BB FANS

Author and dramatist Sir John Mortimer dies

Mortimer was best known for creating the character and television series Rumpole of the Bailey. He started his career as a barrister and went on to become one of Britain's most prolific writers, receiving a knighthood in 1998.

His daughter is the actress Emily Mortimer.

Guardian

TV presenter Tony Hart dies

Children's TV presenter Tony Hart has died at the age of 83, the BBC said.

PA

American Novelist John Updike Dies


7:08pm UK, Tuesday January 27, 2009
American novelist John Updike, one of the giants of 20th-century literature, has died aged 76.

Sky News: First For Breaking News

Updike, who won two Pulitzer Prizes and numerous other awards, had been suffering from lung cancer.

The news of his death was announced by his publisher.

"It is with great sadness that I report that John Updike died this morning at the age of 76, after a battle with lung cancer," said Nicholas Latimer of Alfred A. Knopf.

"He was one of our greatest writers, and he will be sorely missed."

As well as novels chronicling sex, love and divorce in post-war America, Updike also published short stories, poems and essays.

Although an intellectual writer, his books often made it into best-seller lists.

They included The Witches of Eastwick, which was turned into a hit film starring Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeifer and pop star Cher.

A great believer in hard work, Updike penned more than 50 books in a career that started in the 1950s.

His two Pulitzers were for "Rabbit Is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest". He also won two National Book Awards.
Skynews

Gary Kurfirst: Manager of the Ramones, Talking Heads, Blondie, Eurythmics and Black Grape

Wednesday, 28 January 2009


It's not easy being in a rock'n'roll band," Dee Dee Ramone said in End of the Century: the story of the Ramones (2003), the warts-and-all documentary about the punk group's two-decade career. Gary Kurfirst, their longstanding manager, was one of the people who made things that little bit easier for the notoriously moody quartet whose contribution to popular music was finally recognised when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Kurfirst was the only manager closely associated with four acts granted that accolade: he also looked after the groundbreaking new-wave bands Talking Heads and Blondie, and worked with the former Clash guitarist, Mick Jones, when he later led Big Audio Dynamite. Although US-based, Kurfirst managed several British groups, including Eurythmics, the Waterboys, the Thompson Twins and Black Grape, the band fronted by Shaun Ryder of the Happy Mondays.

He extricated the notoriously unreliable Ryder from his previous contract, persuaded the US authorities to allow his client entry to the country despite his criminal record, and signed Black Grape to Radioactive, the label he had launched in partnership with MCA in the Nineties. Under his stewardship, Black Grape recorded the chart-topping album It's Great When You're Straight. . . Yeah (1995) and has four Top Ten hits in the UK.

In a career lasting over 40 years and taking in concert promotion and music publishing as well as management, Kurfirst's biggest commercial success came at Radioactive when he discovered the angsty US band Live playing at CBGB's, the New York club where the Ramones and Talking Heads had made their name. Led by their charismatic singer Ed Kowalczyk, Live saw their second album, Throwing Copper (1994), slow-burn its way to the top of the US listings, repeated the feat with Secret Samadhi (1997), and sold 20 million albums around the world. Kurfirst always took the long view, and saw his belief in Talking Heads rewarded when they finally broke through in the US in 1983 with Speaking In Tongues, their fifth studio album. They followed it up with Stop Making Sense, the 1984 concert film directed by Jonathan Demme and produced by Kurfirst.

The manager was considered "the fifth Talking Head" ("he took the blows that the music business dealt us," the band's drummer Chris Frantz reflected) and also served as producer on the frontman David Byrne's directorial debut, True Stories (1986), and Mary Lambert's thriller Siesta (1987), which boasted a Miles Davis soundtrack thanks to Kurfirst's involvement.

Born in New York, Kurfirst showed flair and business acumen in his late teens when he began organising events while studying at Forest Hills High School in Queens. In 1967, he opened the Village Theater – later the Fillmore East under Bill Graham – and helped the blues-rock band Mountain in their contractual negotiations with the Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, who became a lifelong friend and business associate. Blackwell subsequently called on Kurfirst's help to launch the reggae artists Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Third World in the US in the mid-Seventies.

In 1968, Kurfirst organised the New York Rock Festival, presenting Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Doors and The Who in Flushing Meadow Park. Three years later, he signed the Brazilian artist Deodato and enabled him to turn his funky adaptation of Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra into a worldwide hit.

But Kurfirst really made his mark in the late Seventies and into the Eighties at the cutting edge of rock and pop through his tireless work on behalf of Talking Heads, the Ramones, the B-52's and Blondie.

