Britain is no longer a country for and says "Goodbye" to an old businessman, turned late-in-life novelist, called Paul Torday

Paul, a businessman who found fame as novelist late in life has died at the age of 67.

What you possibly didn't know about Paul, that he :

* was born in Croxdale, County Durham, the son an Irish mother, Eileen and Hungarian father, Laszlo, who had emigrated to the North East from Hungary with his parents in the late 1930s and where, with the help of a Government grant, his father, Paul's Grandfather, set up a electroplating business.

* went to the Royal Grammar school, Newcastle (right) and won a national poetry competition sponsored by the 'Daily Mail' at the age of 16 in 1962 and saw the prize pay for his first foreign holiday and also won a scholarship to study English at Pembroke College, Oxford.

* left university in the 1960s, followed a business course in Manchester, worked in market research in London, then a company in Leeds before joining the family firm in Carlisle at the age of 27 in 1973 while writing two novels in his 20's, which went into a drawer and were shared with no one, but was writing poetry for a magazine, the 'Little Word Machine'.

* saw the family company expand and took over its running from his father and uncle but was forced to sell it in the 1990s before retrieving his business career and going on to buy several other companies.

* in his mid forties to fifties used his experience in the oil and gas industry and understanding of the insanity of much government bureaucracy, as inspiration for a novel, 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen', the idea of a
Yemeni sheikh who wants to introduce salmon fishing to his desert homeland, coming to him in a business meeting in Oman.

* sent the manuscript to an agent, forgot about it and found that six months later, it had been the subject of a competitive auction and the talk of the 'Frankfurt Book Fair' going on to sell more than 500,000 copies in Britain and win the 'Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize' in 2007, when he was 61 years old.

* faced with a cancer diagnosis shortly after the book was published,  recognised the extent to which his time might be limited and said that he, perhaps treated writing like 'learning to ride a bike : he kept pedalling like mad because he was afraid that if he fell off he might not be able to get back on.'

* continued to work in industry and published, generally to critical acclaim, a new novel every year including : 'The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce' in 2008, the story told backwards of an alcoholic's decline through an addiction to fine wine : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmH4jN0v9L4

* wrote 'The Girl on the Landing' a ghost story in 2009 and 'Light Shining in the Forest' this year, a crime thriller about abducted children set in the North-East of England.

* exuded the air of the English country gentleman, enjoyed food, wine and salmon fishing, liked shooting, walking and climbing and lived with his second wife at the Jacobean, Chipchase Castle in Northumberland, on an estate she had inherited and which he helped to manage.

* was too ill to attend the premiere in 2011, of the film of 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen', which starred Emily Blunt as the sheikh's representative and Ewan McGregor as a cynical fisheries expert who begrudgingly accepts the challenge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wOF_7JMy5U

Kirsty Dunseath, Publishing Director at Weidenfeld and Nicolson Fiction said that in many ways he :
"invented his own genre. His extraordinary fiction was filled with warmth and a wry, humane wit. He was a gentle observer of the foibles of human nature and our social behavior. He wanted to entertain, but his novels were also infused with a deep social awareness, exploring issues such as political expediency, alcoholism, mental illness, class and our national heritage."

P.S. Paul particularly enjoyed the fact that Yemeni tourist organisations were later often asked for details of their fishing holidays.

Britain is no longer a country for an old school villain and Great Train robber called Ronnie Biggs

It is ironical that on the very day BBC TV is to broadcast 'The Great Train Robbery' with Jack Gordon playing his character, that Ronnie should die at the age of 84. It also says something about Britain today, that his death was the first item on BBC Radio 4 news this morning, indicating the reverence with which old criminals are held. I noted something similar in my post about Mad Frankie Fraser, back in the summer :

Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Britain is still a country for a violent old villain called 'Mad' Frankie Fraser

 http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/britain-is-still-country-for-violent.html

What you possibly didn't know about Ronnie, that he :

* was born in Lambeth, London, was 10 years old when the Second World War broke out in 1939 and was evacuated to Cornwall and after the War was enlisted for national service in the Royal Air Force at the age of 18 and was given a dishonourable discharge at the age of 20, on a charge of 'desertion' and after breaking into a chemist shop.

