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Eric Sykes
Eric Sykes (4 May 1923 – 4 July 2012) was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor, and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus, and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, most notably through his collaboration on ''The Goon Show'' scripts. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series. Early life Sykes was born on 4 May 1923 in Oldham, Lancashire; his mother died three weeks later, leaving him and his two-year-old brother Vernon motherless. Their father was a labourer in a cotton mill and a former army sergeant. When Sykes was two, his father remarried and he gained a half- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esher
Esher ( ) is a town in Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole. Esher is an outlying suburb of London near the London-Surrey Border, and with Esher Commons at its southern end, the town marks one limit of the Greater London Built-Up Area. Esher has a linear commercial high street and is otherwise suburban in density, with varying elevations, few high rise buildings and very short sections of dual carriageway within the ward itself. Esher covers a large area, between 13 and 15.4 miles southwest of Charing Cross. In the south it is bounded by the A3 Portsmouth Road which is of urban motorway standard and buffered by the Esher Commons. Esher is bisected by the A307, historically the Portsmouth Road, which for approximately forms its high street. Esher railway station (served by the South West Main Line) connects the town to London Waterloo. Sandown Park Racecourse is in the town near the station. In the south, Claremont Landscape Garden owned and managed by the National ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergeant
Sergeant (abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other units that draw their heritage from the British light infantry. Its origin is the Latin , 'one who serves', through the French term . The term ''sergeant'' refers to a non-commissioned officer placed above the rank of a corporal, and a police officer immediately below a lieutenant in the US, and below an inspector in the UK. In most armies, the rank of sergeant corresponds to command of a squad (or section). In Commonwealth armies, it is a more senior rank, corresponding roughly to a platoon second-in-command. In the United States Army, sergeant is a more junior rank corresponding to a squad- (12 person) or platoon- (36 person) leader. More senior non-commissioned ranks are often variations on sergeant, for example staff sergeant, gunn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frankie Howerd
Francis Alick Howard (6 March 1917 – 19 April 1992), better known by his stage-name Frankie Howerd, was an English actor and comedian. Early life Howerd was born the son of soldier Francis Alfred William (1887–1934)England & Wales, Death Index: 1916–2005 and Edith Florence Howard (née Morrison, 1888–1962), at the City Hospital in York, England, in 1917 (not 1922 as he later claimed). His mother worked at the Rowntree's chocolate factory. For his first two and a half years, Howerd lived in a terraced house at 53, Hartoft Street. He described it as "a poorish area of the city near the River Ouse". He later said he had only one memory of living in York and that was of falling down the stairs, an experience which left him with a life-long dread of heights. He returned to York on many occasions for family holidays, however, and later in life spoke of his fondness for the city. His family moved to Eltham, London when he was a young child, and he was educated at Shooter' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Playhouse Theatre
The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square, central London. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. It was rebuilt in 1907 and still retains its original substage machinery. As of November 2021, the theatre has been refurbished and renamed as the Kit Kat Club and is home to a revival of the musical ''Cabaret'' with a seating capacity of 550. History Early years Built by Sefton Henry Parry as the Royal Avenue Theatre, it opened on 11 March 1882 with 1200 seats. The first production at the theatre was Jacques Offenbach's ''Madame Favart''. In its early seasons, the theatre hosted comic operas, burlesques and farces for several years. For much of this time, the low comedian Arthur Roberts, a popular star of the music halls, starred at the theatre. By the 1890s, the theatre was presenting drama, and in 1894 Annie Horniman, the tea heiress, anonymously ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winter Of 1946–1947 In The United Kingdom
Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures define different dates as the start of winter, and some use a definition based on weather. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. In many regions, winter brings snow and freezing temperatures. The moment of winter solstice is when the Sun's elevation with respect to the North or South Pole is at its most negative value; that is, the Sun is at its farthest below the horizon as measured from the pole. The day on which this occurs has the shortest day and the longest night, with day length increasing and night length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice. The earliest sunset and latest sunrise dates outside the polar regions differ from the date of the winter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp
Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentration camp. Initially this was an "exchange camp", where Jewish hostages were held with the intention of exchanging them for German prisoners of war held overseas. The camp was later expanded to accommodate Jews from other concentration camps. After 1945, the name was applied to the displaced persons camp established nearby, but it is most commonly associated with the concentration camp. From 1941 to 1945, almost 20,000 Soviet prisoners of war and a further 50,000 inmates died there. Overcrowding, lack of food and poor sanitary conditions caused outbreaks of typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever and dysentery, leading to the deaths of more than 35,000 people in the first few months of 1945, shortly before and after the liberation. The cam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denis Norden
Denis Mostyn Norden (6 February 1922 – 19 September 2018) was an English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during the Second World War. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the BBC Radio comedy programme ''Take It from Here'' with Frank Muir. Muir and Norden remained associated for more than 50 years, appearing regularly together on the radio panel programmes ''My Word!'' and '' My Music'' after they stopped collaborating on scripts. He also wrote scripts for Hollywood films. He presented television programmes on ITV for many years, including the nostalgia quiz ''Looks Familiar'' and blooper shows ''It'll be Alright on the Night'' and ''Laughter File''. Early life and career Norden was born as Denis Moss Cohen into a Jewish family in Hackney, in London's East End. His parents were George Cohen, a tailor specializing in bridal gowns, and his wife Ginny (née Lubelsky), who was of Polish heritage. The family name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Fraser
William Simpson Fraser (5 June 1908 – 9 September 1987) was a Scottish actor who appeared on stage, screen and television for many years. In 1986 he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for his stage role in the play ''When We Are Married''. Early life Fraser was born in Perth and educated at Strathallan School. He began his career as a clerk in a bank before beginning to act. In the early days when acting work was scarce, Fraser was often penniless, frequently sleeping rough on the Embankment in London. Before the Second World War, he ran the Connaught Theatre in Worthing; when called up he served in a Royal Air Force Special Liaison Unit, reaching the rank of flight lieutenant, where he met and became friends with Eric Sykes. Just after the war a chance meeting in a London street led to Fraser's giving Sykes his first work as a writer for radio comedy and the two friends worked together many times over the following years. Fraser is also credited wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flight Lieutenant
Flight lieutenant is a junior commissioned rank in air forces that use the Royal Air Force (RAF) system of ranks, especially in Commonwealth countries. It has a NATO rank code of OF-2. Flight lieutenant is abbreviated as Flt Lt in the Indian Air Force (IAF) and RAF, and as FLTLT in the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) and has sometimes also been abbreviated as F/L in many services; it has never been correctly abbreviated as "lieutenant". A flight lieutenant ranks above flying officer and below a squadron leader and is sometimes used as an English language translation of a similar rank in non-English-speaking countries. The rank originated in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in 1914. It fell into abeyance when the RNAS merged with the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War but was revived in 1919 in the post-war RAF. An RAF flight lieutenant is the equivalent of a lieutenant in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ultra
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. ''Ultra'' eventually became the standard designation among the western Allies for all such intelligence. The name arose because the intelligence obtained was considered more important than that designated by the highest British security classification then used (''Most Secret'') and so was regarded as being ''Ultra Secret''. Several other cryptonyms had been used for such intelligence. The code name ''Boniface'' was used as a cover name for ''Ultra''. In order to ensure that the successful code-breaking did not become apparent to the Germans, British intelligence created a fictional MI6 master spy, Boniface, who controlled a fictional series of agents throughout Germany. Information obtained through code-breaking was often attributed to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leading Aircraftman
Leading aircraftman (LAC) or leading aircraftwoman (LACW) is a junior rank in some air forces. It sits between aircraftman and senior aircraftman, and has a NATO rank code of OR-2. The rank badge is a horizontal two-bladed propeller. The rank was renamed air specialist (class 2) (AS2) in the Royal Air Force in July 2022. History The rank originated in the Royal Air Force, when it was formed in 1918. It replaced the Royal Flying Corps rank of air mechanic 1st class (which wore the same badge). It was only a trade classification until 1 January 1951, when it became a rank, although it is non-supervisory. Countries Australia Leading aircraftman is also a rank in the Royal Australian Air Force (which uses a single chevron rather than a propeller device) where it is the senior aircraftman rank. Bangladesh Bangladesh Air Force Canada It was a rank until 1968 in the Royal Canadian Air Force being replaced by the army rank of private after unification, which then in 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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