It was while on tour with the Blondie singer Deborah Harry in 1990 that he first met Shirley Manson, then the keyboard player with Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie in Glasgow. When Manson launched her own group, Angelfish, he signed them to an album deal after hearing a two-song demo. Though Angelfish failed to live up to their promise, the striking-looking Manson came to the attention of the Nirvana producer Butch Vig, who asked her to join his band Garbage in 1994. Garbage went on to sell 15 million albums, earning Kurfirst a tidy return on his original hunch and investment.

A notoriously tough negotiator, Kurfirst secured himself a percentage on future earnings after parting company with Jane's Addiction in 1990, but was gracious enough to offer a similar deal to Danny Fields and Linda S. Stein when he took over the Ramones' management from them. He also liked to credit himself as "Executive Producer" on albums by many of his acts when he had had little input into the production or mixing of the tracks.

Paying tribute to Kurfirst, Manson said, however: "He was just so passionate about all his artists. He didn't need to have anyone affirm his taste. He loved what he loved and everyone else be damned."

Pierre Perrone

Gary Kurfirst, manager, promoter,publisher, label owner: born New York, 1947; married (one son, one daughter); died Nassau, the Bahamas 13 January 2009.
Independent

Dr Nthato Motlana: Physician and anti-apartheid activist

Wednesday, 28 January 2009

Nthato Motlana had vivid memories of what it was like to be a black youth in 1940s South Africa: "The attitude of whites was monstrous," he said. "They were boors, animals. We lived a life of subservience, obsequiousness, fear, of obeisance to the white man in a way that nobody can really understand. When you saw a white man, you saw God Almighty and you had to get out of his way. He could kick you, he could kill you and get away with it."

Motlana fought back. He lived through the dark years of apartheid and emerged triumphant. By the time of his death, he was deeply respected as a medical doctor and a leader in the freedom struggle, a pioneer in black economic empowerment and one of South Africa's wealthiest men.

He was born in 1925 in the village of Marapyane, near Pretoria, moving at the age of 10 to Johannesburg with his mother, who worked as a domestic servant for a white family. In 1946 Motlana began his Bachelor of Science studies at the South African Native College at Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape. Fort Hare, today a fully fledged university, then had fewer than 400 students but was the premier place for higher education for blacks, both from South Africa and other Africa countries. Nelson Mandela was one of the elite who studied there; Robert Mugabe graduated in 1941.

South Africa's blacks were suffering from several centuries of racial discrimination at the hands of European settlers. The Second World War and the Allied dedication to freedom aroused hopes of a new era, but those were dashed by the Afrikaner Nationalist electoral victory in 1948 on the slogan of "apartheid" (apartness). At Fort Hare, as Motlana later recalled, "there was great sadness mixed with anger and apprehension." With feelings running high, a branch of the African National Congress Youth League formed at Fort Hare later that year, with Motlana as secretary. The league had come into existence two years earlier to push for African nationalism and for aggressive action against discrimination.

Motlana went on to study medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. This was an exceptional achievement: the university was for whites and the government allowed only a small quota of black students. They could study, but had a segregated residence and were debarred from taking part in university sports or social events.

Despite the obstacles, it was a rare and privileged status. Yet Motlana imperiled it by taking part in the ANC's Defiance Campaign in 1952, in which people were urged to break the apartheid laws which the Afrikaner Nationalists were enacting wholesale: sitting on a park bench designated for another colour group, or entering the wrong library, was a crime. Motlana was convicted – together with Mandela and others – and was given a suspended sentence and banned from political activities.

Marriage to Sally – who was to become a formidable anti-apartheid figure in her own right – meant setting up home in a humble one-roomed dwelling in Johannesburg's Western Native Township. But the government declared it a "black spot" and ordered the black residents to leave, to make way for whites. Motlana took part in the resistance, but lost. He set up his medical practice in the then-new township of Soweto.

Motlana's African nationalism remained strong and he was a supporter of the Africanist group inside the ANC who accused the organisation of lacking militancy and being too influenced by white Communists. But he argued for unity, and opposed the breakaway of the group from the ANC in 1958 and the formation of the Pan-Africanist Congress – whose anti-apartheid campaign two years later led to police killing scores in the Sharpeville Massacre.

As the Afrikaner Nationalists tightened their hold, black resistance was beaten down. But it surged again in 1976 with a revolt by schoolchildren. Motlana was vice-chair of the Black Parents' Association and chair of the Soweto Committee of Ten, which sought to lead the community. With his own history of education, he tried to persuade the youngsters not to boycott schools; he was alarmed by their policy of "no education before liberation". He did not succeed, however, and in later years lamented that the era had produced three million South African mothers and fathers without skills and without any prospect of getting jobs.