* started his criminal career and a spell in prison after a conviction for stealing a car and on release, took part in a failed robbery on a bookmaker's office in Lambeth and in prison again, met Bruce Reynolds.

* on release from prison, tried to go straight, trained as a carpenter and at the age of 27 in 1956, married the 17-year-old daughter of a primary school headmaster, with whom he had three sons.

* in 1963 at the age of 34 and in need of a loan, approached Bruce, who offered him a place on a proposed train robbery and was tasked to find a suitable engine driver to move the train forwards to the unloading point and on the night of the raid.

 was a passenger in the getaway car and only saw the haul of money once the gang returned to Leatherslade Farm.

* had taken part in the crime of the century, the hold up of the mail train from Glasgow to London in the early hours of 8 August 1963 and stealing the haul of £2.6 million in used bank notes, £40 million in today's value, during the course of which, the engine driver was hit on the head with an iron bar.

* played an undistinguished part in the robbery : the driver he had enlisted had not driven a diesel engine and was replaced during the raid by the injured, bleeding driver Mills; was a passenger in the getaway car and only saw the haul of money once the gang returned to Leatherslade Farm; left his fingerprints on a ketchup bottle at the farm; three weeks later, was arrested along with 11 other members of the gang in South London.
* was in 1964, along with nine of the 15-strong gang, jailed for the crime and received a 30 year sentence, served 15 months before escaping from Wandsworth Prison by scaling the wall with a rope ladder and dropping onto a waiting removal van, fled to Brussels by boat, then went with his wife and sons to Paris, acquired new identity papers and underwent plastic surgery.

* in 1966, flew to Australia and had £7,000 of his £143,000 share of the haul left by the time his family joined him, having spent: £40,000 on plastic surgery in Paris and the rest on the package deal to get him out of Britain to Australia and legal fees and expenses.

* in 1967, with the police closing in, fled to Brazil which had no extradition treaty with Britain and seven years later, after a 'Daily Express' team broke the story of his whereabouts, saw Scotland Yard send Detective Jack Slipper arrive but fail to extradite him, his Brazilian girlfriend being pregnant and Brazilian law did not allow a parent of a Brazilian child to be extradited.

* as a known felon, could not work, visit bars or be away from home after 10 pm so provided an income, by hosting barbecues for tourists at his home in Rio, recounting his involvement in the robbery, selling 'Ronnie Biggs' mugs, coffee cups and T-shirts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IBTdbEBBgQ and recording vocals on two songs for the film about the Sex Pistols, 'The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-oZeSqxT2I

* in 1981, was kidnapped by a gang of British ex-soldiers who took him to Barbados hoping to collect a reward from the British police but, since the country had no extradition treaty with Britain, was sent back to Brazil which, in 1997 ratified an extradition treaty with Britain, but saw the extradition request rejected by Brazilian Supreme Court and was given the right to live in Brazil for the rest of his life.

* in 2001, at the age of 72, announced to 'The Sun' newspaper that he would be willing to return to Britain, aware that, with 28 years of his sentence left to serve, he would be detained upon arrival which was the case and according to his son, was motivated not simply by his need for health care, but also his desire to "walk into a Margate pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of bitter"

* in 2007 at the age of 78, appealed, from Norwich Prison, to be released saying : "I am an old man and often wonder if I truly deserve the extent of my punishment. I have accepted it and only want freedom to die with my family and not in jail. I hope Mr. Straw decides to allow me to do that. I have been in jail for a long time and I want to die a free man. I am sorry for what happened. It has not been an easy ride over the years. Even in Brazil I was a prisoner of my own making. There is no honour to being known as a Great Train Robber. My life has been wasted."

