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My Family And Other Animals
''My Family and Other Animals'' (1956) is an autobiographical book by British naturalist Gerald Durrell. It tells in an exaggerated and sometimes fictionalised way of the years that he lived as a child with his siblings and widowed mother on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939. It describes the life of the Durrell family in a humorous manner, and explores the fauna of the island. It is the first and most well-known of Durrell's Corfu trilogy, which also includes ''Birds, Beasts, and Relatives'' (1969) and ''The Garden of the Gods'' (1978). Durrell had already written several successful books about his trips collecting animals in the wild for zoos when he published ''My Family and Other Animals'' in 1956. Its comic exaggeration of the foibles of his family – including his eldest brother Lawrence Durrell, who became a celebrated novelist and poet – and his heartfelt appreciation of the natural world made it very successful. Durrell was able to found the Jersey ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerald Durrell
Gerald Malcolm Durrell, (7 January 1925 – 30 January 1995) was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey in 1959. He wrote approximately forty books, mainly about his life as an animal collector and enthusiast, the most famous being '' My Family and Other Animals'' (1956). Those memoirs of his family's years living in Greece were adapted into two television series ('' My Family and Other Animals'', 1987, and '' The Durrells'', 2016–2019) and one television film ('' My Family and Other Animals'', 2005). He was the youngest brother of novelist Lawrence Durrell. Early life and education Durrell was born in Jamshedpur, British India, on 7 January 1925. He was the fifth and youngest child (an elder sister having died in infancy) of Louisa Florence Dixie and Lawrence Samuel Durrell, both of whom were born in India of English and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postman Pat
''Postman Pat'' is a British stop-motion animated television series first produced by Woodland Animations. The series follows the adventures of Pat Clifton, a postman who works for Royal Mail postal service in the fictional village of Greendale (inspired by the real valley of Longsleddale near Kendal). ''Postman Pat'' first 13-episode series was screened on BBC One in 1981. John Cunliffe wrote the original treatment and scripts for the series, which was directed by animator Ivor Wood, who also worked on '' The Magic Roundabout'', '' The Wombles'', ''Paddington'', and '' The Herbs''. Following the success of the first series, four TV specials and a second series of 13 episodes were produced during the 1990s. In this series, Pat had a family shown on screen for the first time (though his wife had been mentioned in a number of episodes). A new version of the series was produced by Cosgrove Hall Films from 2003 to 2008 and expanded on many aspects of the original series. The s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Barrie
Leslie Hulme (9 January 1933 – 29 July 2016), known professionally as Ken Barrie, was an English voice actor and singer. He was best known for singing the theme tune of the BBC television programmes ''Hi-de-Hi!'', ''Postman Pat'' and ''Charlie Chalk'', and also narrated the latter two. He was also known for providing the voices of several of the series' characters. Biography Barrie was born on 9 January 1933 in Tunstall, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire. Under the stage name Les Carle, he recorded for Embassy Records, an offshoot of Woolworths that released inexpensive cover versions of pop hits, between 1962 and 1965. He changed his stage name when a friend told him it was French for "the Charlies", and took his new name of Ken Barrie from the names of his wife's brothers. His own singing and narrating voice and whistling has been heard in many movies and television commercials, and included providing the voices of the Smash Martians. Barrie provided singing voices in fea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed (; born 9 October 1936) is an English actor, presenter, writer and mountaineer. Blessed is known for portraying PC "Fancy" Smith in ''Z-Cars'', Augustus in the 1976 BBC television production of '' I, Claudius'', King Richard IV in the first series of ''Blackadder'', Prince Vultan in ''Flash Gordon'', Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy in the 1981 original London production of ''Cats'' at the New London Theatre, Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter in ''Henry V'', Boss Nass in ''Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace'' and the voice of Clayton in Disney's ''Tarzan''. In 2016, Blessed was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the arts and charity. Early life Blessed was born on 9 October 1936 at Montagu Hospital in Mexborough, Yorkshire, the son of William Blessed, a socialist coal miner at Hickleton Main Colliery (and himself the son of a coal miner) and cricketer for the Yorkshire second team, and Hilda (née Wall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louisa Durrell