The Committee of Ten was banned and Motlana was detained without trial for five months. Undaunted, throughout the 1980s he remained a leader fighting against government attempts to bring Soweto to heel. Worried that detention and ceaseless harassment would leave his family without income, he opened a grocery store, run by Sally. The government allowed township stores to sell only basic groceries – so as not to compete against white-owned supermarkets in cities – but the business thrived and still exists.

Motlana's natural entrepreneurial gifts came to the fore. He brought together several dozen doctors to launch the first black-owned company to make chemicals; then the first black privately owned hospital; then the first black medical-aid scheme. And as apartheid went into decline at the start of the 1990s, he enthusiastically went into the world of big business, becoming known as the father of black economic empowerment. His success reached its height with the formation of a giant conglomerate, New Africa Investment Limited (Nail), which made him one of the wealthiest men in the country. Years later he resigned after strong public criticism of a proposed huge bonus payment to executives, including himself.

He never forgot his roots. He chaired a South Africa/United States fund to train black health professionals and he was active in the Nelson Mandela foundation to help children.

His vision of South Africa traversed the colour spectrum and his African nationalism never caused him to turn against whites. Indeed, his forays into stratospheric business were in association with whites, and the links and friendships he built over the years endured. In his medical practice he was doctor to the poor people of Soweto. He was also the house doctor of Robert Sobukwe, the Pan-Africanist Congress leader. After Mandela was released from prison in 1990, he became his doctor too.

Motlana was joyous in his life, with laughter easily bursting out of hisslender body. He responded to the harshness of black existence with lifelong dedication to relieving the suffering of others.

Benjamin Pogrund

Nthato Harrison Motlana, anti-apartheid activist, physician and businessman: born Marapyane, Pretoria 16 February 1925; twice married (four sons, two daughters); died Johannesburg 30 November 2008.
Independent

Joan Bright Astley: Secretary to Winston Churchill's War Cabinet

Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Joan Bright Astley: one of three or four women whose attributes were used by Ian Fleming to make up the character of Miss Moneypenny

Joan Bright Astley was a member of that indispensable apparatus of administrators and secretaries who toiled in support of the great military, intelligence and political figures of the Second World War. Churchill and Eden were among her familiars, while she worked with senior generals such as Ismay, Wavell and Brooke. Her job was to set up a Special Information Centre (SIC) for Commanders-in-Chief, a section required by Churchill because, as Prime Minister, he could no longer give time to the regular meetings with top brass which had been his custom when he was First Lord of the Admiralty.

Although once described as a "difficult" teenager, she was one of those who kept the wheels of war turning. Her personal blend of capability and discretion meant she is suspected of being one of the models for James Bond's Miss Moneypenny. She certainly dated Ian Fleming, finding him "awfully attractive and fun".

Joan Bright was born in Argentina into a peripatetic family, headed by an English accountant and a Scottish governess, whose travels took them to Spain, Bedford, Bath and Bristol. She attended a variety of schools, learning shorthand and typing and working as a secretary at the British legation in Mexico. She had the chance, oddly enough, of working in Germany for Rudolf Hess, one of Hitler's senior associates, to teach his family English. She turned it down.

Instead, in 1939, she was inducted into Whitehall's secret world, when a friend told her surreptitiously that she might find some interesting workif she went to St James's Underground Station at 11am on a certain day, wearing a pink carnation. A lady appeared, who led Bright, after many changesof direction, to an office where she was met by a colonel. After he had got her to sign the Official Secrets Act heidentified through the window a citizen standing on the street corner. "When you leave here," he said, "don't let him see you. Turn left and keep going." That is how she came to join D/MI(R), a section of the War Office concerned, among other operations, with the disruption of Romanian oil supplies to the Germans.

She spent time working for J.C.F. Holland, one of whose roles was to organise commandos who would use guerrilla tactics to disrupt anyGerman invasion of England. Moving on to the Joint Planning Committee, she was given the task of running the Secret Intelligence Centre, a title which was rather more grandiosethan its reality since it consisted of a single underground office in the Cabinet War Rooms. It was, however, a vital cog, since there she held vital secret papers emanating from high-level military and intelligence bodies. Her job was to receive senior officers and allow them to read documents under controlled conditions.

Although this might be thought a recipe for an isolated existence, she by all accounts made the various commanders welcome with her brand of attractive informality. She showed easy expertise in navigating between the war's big personalities, who of course often had big egos, and she was often in demand.

She turned down an invitation to serve in India with General Wavell, and instead went on to become personal assistant to General Sir Hastings "Pug" Ismay, who was particularly close to Winston Churchill.

