Ulitzer95

On the peerage Google group, it was confirmed earlier today that with the death of Lord Tombs, there are now 54 living peers aged 90+ The 28 names not listed above were the ones thrown out of the Lords in 1999 when they removed most of the hereditaries.

Brilliant, thanks! Yes agreed, I have that album actually. A pity that they didn't receive more acclaim at the time really.

Masters athlete Stanisław Kowalski today graduates from the 100 Club to become a supercentenarian! He became Poland's oldest man in March 2018, so understandably he's getting widespread coverage today in their media. Still got nothing on our Bob though.

Never understand it when people don’t want to discuss their age, or worse lie about it. Seems that it was quite the done thing in the entertainment business years ago though. I did find it quite funny when the press called up Doris Day to tell her she was 96 and not 94 on her birthday and her reaction was “Oh what a surprise. I had no idea.“ Pfft yeah right.

Wish I knew someone called Mrs. Trollope. That’s hours of fun right there. When I was at primary school we had a Mrs Cumming and a Mrs Dick who taught the two second year classes. It was funny then, and it’s still funny now.

I spent an unhealthy amount of time looking for them in the GRO and Ancestry earlier. You're quite right, the English records are not as easy to navigate your way through if you're lacking in info on the person you're trying to find from the beginning.

Read the article. It's an old photo.

Any idea how old he is?

Spain? Yeah Laurie Jay is bizarre. According to Wikipedia (and some blogs online) he was born Laurence Joseph Jacobson. I can't find a birth or a death for him in the GRO! Even if I fiddle around with the first name and the surname.

Happy 100th birthday to Marthe Cohn! French nurse who became a spy during World War II and survived the Holocaust. Later became a memoirist about her experiences.

The public records show she was born in 1917. I think gerontologists everywhere are scratching their head and wondering why the media have fallen for this without verifying her claims first. Not that the media care about the truth of course, they just want a story.

Hoather's FB says he lives in Spain. Never understood the British mentality of moving to Spain personally (seems particularly popular amongst musicians and actors of a certain generation). It's an overrated place full of English pubs and all the villas look and smell the same but each to their own I suppose.

I read a print interview myself... I think it was with Roy, and he was stressing that although Lennon and McCartney wrote the hit, The Naturals recorded their version first. The Beatles then supposedly liked the sound of it so much they ended up recording a version and it was released before The Naturals version was! Hence their version never got off the ground. You could say The Beatles made and destroyed them! I found Hoather on Facebook. He's still fairly active and he's set up a page for The Naturals where he talks about later working with Curtis Cresswell on other projects, though none of the rest of the group appear to have interacted with the page and Hoather hasn't mentioned what became of any of them. Once I finish the remaining 10 letters I'm going to send some emails out requesting info and I imagine he'll be someone I contact. I reckon this approach might help tick off another few acts, probably a few 60s British bands at the least. Sadly I think some acts have (or are about to) slip away from living memory which is why Collins/Guinness/Virgin shouldn't have given up on publishing chart books just because digital downloads came in!

Yes, you're quite right, this is him. Here is a website for him, and it gives a full date of birth and talks about his time with the Keynotes (an associated Johnston Brothers act) and his time spent living in London, Miami and Australia. I've updated the info on page one. Great find and seeing as that was your first post, welcome to the forum!

From your research, I managed to get full birth and death dates for Magura (added to page one) As for Vincent, this did actually help. I found his residency record for 1998-1999 in St Louis on Ancestry. It said born c. 1948 (which matches a Pennsylvania high school year book year estimate I came across at an earlier date). Anyway, it says on the record his wife is Kathleen. Punched that into Google and here they are. That's full name and estimated year of birth. If he dies, I'll be able to fork the record out one day. Many thanks!

Yup, it's very irritating. I'm all for good referencing but pedantic people are ruining it sadly. A blog, a tweet or a Facebook from an official account is a reliable source. And the guidelines are just that – GUIDELINES – not fixed rules, and exceptions can surely be made where appropriate but some people on there insist on doing everything by the book.

Ah okay, we must have the same level of access then. I can only see years, ages, names and place of death. There are 3-4 John McBrides in there that could match that but because his death was so recent you'd have to order all the certificates which would be costly and isn't practical. I see they're not even offering certificates right now... may be due to the coronavirus situation. Again you're maybe aware, but if you want to try and bypass paying for certificates, in some cases you can by copying the info over into Ancestry, which has quite a lot of the Scottish records on public view.

Cheers YW. I'm going to revisit Jimmy James and the Vagabonds and The Johnston Brothers after I flesh out the rest so I will revisit your notes then. I think these two were the worst acts I've come across to date to establish a lineup for. I've just uploaded "N". Not perfect but much happier with it.

Tombs retired in 2015.

He was 81/82. I know it sometimes escapes us as we discuss a lot of people of such advanced ages, but the global life expectancy for a man is 70 years. In Togo where he was born it is 60, and in Paris where he died it is 82. Probably just natural causes.

The NHS is a religion in the UK. Not allowed to criticise it, even if other European countries have better survival rates than us...

Here it is. He looks okay all things considered.

He’s giving a new televised speech in 5 mins so I guess we’ll get to see his physical condition.

Try Jacqueline Diffring, German-British sculptor.

This is trivial but worth a mention. Brooke-Taylor is the second cast member of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory to die in the last week. The other being dwarf actor Malcolm Dixon. Asides from the living child actors, the only surviving cast are now Wilkinson and Goffe of the oompa loompas, unless Shin Hamano (b. 1928), the Japanese candy store owner, is still alive in obscurity somewhere.