* was released from custody in 2009, two days before his 80th birthday, on 'compassionate grounds' due to his deteriorating health but said "I've got a bit of living to do yet. I might even surprise them all by lasting until Christmas, that would be fantastic."

* in 2011, was admitted to hospital with another suspected stroke and in November, launched his autobiography, 'Ronnie Biggs: Odd Man Out, The Last Straw' and unable to speak, used a word board to communicate with the press and in March this year ( right) attended the funeral of fellow train robber and mastermind of the robbery, Bruce Reynolds.

Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" to Dave Clark and old men remember when he and they were young and yelled "Catch Us If You Can" with all of their might

Dave, erstwhile drummer, leader and with Lenny Davidson, surviving member of the 'Dave Clark Five', first of the 'British invasion' bands to follow the Beatles to the USA in the 1960s, is 71 years old today.
From left to right : Denis, Dave, Mike, Rick and Lenny as they were.

My memory of Dave and his band dates from the year 1965, when I was 18 and Dave was 23 with a hit record he had written with Lenny called 'Catch Us if You Can'.



From the age of eleven I had attended this huge secondary school, built to house me and 2,500 other the post Second World War, South London, baby boomers, called Eltham Green Comprehensive School.

In that Summer of 1965, the Headmaster, Mr Davies, had planned his usual 'Farewell to the Sixth Formers Assembly' in the school hall and I was one of the 18 year old leavers.

A tradition had grown up that, the Sixth Form school leavers would do something to disrupt the Headmaster's speech made in the hall filled with a thousand pupils and relayed by the tanoi broadcasting system to the rest of the school, seated in their form rooms.
 

1. It had all been fairly mediocre stuff in the past, like planting alarm clocks in cupboards in the hall, timed to go off when the Old Man was into his speech or chaining the exit doors, so no one could get out at the end of the Assembly.

2. This year it would be in a different league, for unbeknown to any of us, five of the lads in the sixth form, had a drink in the local pub the night before and, after closing time, dressed in dark clothing, had climbed over the school gates and made their way to the hall, where, by chance, they found an exit door open.

3. Once inside the darkened hall the tick of the clock startled them. They put their plan into effect. 'B' stood on tables and chairs and placed an old fashioned loud speaker, out of sight, on the wooden sounding board (seen on the right) and way up above the stage. They then ran a single wire room the speaker, down the wall, through a door opening and along the wall of the corridor behind the hall and into one of the small music rooms. The wire was fed into an old fashioned reel-to reel tape recorder and a prerecorded tape placed on the deck. The lads then made their exit from the school.

4. After lunch the next day, the hall began to fill up. First the younger kids downstairs and then the Sixth Form in the balcony. It was at this point that 'F' had been delegated to make his way to the music room to switch on the tape which was timed to play blank for 20 minutes. 'F' noticed that the indicator light was on and so placed the leather bag of one music teachers against it and a tray of glasses on top for good measure. He then made his exit and went to the balcony.


The Old Man was well into his speech with the usual stuff about 'torch bearers' when the first blast of music came out of the hidden speaker :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ya_Gq8d4Q

The Headmaster sat down angry and perplexed. Teachers ran around like blue-arsed flies, trying to find from where the blast of music was coming and were unsuccessful. The kids were collapsed in laughter.
Two and a half minutes later Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's "Goodbye" finished. It was then that the Old Man made his big mistake. He got to his feet and resumed his speech saying that the perpetrators would be found out.

Unbeknown to him or anyone in hall or school, except the lads on the balcony, the tape played blank for another few minutes and then :

Here they come again, mmmm-mm-mm,
Catch us if you can, mmmm-mm-mm,
Time to get a move on, mmmm-mm-mm,
We will yell with all of our might.

Catch us if you can ......

Now we gotta run, mmmm-mm-mm,
No more time for fun, mmmm-mm-mm,
When we're gettin' angry, mmmm-mm-mm,
We will yell with all of our might.

Catch us if you can .....

