mother (when I was very young) to: “Let him play in the dirt it will help build his immune system”. Frankland was instrumental in the creation of the British Association of Allergists in 1948. In 1962 the Association became the British Allergy Society, and Frankland served as president between 1963 and 1966. The society became the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology (BSACI) in 1973. Frankland is a founder member and president of the International Association of Aerobiology, and president of the UK charity the Anaphylaxis Campaign. Frankland continues to publish; at age 100 he authored "100 years of allergen immunotherapy", and most recently co-authoring, "Flight Lieutenant Peach's observations on Burning Feet Syndrome in Far Eastern Prisoners of War 1942–45" in the 'Quarterly Journal of Medicine' in 2016. A person well worthy of his own topic here on DeathList. Long may he continue to live.

Never forgot his wonderful encounter with John Arlott when a match at Lords was interrupted by rain. Arlott did an impromptu tour of the Long Room talking in impressive detail about people, places, matches from the paintings, prints and other memorabilia. At the conclusion of this Walker thanked Arlott for his “impressive dustbin of knowledge “ - dear John did not look in the least impressed by this sentiment. If I misremember this I’m certain someone will correct me. A fine cricketer, commentator and writer.

Together on that one

Eddie Large ...... Covid-19

Although on my Shadow List I was actually hoping not to see this this year