Louisa Florence Durrell (née Dixie; 16 January 1886 – 24 January 1964), was an Anglo-Irish woman born in India during the British Raj. She was the mother of Lawrence and Gerald Durrell. She was featured in Gerald Durrell's autobiographical Corfu trilogy, which tells about the Durrells' years in Corfu from 1935 to 1939 in a somewhat fictionalized way. Biography Louisa Florence Dixie was born in 1886 to an Anglo-Irish Protestant family in Roorkee, India, where her family were colonials in the years of the British Raj. Her father, George Dixie, was the head clerk and accountant of the Ganges Canal Foundry. In India, she met and married Lawrence Samuel Durrell, an English engineer also born in India. Together, they travelled all over India for Lawrence's engineering work. They had three sons and two daughters, one of whom died in infancy. Their second child, Margery Ruth, was born in November 1915 and died from diphtheria in April 1916. The surviving children were Lawren ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hannah Gordon
Hannah Campbell Grant Gordon Film reference website (born 9 April 1941) is a Scottish actress and presenter who is known for her television work in the United Kingdom, including '''' (1972), '' Upstairs, Downstairs'' (1974–75), '''' (1979), '''' (1989–90) and an a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Wood (playwright)
Charles Gerald Wood (6 August 1932 – 1 February 2020) was a playwright and scriptwriter for radio, television, and film. He lived in England. His work has been staged at the Royal National Theatre as well as at the Royal Court Theatre and in the theatres of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984. Wood served in the 17th/21st Lancers and military themes are found in many of his works. Biography Though he was born in the British Crown dependency of Guernsey—his parents were actors in a repertory company playing in Guernsey at the time—he left the island with his parents when he was still only an infant. His parents worked as actors in repertory and fit-ups (travelling theatrical groups) mainly in the north of England and Wales and had no fixed place of abode. His education was, until the outbreak of the Second World War, sporadic. The family settled in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in 1939. The first house ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Family And Other Animals (TV Series)
''My Family and Other Animals'' is a 1987 British TV mini-series produced by the BBC and directed by Peter Barber-Fleming.Douglas Botting, ''Gerald Durrell: The Authorised Biography'', HarperCollins, 1999, pp. 549–550. It is based on Gerald Durrell's autobiographical book by the same name, ''My Family and Other Animals'', which tells about the time his family spent on the Greek Island of Corfu in 1935–1939. The series consists of 10 episodes and was aired for the first time between 17 October and 19 December 1987. Plot The show tells the story of the extravagant Durrell family who, tired of the rainy and unhealthy English climate, move to the sun-drenched Greek island of Corfu. The family consists of Gerry (young naturalist), his widowed mother (excellent cook), his eldest brother Lawrence Durrell, Larry (starting writer), another brother Leslie (mad about guns and boats) and sister Margo (who suffers from acne). In Corfu they experience a lot of adventures and befriend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year."About Penguin – company history" , Penguin Books. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its inexpensive s, sold through and other stores for sixpence, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Publications By Rupert Hart-Davis
This list of books published by Rupert Hart-Davis comprises titles reviewed in ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (1947 to 1974), plus reprints in the ''Mariners Library'' and ''Reynard Library'' series. Background and history After serving in the Second World War, Hart-Davis returned to his pre-war occupation as a publisher. In 1946 he founded Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd, in partnership with David Garnett and Edward Young and with financial backing from Eric Linklater, Arthur Ransome, H. E. Bates, Geoffrey Keynes, and Celia and Peter Fleming. His own literary tastes dictated which books were accepted and which rejected. Frequently he turned down commercial successes because he thought little of the works' literary merit. He later said, "I usually found that the sales of the books I published were in inverse ratio to my opinion of them. That's why I established some sort of reputation without making any money." When the firm started, paper was rationed; they used Garnett's ex-servicem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacquie Durrell
Jacqueline Sonia Durrell (née Wolfenden; born 17 November 1929 in Manchester, United Kingdom) is a British author. Born Jacquie Wolfenden, she married naturalist Gerald Durrell and worked alongside him for many years. She assisted him on several of his animal collecting expeditions, and with Jersey Zoo that he founded. The Durrells divorced in 1979. Marriage to Gerald Durrell She was born Jacqueline Sonia Wolfenden. Jacquie was 19 when she met Gerald Durrell, during his first stay in her father's hotel in Manchester after an animal-collecting expedition. The two began dating, although initially Jacquie claimed that she was very reluctant to become Durrell's girlfriend. Jacquie's father did not approve of her relationship with Durrell, and was completely antipathetic towards the idea of the couple's marriage, chiefly because he considered that Durrell had no money and apparently no career prospects. Jacquie could not marry without her parents' permission until she was 21, so after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