Here they come again, mmmm-mm-mm,
Catch us if you can, mmmm-mm-mm,
Time to get a move on, mmmm-mm-mm,
We will yell with all of our might.

Catch us if you can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJYgNqOFBLk

Our Sixth Form tutor on the balcony said to one of the lads : "Nine out of ten 'W"
He was wrong, it was '10 out of 10'.
The Headmaster got the police in, but they could find nothing, since the lads had not forced an entry.
Sadly, 'G', the mastermind behind the single wire and tape died in a motor accident some years ago.
When I was 19 and travelling round Greece in the summer of 1966, I met other students from London schools who had heard about that caper.
I can't think that Dave's song has ever been put to such apposite use as it was on that South London summer's day, 48 years ago.

What I didn't know about Dave, today's birthday boy was that he :

* was born in Tottenham, North London and left school without qualifications at the age of 15 and becoming a film stuntman, performed in over 40 films and in his late teens in the late 1950s, bought himself a set of drums, taught himself how to play them and formed a skiffle group to raise funds so that his football team could travel to the Netherlands.

* saw the group grow into The Dave Clark Five' with him as leader, co-songwriter, manager and producer and grow in popularity, unseating the Beatles "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from its number one spot in the British singles chart in January 1964 with "Glad All Over". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P94S8IAv94w

* followed the Beatles to the USA in 1964, was on The 'Ed Sullivan Show' more times than any other English group and  achieved 15 consecutive Top 20 hits including :
'Any way You Want It'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH1JEI79emU&feature=related

'Glad All Over'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P94S8IAv94w

'Bits and Pieces'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoRLIJJSG4o

'Do You Love Me'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtBX-4pIWyQ

* in the late 1960s, in addition to managing the band, began directing and producing for television and in 1968 made  'Hold On, It's the Dave Clark Five' which was followed by the break up of the band in 1970 and his ending his drumming in 1972, after beaking four knuckles in a tobogganing accident.

 

* in 1986 at the age of 44, wrote a science fiction stage musical, 'Time' which played for two years in London's West End, starring Cliff Richard and later by David Cassidy and featuring Laurence Olivier's huge holographic image.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6lCjOIqZqQ

* became a successful entrepreneur and a multi-millionaire, with property in West London, with revenues from his rights to all the Dave Clark Five music and episodes of the '60s tv music show, 'Ready, Steady Go!'.

* in 2008, at the age of 66 and marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of this band, was inducted into the USA's 'Rock and Roll Hall of Fame' and made a rare public appearance with, the then, two other surviving band members and accepted the award on behalf of the group. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKTtGjYl5yU

P.S.
I saw this tweet yesterday from American, Maureen Van Zandt, wife of Steve Van Zandt :

Happy Birthday to our dear friend Dave Clark , leader of the DC5. Fab musician, producer, filmmaker &now author. One of my fave people ever.

To which I replied :
"Happy Birthday" indeed,
and added a link to this post.

To which she replied :
Fantastic piece! 

Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" to a charming old stage, film, television and radio actor called Bill Nighy

Bill who is 64 years old today was born in 1949 under the star sign of Sagittarius. I don't know if he shares the Sagittarian characteristics of generosity, honesty, daring, friendliness, confidence, enthusiasm  argumentativeness and bluntness, but I do know that he :

* was born in Caterham, Surrey and his Glasgow born mother was a psychiatric nurse and his father, Alfred, managed a car garage, over which the family lived, after working in the family chimney sweeping business and as part of part his Irish heritage, Bill was brought up as a Roman Catholic and served as a church altar boy.

* attended the John Fisher Grammar School in Purley, where he was a member of the school theatre group and left in 1965 at the age of 16, with minimum qualifications and the ambition to become an author, inspired by his teenage heroes : Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford and Bob Dylan.

