Death Notices

[theskull1]

Writing out one side of John Stalker's family tree on a flattened out cigarette packet.

Don't understand drici. I take it thsi is some reference to John Hermon passing away. PM if you want to keep it criptic on here

[Donagh]

Sir John Hermon

Hopefully the family of John Hermon will be able to give him a more dignified burial that those he afforded others during his reign:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6960045658900285089

[ziggysego]

BBC reported that the changes in the then RUC to today's PSNI all started with him. Yeah.... (!)

[full back]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6960045658900285089

Only got watching half of that because a block ws put on it while I was watching it? (Anyone know why)
Shocking stuff altogether

[lynchbhoy]

Sir John Hermon - Former Chief Inspector for the RUC

kicking and screaming I hope !

[Bacon]

The Lord Mayor of Ballyshannon PJ Branley was killed in a car crash yesterday along with 2 others. May they rest in peace.

[Yes I Would]

Read about young lad from Derry Brian Og Mc Keever who passed away.RIP.

[Puckoon]

One week and one day has passed since our brother in arms fell to the sword of Mod 1.

Hardstation - gone but not forgotten.


EDIT - Never mind - its been 10 days.

[Tony Baloney]

The veteran writer and broadcaster Owen Kelly has died.

Mr Kelly, who was originally from south Derry and lived in west Belfast, died on Sunday. He wrote a weekly column in the Irish News for more than 25 years.

He was described as an "institution" and a "very wise man" by Irish News editor Noel Doran.

"There was something very simple, but very sincere, in his columns. They gave people a lift even during the very difficult periods," said Mr Doran.

Mr Kelly, who wrote a number of books, was described by the Times Educational Supplement as having "an original mind with a refreshing line in humorous understatement".

[ziggysego]

I used to enjoy reading Owen's column in the Irish News.

RIP.

[Double Cross]

RIP, always enjoyed his column on a Saturday.

[Doogie Browser]

A real iconic voice of the Civil Rights era has passed on, seen her sing recently on a Liam Clancy special on RTE, a truly unique voice.


US folk icon Odetta dies aged 77 

US folk singer Odetta, a civil rights campaigner and a major influence on Bob Dylan, has died at the age of 77.

Born Odetta Jones in Birmingham, Alabama, the classically-trained singer gave life to slave songs and folk tunes through her powerful voice.

Becoming a folk star in the 1950s, Odetta influenced Bob Dylan as well as Harry Belafonte and Joan Baez.

Despite being recently confined to a wheelchair, Odetta performed some 60 concerts in the last two years.

She died of heart disease on Tuesday at the Lennox Hill Hospital in New York. She had been admitted to the hospital some three weeks before suffering from kidney failure, said her manager Doug Yeager.

She made her name performing songs sung by ordinary people - housewives and working men, as well as prison songs and slave plantation "spirituals".

"What distinguished her from the start was the meticulous care with which she tried to re-create the feeling of her folk songs," Time magazine wrote in 1960. "To understand the emotions of a convict in a convict ditty, she once tried breaking up rocks with a sledge hammer."

Recording several albums, Odetta was best-known in the US for taking part in the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, where she sang O Freedom.

In a 1978 interview, Bob Dylan said: "The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta."

He added he found "just something vital and personal" when he first heard her, and that her music convinced him to sell his electric guitar and play an acoustic one instead.

First nominated for a Grammy in 1963, Odetta received two more nominations in the latter part of her career - one in 1999 and third in 2005.

In 1999, she was awarded a National Medal of the Arts. President Bill Clinton said her career showed "us all that songs have the power to change the heart and change the world".

[Yes I Would]

Bagpuss creator Oliver Postgate has died aged 83, his family has confirmed.

Mr Postgate, who lived in Kent, created some of the best-loved children's TV series including Ivor the Engine, the Clangers and Noggin the Nog.

His work, screened on the BBC and ITV from the 1950s to the present day, was often in collaboration with the artist and puppeteer Peter Firmin.

In a poll earlier this year, Bagpuss, a saggy pink cloth cat, was voted the best TV animal of all-time.

Mr Postgate's partner, Naomi Linnell, confirmed he died at a nursing home near his home in Broadstairs in Kent on Monday.

  Oliver said it himself, he was always a little boy

Sandra Kerr, colleague of Oliver Postgate

Friend and colleague, Sandra Kerr, has been paying tribute to "a creative and eccentric talent".

Ms Kerr, the voice of the mice in Bagpuss, said they had so much fun working together, their giggles can be heard on the Bagpuss soundtrack.

Asked where his inspiration came from, she said: "Oliver said it himself, he was always a little boy.

"He and Peter just responded to that part of themselves they had never lost."


Oliver Postgate created many much-loved children's TV programmes

Mr Postgate's work was popular with generations of children who loved the strangeness of the characters and the warmth of his story-telling.

The short animated films, which he would script and narrate, were created by Smallfilms production company, set up with Mr Firmin.

The partners worked in a makeshift studio in a disused cowshed in Kent on a tiny budget often using home-made equipment.

Ivor the Engine, a series for ITV about a little Welsh steam engine who wanted to sing in a choir, was their first creation. The 1960s BBC series of Noggin the Nog about a baby-faced king of the race of Nogs followed.

The pair swiftly established themselves as reliable purveyors of children's entertainment, in the days when there were just two channels and children's television occupied a privileged teatime slot.

'Praise and encouragement'

Describing the commissioning process, Mr Postgate said: "We would go to the BBC once a year, show them the films we'd made, and they would say, 'Yes, lovely, now what are you going to do next?'"

"We would tell them, and they would say, 'That sounds fine, we'll mark it in for 18 months from now', and we would be given praise and encouragement and some money in advance, and we'd just go away and do it."

Only 13 episodes of Bagpuss were made in 1974, but were regularly repeated until 1987.

London-born Mr Postgate made his last film in 1987, complaining that children's television commissioners were no longer interested in what he had to offer.

In October this year, the rights to many of his characters were bought by company Coolbai, which said it planned to introduce Bagpuss to a new generation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7772620.stm

[Minder]

Nora Batty

[Minder]

Deep Throat

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7791146.stm