TheKeysOfMarinus

As with last year, looks like my list is gonna be last-minute and slapdash! Should really do more planning over the year. Thanks for doing this and good luck to all!

Christ, so he is! Need my eyes tested!

I notice there’s no Jerry Lee Lewis, which is understandable but an omission all the same.

Gary Brooker of Procol Harum

I think you can kindly get lost with that “Bloody Welsh source” shite.

Apologies for the delay but I’ve just been thinking about this (I asked back in December about whether Welsh obit sources could be included as there are Scottish ones). I don’t know much about circulations so I’m not sure what papers to suggest if the Western Mail wouldn’t qualify. I wondered if S4C’s Newyddion website might be appropriate, seeing as it is similar to the BBC, ITV and C4 sources as the news website of a free-to-view major UK TV channel. S4C is the Welsh-language equivalent of Channel 4 and has major BBC involvement. I believe the content on the Newyddion website and the BBC News Welsh-language site (accessible from the main English-language BBC News page) is usually the same. Both sites are part of BBC News, one more obviously than the other. Then I realised neither would possibly qualify, even though BBC News does, because of the written English rule. That rule makes sense, and I imagine it’s a core rule of the entire DDP, but it does rule out a lot of possible Welsh celebrities who might obit in Welsh - and we are British, after all! I’m sure there’s lots of reasons why it wouldn’t make sense to make an exemption for Welsh but I thought I may as well be cheeky and broach the subject!

Definitely. The lack of news about Still Open All Hours, aside from the BBC denying rumours it was cancelled and saying there would be another series in 2020, makes me think Roy might not be well enough.

Very odd behaviour innit.

Prince was 1958 when he died? Some innings.

I think that item strongly points to Eastwood above all else. Maybe Allen. But with the other possibilities, my feeling is the wording would be different. Of course, it could be entirely made-up.

The Sorrows were brilliant, deserved more hits. “Pink Purple Yellow and Red” is a smasher.

To be fair, I don't think what those names mean to British people today is relevant. I think it's about what they meant to Americans when they turned 100, and whether Britain has had its own equivalents.

If that kind of fame is the measure, then really very few British female celebrities count too. I don’t think it’s much of an anomaly.

Ah, that’s sad to see him like that.

Douglas Slocombe

To be fair, Captain Tom was alive and a celeb for less than a year and his advanced age was a big part of why.

Buckingham is a good shout, he seems frail sadly.

His #2 is pretty good - the first “rock and roll” hit for one George Martin. If he gets anywhere near Leslie’s innings, he’s absolutely gonna turn out to be the last of an age - a Carry On main cast member, an early British rock and roll star and a one-time juvenile music hall comedian.

I just heard it on the BBC news bulletin at work. Nearly jumped out of my seat and couldn’t explain to colleagues why. Leslie and Treacher the same day. Incredible. RIP.

I’ve seen this bandied around because it used to be on Wikipedia but I don’t think it’s true. He appeared his first film in 1938, and in his autobiography he writes that when Pinewood celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2006, he was the only person at the celebration that had worked there in the 1930s. I think at some point this turned into him being there in its first week, though I might be wrong.

Ah bugger! He’s one of my favourites. Passing of an age. How did people know? Of course I know he could’ve dropped at any minute over the last ten years but I swear I saw more people predicting he had a matter of weeks recently.

I don't think Lionel Fanthorpe has been mentioned on this forum before. Former priest and presenter who notably hosted Fortean TV on Channel 4. He's 88 in February. He's recently started a Youtube channel and is starting to look his age.

True, regular can be quite a difficult to define thing. Selwyn Froggitt is quite interesting to me - a big regular cast and yet most of them were dead by 2000. Robert Keegan (1924 – 1988) Ray Mort (1926 – 1994) Rosemary Martin (1936 – 1998) Muguette Mary "Megs" Jenkins (1917 – 1998) Bill Dean (1921 – 2000) Harold Goodwin (1917 – 2004) Bernard Gallagher (1929 – 2016) Bill Maynard (1928 – 2018) Lynda Baron (1939 – 2022)

Marcel King (born 4 January 1957) of Sweet Sensation beats him by a few months. They topped the chart with "Sad Sweet Dreamer" in October 1974.

LeBon’s quote “It is devastating news to find out that a colleague… not a colleague — a friend, one of our family — is not gonna be around for very long” sounds quite dire sadly.