* got a job as a messenger boy with 'The Field Magazin'e and said later : "I used to eat my sandwiches in Berkeley Square and wave at all the Rolls-Royces. Eventually the proprietor, Sir Geoffrey Harmsworth, said "If you learn shorthand and typing, we'll put you in the sub-editors' office". Of course, rather than doing that, I ran away to Paris to write the Great English Short Story."

* failed to produce his story and was persuaded by a girlfriend to apply instead to the 'Guildford School of Acting' and at the start of his stage career, after two seasons at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, made his London debut in his late twenties in the late 70s at the National Theatre in an epic staging of 'Illuminatus', followed by two David Hare premiers at the National.

* in his thirties during the 1980s, put his voice to use as Samwise Gamgee in the 1981 BBC radio dramatisation of 'The Lord of the Rings' and in the radio version of 'Yes Minister' and on tv played in 'Hitler's SS: Portrait of Evil'.

* claimed that his tv part in 'The Men's Room' at the age of 42 in 1991 (right) launched his career and after quitting drink with the help of his then-partner, fellow actor Diana Quick, won acclaim in his stage performance at the National Theatre as Bernard Nightingale, an unscrupulous university don, in Tom Stoppard's 'Arcadia' in 1993.

* received some recognition by American audiences for his portrayal of overaged rock star, Ray Simms, in the 1998 film 'Still Crazy' and further prominence in Britain in 1999  with the starring role in 'The Photographer', an episode of the BBC tv mockumenatary comedy series, 'People Like Us', playing Will Rushmore, a middle aged man who abandons career and family in the deluded belief that he can achieve success as a commercial photographer.

* was never much interested in performing Shakespeare and has only done so professionally twice preferring to operate within a contemporary, middle-class context, playing a variety of "violently constrained Englishmen".

* at the age of 51, played a consultant psychiatrist in 'Blue Orange' for which he won an 'Olivier Award Nomination for Best Actor' and at 52,  portrayed crooked politician Jeffrey Grainger, in tvs 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet' and played in the costume drama, 'He Knew He Was Right', the following year.

* in 2003, played the Vampire Elder Viktor in the American production, 'Underworld' and in 2004 at the age of fifty-five, was awarded the BAFTA Film Award for 'Best Supporting Actor' for his role as shameless, washed-up rocker, Billy Mack, in 'Love Actually' (left) http://www.muzu.tv/bill-nighy/christmas-is-all-around-music-video/250600/ and followed this up with a 'BAFTA Television Award for Best Actor' for 'State of Play' .

* after he starred as Lawrence, another thwarted civil servant, in the Richard Curtis's G8/Make Poverty History drama ,'The Girl in the Café' in 2005, was approached by Oxfam and now regularly visits the G8 on the Charity's behalf, to have cameras pointed at him and thus ensure "that the plight of the poor is a live issue on the agenda".

* in 2006, appeared as 'Gideon' in Stephen Poliakov's drama, 'Gideon's Daughter', a successful events organiser who begins to lose touch with the world around him in a performance which won him a 'Golden Globe Award' for 'Best Actor in a Mini Series' and in the same year made his Broadway debut in 'The Vertical Hour' directed by Sam Mendes.

* played principal villain, Davy Jones, with a Scots accent and his face entirely obscured by computer generation
in the film, 'Pirates of the Caribbean : Dead Man's Chest' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3rOZwgOZeY
and reprised the role in the 2007 sequel, 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At the World's End', with his real face briefly revealed in one scene.

* at the age of 57, in 2006, played the role of Richard Hart in 'Notes on a Scandal', http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-EKMY8lRMg for which he was nominated for a 'London Film Critics Circle Award' and appeared as General Friedrich Olbricht, one of the principal conspirators, in the 2008 film, 'Valkyrie'.

* in 2009, played Rufus Scrimgeour in 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 1' (right) and last year starred in 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDY89LYxK0w and this year played in 'Darkside', Tom Stoppard's radio drama based on Pink Floyd's album, 'The Dark Side of the Moon'.

* is known for his bespoke navy suits and this year was listed as one of the 'Fifty Best-dressed over 50s' by The Guardian.