She admired many of the men of action she came across. For example she described one irregular warrior, Colin Gubbins, thus: "He had just enough of the buccaneer in him to make lesser men underrate his gifts of leadership, courage and integrity... He was a man-at-arms, a campaigner, the fires banked up inside him as glowing as those round which his Celtic ancestors had gathered between forays from glen and brae."

She became an administrative officer accompanying Churchill and the top brass to the summits with Stalin, Roosevelt and Truman which were aimed at deciding the course of the war and the fate of the post-war world.

Her travels took her to Washington, Moscow, Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam. During the Potsdam conference she explored the Chancellery building in Berlin, which had been reduced to rubble by British and American bombers and Russian artillery. She later recalled seeing discarded Iron Crosses on the floor, writing: "The smell of Berlin was quite definitely the smell of decayed death."

But her wartime career was not all hard work and destruction: "We had such fun," she recalled. "We had lots of boyfriends."

She wrote of her wartime experiences in a lively memoir entitled The Inner Circle: a view of war at the top (1971), as well as co-authoring, with Peter Wilkinson, a book on Sir Colin Gubbins: Gubbins and SOE (1993). She was was awarded the OBE in 1946.

In 1949 she married Colonel Philip Astley, who was involved in trench warfare in the First World War and political warfare in the Second,winning the Military Cross and being twice mentioned in despatches. In 1950, with their newly born son,she and Philip Astley set sail forEast Africa. But they never got there. Bad weather, a shipwreck off thecoast of Portugal and a heart attackfor Philip landed them in Spain, where they stayed until they returned tolive in England in 1952. Philip diedin 1958.

Joan Bright Astley was not Miss Moneypenny; but Samantha Weinberg, author of The Moneypenny Diaries (published under the name Kate Westbrook), reckons she is one of three or four women whose attributes were used by Ian Fleming to make up the character.

"I liked Ian," Bright Astley said in recent interviews. "I thought he was awfully attractive and fun, but elusive. I think he was a ruthless man – he would drop somebody if he didn't want them any more. That would be it."

She described Fleming, whom she "picked up with during the war," as "a very attractive person and very good-looking." But a few years ago she insisted, discreet to the last: "No torrid love affair. I've got nothing to tell you on that side."

David McKittrick

Penelope Joan McKerrow Bright, public servant and military historian: born Corrientes, Argentina 27 September 1910; staff, War Cabinet Offices (Special Information Centre) 1941-43; Administrative Officer, British Delegations to Summit and Tripartite conferences Washington, Quebec, Cairo, Tehran, Moscow, Yalta, Potsdam 1943-45; OBE 1946; married 1949 Philip Astley (died 1958, one son); died London 24 December 2008.
Independent

New York gossip guru and bane of celebrities dies, aged 80

Tributes for James Brady, prolific writer and founder of Page Six gossip column

By David Usborne in New York


If gossip is the fuel that gets New Yorkers up in the morning, then yesterday they needed to give thanks to the man who – more than anyone else – ensured that supplies never run short. James Brady, who died on Monday aged 80, did many things in journalism and writing. One of them was to create a certain Page Six.

A feature of the New York Post newspaper since Rupert Murdoch bought it in 1976, Page Six has evolved into an institution as important to the New York landscape as bagel shops and Bloomingdales. For many, scanning Page Six for its titillations and ribald revelations about A-lister celebrities and the hangers-on that serve them is the first task of the day.

"New York," the writer Jay McInerney observed, "is divided between those who turn to Page Six to read about their neighbours and those who do so to read about themselves".

Arena magazine once noted that its daily dose of scurrilous tidbit-trading "can launch a bestseller, break a contract, fill a restaurant and even end a marriage". Surely there was never a gossip column with such power.

To be remembered first for his connection to Page Six may not be what Mr Brady would have wanted for himself. His career was much more than that. Awarded a Bronze Star for his bravery in the Korean War, he wrote several books about what is sometimes still called America's forgotten conflict, as well as whimsical novels set in East Hampton, the beachside Long Island enclave of the rich and spoiled.

After starting out as a copy boy with the Daily News, Mr Brady blazed a trail across the magazine and newspaper firmament. He worked as the correspondent in London and in Paris for Fairchild publications; he wrote for and ended up being publisher of Women's Wear Daily; he edited Harpers Bazaar and New York Magazine; and for the last 25 years penned a celebrity column for Parade.

There is some debate about who exactly fathered Page Six. Mr Murdoch originally hired Brady to edit The Star, a weekly supermarket tabloid. But in early 1977 he brought Brady into the New York Post building as the first editor of Page Six, though he remained barely a day on the job. He did, however, return to it as its top contributor.