* reflected on his career : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoyRamnNdJ8

Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" to a very old 'black and white tv' broadcaster called Cliff Michelmore

Cliff is 94 years old today and I remember watching him on our little tv in black and white when I was a boy living in South London in the 1960's, when he, already in his forties, fronted the BBC 'Tonight' programme. What I'd forgotten was that he also hosted the tv coverage of the Apollo Moon Landings and the tragic South Wales Aberfan Disaster, the 1966 and 1971 General Elections and the investiture of Charles, as Prince of Wales in 1969.

What I and possibly you didn't know about Cliff was that he :

* was born in Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1919 and attended the High School there and then left the island to study at Loughborough College and Leicester College of Technology and Art.

* joined the Royal Air Force during the Second World War andpresente became a Squadron Leader and began broadcasting on British Forces Network.

* after the War worked on radio and tv as a freelance sports commentator, then as a news reporter and as a producer of children's programmes, including 'All Your Own'.


* in 1950, married the late Jean Metcalf, a BBC announcer whom he met when she presented 'Two-Way Family Favourites' in London while he was presenting the Hamburg link in the programme for the British Forces Broadcasting Service.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieth9gTRaZI

* presented the BBC TV programme 'Highlight', a current affairs show with a reputation for uncompromising interviews and in 1957 became anchorman for BBC TVs new topical weekday magazine show, 'Tonight' which ran for eight years and attracted 8 million viewers at its peak and was named BAFTA Television Personality of the Year in 1958.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ezY-f383Ik

* interviewed the 17 year old David Bowie in 1964 about 'long hair' in young men : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5zxeLwUSdk

* when Tonight finished in 1965, hosted a BBC One series called '24 Hours' until 1968 and the 1966 General Election :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYMgCn0EDf8

* In 1967 he presented 'Our World', a worldwide tv broadcast which was the first to use time satellite communication extensively in an attempt to 'connect the whole world by television' and in one pogramme featured a performance by The Beatles of their song ' All You Need Is Love'.

* after leaving full-time tv work, became head of EMI's new video division and was a regular presenter on BBC One's 'Holiday' programme from 1969 to 1986 and returned to the BBC at the age of 87 in 2007 to introduce a programme on the BBC Parliament channel, recalling the 1967 devaluation of the pound.

My "Goodbye" to Cy Grant who sang calypsos on the 'Tonight' programme :
Thursday, 18 February 2010
 http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/britain-says-goodbye-to-cy-gant.html

Britain is no longer a country for and says "Goodbye" to a fearless old Scots, documentary film maker called Brian Barr

Brian Barr, who has died aged 70, was physically fearless, whether scrabbling up rock faces in the Scottish Highlands or filming in war zones and fearless as a journalist in pursuit of the truth.

What you possibly didn't know about Brian, that he :

* was born in Paisley, Scotland and attended Paisley Grammar School where he took up playing the oboe with the encouragement of his father, James, who was  Musical Director of the Glasgow Corporation and saw the high point of his oboe career  when he gave a tv performance of 'Holst’s Oboe Concerto' with the BBC Scottish Orchestra.

* left school and gained degrees in law and philosophy at Glasgow University, but was pointed towards his later career when his philosophy professor marked one of his essays with the comment: 'Mr Barr, I'm inclined to give this work a Gamma for content but an Alpha for style. Have you ever considered journalism?'

* started work in the incubator of Scottish journalists, the 'Sunday Post' in Dundee, progressed to the role of leader writer at the 'Glasgow Herald' in his twenties in the early 1970s, before leaving to edit a community newspaper, the 'Glasgow News'.

* in 1975, joined 'BBC Scotland' as a reporter on the weekly documentary series, 'Current Account' and in film, explored  'asbestosis in Clyde shipyards' and 'lead in Glasgow's water supply.'