Mr Murdoch himself may lay claim to having fathered Page Six, or possibly the late Neil Travis. Brady himself, however, used to maintain that Page Six had indeed been his idea and yesterday his old newspaper gave him the benefit of the doubt in a tribute.

Over the years, Page Six, edited since 1985 by Richard Johnson, has continued unabashedly to wallow in the woes of the famous and poke the pampered and the pompous. Among its finest moments perhaps was its relentless pursuit of Monica Lewinsky, whom it labelled the "Portly Pepperpot", and the revelation that George Schultz, the former Secretary of State, has a tiger tattoo on his buttock.

And some of the biggest Post scoops over the years saw first light in the column inches of Page Six. They include Donald Trump's philanderings and subsequent marriage to Marla Maples, a tip-off about Woody Allen's affair with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his then partner Mia Farrow, and the news of Britney Spears engagement to Kevin Federline.

What Page Six achieved – up to and including the tricky art of the blind item where readers are informed of bad behaviour of famous people with little hints as to their identity but no names – has gradually filtered, for better or worse, into almost every corner of the media universe.
Independent

Singer John Martyn dies aged 60

By Vicky Shaw, Press Association


Folk and blues artist John Martyn died today, aged 60. The singer and songwriter was awarded an OBE in the New Year honours and he collaborated with artists such as Eric Clapton and Phil Collins, who paid tribute to his "infuriating" friend.

A statement on Martyn's official website said today: "With heavy heart and an unbearable sense of loss we must announce that John died this morning."

Collins said: "John's passing is terribly, terribly sad. I had worked with and known him since the late 1970s and he was a great friend.

"He was uncompromising, which made him infuriating to some people, but he was unique and we'll never see the likes of him again.

"I loved him dearly and will miss him very much."

Martyn was born Iain David McGeachy in Ssurrey, the son of two opera singers who split up when he was a child.

Brought up in Glasgow by his grandmother, he started learning to play guitar aged 15.

His debut album was released in the late 1960s and works such as Solid Air are seen as classics.

Martyn once said: "Every record I've made - bad, good, or indifferent - is totally autobiographical.

"I can look back when I hear a record and recall exactly what was going on.

"That's how I write. That's the only way I can write!

"Some people keep diaries, I make records."

His song May You Never was covered by Clapton and he is said to have inspired U2.

Martyn made an appearance at last year's Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow.

In 2003, Martyn had a leg amputated below the knee as the result of a burst cyst.

He told the Daily Mirror last year: "I wasn't too pleased about it, but whatever happens to your bod, happens."

Martyn was known for living a rock and roll lifestyle, but in later life said he drank only in moderation.

He told the newspaper: "I've been mugged in New York and luckily I fought my way out of it.

"I've been shot a couple of times as well, but I just lay down and pretended to be dead."
Independent

Dewey Martin: Drummer with Buffalo Springfield

By Spencer Leigh

Saturday, 7 February 2009


Because Buffalo Springfield only existed for two years, many rock fans were surprised when the group was inducted into The Rock And Hallof Fame in 1997. Even more surprised were the members themselves, who had put aside their differences tobe together. The arrogant and aggressive Dewey Martin had not been an ideal team member, but the band did create some remarkably good and inventive music.

Walter Milton Dewayne Midkiff, who became Dewey Martin, was born in Chesterville, Ontario in 1940. He started playing drums for a school band, the Jive Rockets, and graduated to several local bands. He moved to Nashville in the early 1960s in the hope of picking up sessions and although it was very much a closed shop, he did occasional work for the Everly Brothers and Carl Perkins.

In 1964, in the wake of the British invasion and now living in Los Angeles, he formed Sir Raleigh and the Coupons and released several singles including a rock version of "The White Cliffs of Dover". In 1965, he played drums for the surfing band, the Standells, and then spent time in the Dillards. The Dillards had beenmoving towards rock but, in April 1966, decided on a more traditional sound without a drummer and Martin was sacked. However, Doug Dillard told him of a new band that was looking for a drummer.

That was the embryonic Buffalo Springfield, so called because they saw a steamroller made by the Buffalo-Springfield Roller Company. The musicians included fellow Canadians Neil Young and Bruce Palmer, and Americans, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay. They had recruited a drummer, Billy Mundi, but he had moved on and Martin arrived at an opportune time. Chris Hillman of the Byrds secured them a residency at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. Stills and Young had difficulty in working together and Martin knew how to fire them up, but they appreciated his talent. Young said, "He feels the music: you don't have to tell him."