* produced films in the 'Secret Society' Series about :
- cabinet committees in 'The Secret Constitution'
- data banks in 'We're All Data Now'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2onUnMbe3jk&list=PLi77nHBEunGTUgJFPfU0CIgNJYvJ7Sh8C&index=15
- government emergency powers in  'In Time of Crisis'
- botched radar contracts.in 'A Gap in Our Defences' http://vimeo.com/48987753

* in the 1990s, filming for the Channel 4 series 'Secret Places' at RAF Chicksands in Bedfordshire, was by turn : apprehended by armed US soldiers and then detained by police for 12 hours; arrested by the Israel Defence Forces; incarcerated by police in Algeria and nearly shot for trying to attach a microphone to Yasser Arafat in Palestine.

* in 1986, helped reveal one of Britain's greatest post Second World War security scandals, when he and investigative journalist, Duncan Campbell (left), exposed the existence of a £500m spy satellite programme, 'Project Zircon', which the Government had omitted to mention to Parliament.

* triggered the Special Branch night raid on the Glasgow Headquarters of BBC Scotland and seizure all film related to the programme, which ignited one of the most explosive confrontations between the Thatcher Government and the BBC and played a major role in the resignation of the Director General, Alasdair Milne in 1987.


* saw the film about Zircon screened by the BBC in 1988 after a Government injunction preventing transmission of the film was circumvented by unauthorised screenings by anti-censorship campaigners and loved to quote the headline about him from the Paisley Daily Express : 'Ex-Paisley choirboy in spy scandal'.

* found it increasingly difficult to get commissions in his later years, but co-wrote a book about River Spey with his brother Donald and made community films in the Scotland's, Isle of Bute where he lived including one about North Bute Primary School in 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yY1yqwOPf0

* joined the Bute Writers' Group and said of himself :
'Unpublished work: Chapter 9 of an untitled novel. Sadly, chapters 1-8 and 10-16 remain unwritten because I’ve no idea who the characters are, what they are supposed to be doing, or what happened before and after the events of chapter 9. Which I think is a clue to my problem with fiction viz an underpowered narrative imagination. Joining the Writers’ Group will, of course, solve my problem.'

Britain is no country for old men with high expectations of survival from cancer

A study published in the Lancet Oncology and drawn from data of survival for more than 10 million cancer patients from 29 countries diagnosed between 2000 and 2007 and followed up to 2008, has shown that survival rates in Britain, for nine out of ten common cancers, are lower than the European average, despite improvements in diagnosis and treatment. In addition, it revealed that :

* the discrepancy is even worse among old men and women with nearly all forms of the disease, more likely to die in Britain compared with thoses in France, Germany, Spain and Scandinavia.

* for old men with prostate cancer, just under 81% of those in Britain live beyond five years compared with 90% in Finland and 89% in France.

* only 9% of lung cancer patients in Britain live beyond five years, compared with the 13%  average, 17% in Austria and 15% in Sweden.

* the figures suggest that age discrimination for cancer treatment is worse in Britain compared to elsewhere in Europe with increasing concern that old men and women sufferers in their 70s and 80s are being written off by doctors.

 

Drew Lindon, Head of Policy at 'Prostate Cancer UK', said:
"There is a shadow to this story. While prostate cancer survival rates have improved compared to other cancers, beneath the surface we see worrying indications that Britain is lagging behind the European average on survival rates."

Researchers are unclear as to why survival rates are so much lower in Britain, but suggestions are that :

* the disease is often diagnosed too late when it has spread to other organs.

* doctors might be missing certain symptoms.

* patients are reluctant to make appointments as they 'don’t want to be a nuisance'.

Either way, Ciaran Devane, Chief Executive of Macmillan Cancer Support said:
"This is truly depressing. One in two of us will get cancer in our lifetime so this is a big deal and has to be a wake-up call for the NHS. There is no reason why the UK should lag behind the rest of Europe when it comes to either certain cancers or survival rates for older cancer patients."