Their debut album, Buffalo Springfield, featuring seven songs by Stills and five by Young, was released in December 1966 and was followed by a US hit single, "For What It's Worth". Stills had written the song about heavy-handed police reaction to student demonstrations, and Dennis Hopper called it "the most revolutionary song of our times". Although Martin did not write any of the song, he claimed he had fuelled Stills's creativity by supplying him with LSD. Martin's percussion on the single, inspired by Lee Dorsey's "Get Out Of My Life, Woman", is his finest moment and he supplies backing vocals.

Buffalo Springfield was a disparate group, partly evidenced by theirclothing, to which there was no uniform style – Neil Young was in fringed buckskins, while Martin wore trendy fashions. Young frequently announced he was leaving, but replacing himwith Doug Hastings was short-lived. Jim Messina came in for Bruce Palmer following an arrest for drug possession. Their second album, Buffalo Springfield Again (1968), was as diverse as the Beatles' White Album, and Martin sang lead on "Good Time Boy". Being the most experienced member of the band, he wanted more say in its direction and fancied a Tamla Motown sound.

Following further arrests and an argument after a concert in Long Beach, California, the group split up in May 1968 and their leftovers were released in the disappointing Last Time Around. A few months laterMartin, then drinking heavily, formed the New Buffalo Springfield, butStills and Young took exception and Martin was prevented from using the name. Following an agreement to abandon future royalties from Buffalo Springfield's recordings, Martin was allowed to work as New Buffalo. He attempted to retrieve his rights in 1974 and though the matter was settled out of court, he felt that he had been mistreated.

In 1969, Martin formed the heavy rock band Medicine Ball with Bruce Palmer and they recorded "Indian Child", which he wrote. Again, though, his heavy drinking made him unreliable and he had the embarrassment of being dismissed from a tribute band, Blue Buffalo. He became a car mechanic and in 1983, a religious experience made him change his ways and he joined AA. In 1986, he joined Bruce Palmer's band, Buffalo Springfield Revisited, but he fell out with Palmer, forming Buffalo Springfield Again in 1991. In 1993 he retired from the business but he was happy to talk to fans and was proud of his work.

Walter Milton Dewayne Midkiff (Dewey Martin), drummer: born Chesterville, Ontario 30 September 1940;married; died Van Nuys, California 31 January 2009.
Independent

Sally Ledger: Victorian scholar who advanced the study of women writers and recast views of Dickens

By Professor Roger Luckhurst

Saturday, 7 February 2009


Sally Ledger, a leading scholar in Victorian Studies and the Hildred Carlile Chair of English at Royal Holloway, died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage. She was only 47, but already had a list of impressive achievements behind her. This is a cruel loss to her family, but also to the discipline in which she excelled.

Ledger was born in East Grinstead and grew up in Crawley. She was from solid Labour Party stock and had fond memories of campaigning on door-steps long before she was eligibleto vote. Her no-nonsense, straight-forward sense of dealing with people, institutions and literary history came from this background. She had initially thought of studying music, butafter a year working in France, she decided in 1982 to study English at Queen Mary's College, London. Signs of things to come were indicatedby her winning the George Smith Prize in 1985 for the best First in English across the colleges of the University of London.

She went on to Oxford to study for her doctorate with the iconoclastic Terry Eagleton, then an enfant terrible introducing politics and literary theory into Oxford's fusty faculty. It was a meeting of minds: Ledger kept her feet on the ground and always found displays of academic pomposity or self-importance laughable. Her thesis on the odd late-Victorian figure Mark Rutherford led her to explore areas of Victorian dissent and popular radicalism that would occupy her career. She never published on Rutherford; to her increasing amusement, he cunningly evaded every project she conceived.

Her early career included teaching posts at Royal Holloway, Exeter and Cheltenham before she secured alectureship at the University of the West of England. She married Jim Porteous in 1988 and they settled in Bristol. With their son, Richard, they formed a strong team united by a love of guitars, holidays in the Lake District and Chelsea Football Club. Her message to colleagues and students in the often driven world of academia was always to combine work with play. She could move in the blink of an eye from a discussion on the politics of literary theory to an ardent debate on what the wage structure at Chelsea was doing to the game.

In 1995, Ledger joined Birkbeck College in Bloomsbury in London. Birkbeck, a Victorian institution built to educate working people through evening teaching, matched her own principles and she thrived in this context. The English department has a long history of eminent Victorian scholarship, and she soon matched her stride with her internationally renowned colleagues Isobel Armstrong and Michael Slater.

In 1997, she published The New Woman: Fiction and Feminism at the Fin de Siècle. This groundbreaking work helped to recover a generation of women writers and radicals from the late-Victorian period. It is hard to recall how disregarded this aspect of cultural history was until a short time ago and it was Ledger's generation of women scholars who reclaimed this work. Her readings brilliantly teased out the often contradictory politics of gender, race and literary form in the fiction of the period. Soon, having published another short book on Henrik Ibsen, edited a collection of essays, and published an anthology of primary texts on the late Victorians, Ledger was considered a leading expert in the era. She was appointed Professor at Birkbeck in 2005. Typically, she refused to specialise, but worked backwards through the 19th century to address the work of Charles Dickens.

She became involved in the Dickens Fellowship in London, organising an annual conference, and since 2005 had been an integral part of the Dickens Project, run by the University of California at Santa Cruz. In 2007 she published Dickens and the Popular Radical Imagination, a book which placed Dickens amid the vibrant dissenting political culture of the 1830s and 1840s. Our slightly air-brushed sense of Dickens was carefully recast. It was dangerous to call Dickens "sentimental" in Ledger's presence, and her next project was an ambitious attempt to understand how sentimentality had become a term of abuse.

In the discipline, Ledger will be remembered as a tireless organiser and administrator, co-founding a highly successful Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies, based at Birkbeck but with global reach. She was an inspirational head of department, a genius at smoothing easily ruffled academic feathers. She helped found new degrees in creative writing and theatre. Her thirst for new challenges took her to Royal Holloway in September 2008 as professor and Director of Research. She had only just got her feet under the table, but had already made a huge impact on her new colleagues with her enthusiastic belief that academic life could be a collaborative and even joyous adventure. She will be terribly missed by many around the world.

Sally Ledger, English scholar: born East Grinstead, Sussex 14 December 1961;lecturer in Victorian Studies, Birkbeck College, London University 1995-2001, reader 2001-06, professor 2006-08;Hildred Carlile Chair in English, Royal Holloway, University of London2008; married 1988 Jim Porteous (one son); died Letchworth, Hertfordshire 21 January 2009.
Independent

Edmund De Rothschild: Banker and horticulturalist who modernised Rothschilds and restored the family gardens at Exbury

By David McKittrick

Saturday, 7 February 2009


Edmund de Rothschild, scion of the great financial family, was born into a life of fabulous wealth and surrounded himself with fabulous plants. His garden was described by Sir John "Jock" Colville, private secretary to Winston Churchill, as: "A sight of unparalleled beauty with its blaze of red and gold". He was a success in both business and horticultural terms, though he never quite regarded himself as a natural banker and once mused that he might have been happier as a doctor. Itwas said of him, as had been said ofhis father, Lionel, whom he followed into both banking and horticulture, that he was "a banker by hobby and a gardener by profession". During his years at the head of N.M. Rothschild and Sons he maintained its position as one of the city of London's foremost financial institutions.

Edmund Leopold de Rothschild, born in 1916, and familiarly knownas Eddy, was the great-great-grandson of Nathan Meyer Rothschild, who founded Rothschild's banking institution in London in 1798. The bankwas central to Britain's fortunes over the centuries, having, for example, helped to fund the Napoleonic wars. Nathan amassed great wealth, reputedly becoming Europe's richest man. Edmund's father, Lionel Nathande Rothschild, both headed the family firm and developed an intense interest in plants and flowers, particularly rhododendron and azalea. Acquiring the Exbury Estate near Southampton in 1919, Lionel set to work with almost industrial zeal. He established anirrigation system based on 22 miles of underground pipes fanning out froma large, brick water-tower. In thegarden, which had already been described as an earthly paradise, armies of men were set to work clearing woodland and removing the undergrowth of ages.

Edmund said admiringly of his father: "He bought 250 acres at Exbury and set about turning them into a garden. It took 250 men 20 years to double-dig and improve the soil and plant it up." Lionel not only cultivated familiar flora but also introduced exotic specimens from the Himalayas and south-east Asia, helping to sponsor expeditions which brought them to England. Those who came to Exbury to admire the spectacle, often at weekend house parties, included royalty – King George V and Queen Mary, the Duke and Duchess of York – as well as figures such as Winston Churchill.

As a boy, Edmund attended Lockers Park preparatory school and Harrow, before going to Trinity College, Cambridge. In his memoirs, A Gilt-edged Life (1998), Edmund mentioned just one instance of anti-semitism, in the form of an insult at his prep school. After Cambridge, he spent a year and a half travelling around the world, taking in the Andes and Africa, Afghanistan and Burma. The Rothschild name opened many doors, giving him access to eminent personages such as Mahatma Gandhi.