Public Health England has responded by starting a 'Be Clear On Cancer' campaign, to raise public awareness of the early signs and symptoms of the disease. Di Riley, the Head of its 'National Cancer Intelligence Network', said that old people, in particular, need to be encouraged to go to their GP if they notice suspicious symptoms. "The recently introduced bowel cancer screening programme should also improve survival from colon cancer, and reduce the number of emergency presentations of elderly people with bowel cancer, particularly as we are now screening people to their mid-70s."

Percentage of old men surviving at least five years after diagnosis :

Bowel / Colon Cancer

German      : 62.2%
Austrian     : 61.2%
French        : 59.7%
Spanish      : 57.1%
Slovenian   : 54%
Czech         : 52.5%
British   : 51.8%

Britain is still a country and its skies a space for the world's oldest wing walker, Tom Lakey

Born in 1920 and 93 years old, Tom, is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as 'The Oldest Aeroplane Wing Walker in the World' and if he had looked up into the sky all those years ago, when he was perhaps a seven year old boy, he might have seen this brand new 1927 biplane. Seventy five years later, as an old man, he would fly on biplane wings.

What you possibly didn't know about Tom, that he : 

* served a sky apprenticeship as a young man when he worked as a builder, often high up on roofs and with no fear of heights and many years later took up flying in his 80s, after the death of his wife, Isabel, made him decide he needed a new focus in life.

* performed his first 'loop the loop', after the encouragement of his flying instructor and imagining his wife was watching him, wanted to prove to her that he could do it and before long, had worked his way through every aerobatic stunt.

*  when the chief flight instructor suggested 'wing walking', admitted that 'he had never heard of it .'

* said after his first walk : " I'll admit to some nerves on that first walk, but the fear was nothing compared with the excitement. On top of the plane, I was strapped against an upright frame with a little seat I could just about perch on, but in a standing position. As I heard the engine firing up, the adrenaline washed through me."

* also said : "I've heard the experience being described as like sticking your head out of the sunroof in a fast-moving car, but of course it's far more extreme. I was travelling at 80 miles an hour, the wind buffeting my whole body, my face fully exposed to the elements. Below me were patchwork fields. I couldn't have been happier, and over the next few years I chased that feeling again and again."

* first entered the record book at the age of 85, for being the 'Oldest Person to be on top of an Aircraft While it Looped the Loop 'and said : "I remember the sensation of my stomach dropping into my boots as the plane went into a dive, then looking up and thinking, "What are those cows doing up there?" The plane was travelling at more than 100 miles an hour during the descent and the G-force is tremendous; my son is in the RAF and says he has known pilots a third of my age black out at a force of 2G, and I've approached 6G. My doctors don't understand it. By rights, I suppose I should be dead."

* at the age of  89, landed safely near Dover, after wing walking for 45 minutes in a flight from Calais and set the world record for the 'Oldest Wing Walker' and said :“They usually take about ten or 12 minutes but this was nearly an hour. It was pretty uncomfortable and it was very cold. I was wearing a leather jacket over a lying suit over layers of clothes underneath but I was still cold.”
* also said : "When we landed  there were 94,000 people there. I met the French pilot who was recreating the Bleriot flight and I met the Prince of Wales Regiment freefall team who wanted me to take the salute. That was one of the greatest experiences in my life."

* in 2011, at the age of 91, won the 'Pride of Britain Award' after helping to raise more than £1million for charity by his wing walking and when asked :
"who out of his hundreds of new female admirers at the awards he had his eye on ?" replied: "All of them. At my age you don't mess
about."

* in August this year landed safely at City of Derry Airport after wing walking for 91 minutes over the Irish Sea from Castle Kennedy Airport, and said :  "It took an hour and a half, and was freezing – at one point there was sleet, which whipped into my face like arrows, but I thawed out once we'd touched down and the feeling of exhilaration was tremendous."

"When I'm up in the sky I mainly think of my wife. I always carry a photo of her, I think of her and try to think what she would think of me."

Tom in his own words :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXCaZpTX9TQ