Returning to England in 1939 Rothschild's gave him the task of working on the affairs of Jewish families who had fled Germany, but barely had he got his feet under a desk when war broke out. Having already served with the Territorials, he rose to the rank of major, serving with the Royal Artillery and later with the army's Jewish Brigade. His war took him to France, North Africa, Holland and Italy, where he was slightly wounded. After the liberation of Rome he had an audience with the Pope, saying of the occasion that "as a Jew I felt doubly proud".

Edmund's father died in 1942. In 1946 he rejoined the family bank where he was to spend three decades of his life, working at first under his uncle Anthony. Edmund was a seniorpartner during the 1960s and, after Anthony fell ill, was chairman from 1970 to 1975. Unlike some Rothschilds, he was not regarded as a commanding figure in the world of finance, but heis credited with modernising the bank, increasing the role of non-familymembers and stepping up its international activities in countries such as Canada and Japan.

After some initial hesitation, Edmund had after the war decided to restore the gardens of Exbury. The estate had taken a battering during the conflict, having been requisitioned by the Navy in 1942 at just 48 hours' notice and suffering neglect as horticulture took second place to warfare. Edmund recalled: "When I came back from the war the garden was still very beautiful – but often I wouldn't go into it because it was too beautiful after all the horrors I had seen."

But eventually he made the decision to undertake a complete restoration and spent the following decades doing so. In the years that followed Exbury would attract many visitors and many horticultural awards.

Edmund's charity work included causes such as the Queen's Nursing Institute, the Not Forgotten Association for disabled ex-service personnel, the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, and the Council of Christians and Jews.

He married twice, first in 1948 to Elizabeth Edith Lentner, with whom he had four children, and who died in 1980. Two years later he married Anne Harrison, whom he had known as a young man.

"I met Anne when she was a nurse with the Parachute Regiment," he explained. "I was one of her first boyfriends. But there were religious difficulties. She wasn't Jewish – itmattered in those days... She married a friend of mine. Then in our greying years we both became free to marry again, and religious difficulties no longer mattered."

Edmund Leopold de Rothschild, banker and horticulturalist: born London 2 January 1916; chairman, N.M. Rothschild and Sons 1970-75; chairman,Asia Committee, British National Export Council, 1971; president, Exbury Gardens Ltd, 2000-09; married1948 Elizabeth Edith Lentner (died 1980; two sons, two daughters), 1982 Anne Harrison; died Exbury, Hampshire 17 January 2009.
Independent

Kurt Demmler: Pop and rock lyricist whose career ended in disgrace

Tuesday, 10 February 2009


Kurt Demmler was indisputably the most successful pop and rock lyricist to emerge from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) – and arguably the entire Eastern Bloc – during the 1970s and 1980s. However, after child abuse charges, Demmler fell from grace and became an increasingly reviled figure in the last year of his life.

Demmler, whose parents were both doctors, grew up in Cottbus in the state of Brandenburg in the east of Germany. He followed in his parents' footsteps by going into medicine, qualifying as a doctor in 1969. By 1965, however, he had already begun writing lyrics – songs and poetry that tapped into the political struggles of the GDR.

Political songs and folk song –frequently co-joined – shaped his creativity. By 1967 he was part ofthe politicisation of song that was going on in the GDR, appearing, or example, as a named artist in 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1980 on the bill of Berlin's Festival des Politischen Liedes [Festival of Political Song]. In 1976 he was a signatory against the Ausbürgerung [stripping of citizenship] of the notable songwriter Wolf Biermann.

He was also among the signatories to a demand for artistic freedoms in the GDR in September 1989, and he gave a speech and sang in support of that – and against surveillance by the Stasi – in November 1989 in East Berlin.

He hanged himself, according to reports, while in custody in Moabit in Berlin, facing multiple charges of child abuse. With his artistic reputation unravelling, there is no doubt that how people will view Kurt Demmler's songs will be sorely tested by the events that led up to his trial and which were left unresolved by his suicide. The tales were harrowing.

A huge proportion of Demmler's songs became more closely associated with other performers than with their author. The major acts who have performed Demmler's songs have included Nina Hagen, Veronika Fischer, the Czechoslovakian singer Karel Gott, Karussell, Oktoberklub, the rock band the Puhdys, Dean Reed (known as "the Red Elvis"), the Klaus Renft Combo and the East German rock group Silly. Demmler was also the uncredited contributor to Hagen's hit "Du Hast Den Farbfilm Vergessen" ["You Forgot the Colour Film"] and Renft's "Autostop" ["Hitch-hiking"].



Kurt Demmler, singer-songwriter: born Posen (now Poznan in Poland) 12 September 1943; died Berlin 3 February 2009.
Independent