Wendy Richards, the actor, whose death was reported yesterday was someone loved and known to almost every household in the British Isles but will be a name unknown beyond these shores unless devotee of the British TV soap drama series Eastenders or the situational comedy show, Are you being served?
She was born in Middlesbrough during World War 2 and her parents moved around the UK. Her father committed suicide in 1954 and her mother died of cancer in 1972. Nothing further is immediately available about her family life except that she went to schools in West London and Rickmansworth Hertfordshire and then to the well known Italia Conti Academy stage school, the oldest in the UK and now with various establishments in greater London from those taking pupils age 9 years to graduate acting and art courses.
Internationally the most well known graduate is likely to be Noel Coward and them the actress Gertrude Lawrence. Among those who made a name for themselves in the cinema as well as stage were Anthony Newley and Nanette Newman, Anton Rogers and Googie Withers. More contemporary names include Leslie Ash, Peter Bayliss, Russell Brand, Johnny Briggs who appeared in the soap rival Coronation Street, William Hartnell, the first Dr Who, Bonnie Langford, the child star who continued into adulthood, Martine McCutcheon who also appeared in Eastenders and who went on to have a career as a singer and in film as well as stage, the much loved comedy actor Leslie Phillips and Anton Rodgers, Nadia Swalhalia who also appeared in Eastenders before becoming a TV presenter, the internationally known comedy actress Tracy Ulman and the former child star Lena Zavaroni and who died at the age of 35 after losing a battle with anorexia nervosa.
In the 1970’s Are you being served Wendy Richards became well known as the store assistant Miss Brahms, a show which gravitated to the London stage over Christmas, one of several during that era and which I would take my birth and care mothers to see on New Year visits as I they came to stay over Christmas. She had appeared in a TV soap before in the 1960’s and had appearances in dad‘s Army, Up Pompeii, the vehicle for Frankie Howard, and two Carry on Films, one with Barbara Windsor who also became and established actor on Eastenders. She commenced in Eastenders as a young married woman to Arthur with a tyrant of mother in law, and graduated into a fine character actor, although there was something negative in the character she was required to play in later years. She is reported to have fallen out with the series managers when asked to remarry again and she left the show after twenty years 2006. For the past two years she made several appearances, and a TV advert for the Post office despite having been diagnosed with breast caner in 1996 and a further development in 2002. Although given a clean bill of health in 2005 last year it was found that there had been a widespread development from which she was unable to recover.
Wendy was married twice before living with John Burns, a Painter and decorator, twenty years her junior from 1996, and marrying in 2008. She had no children.
This year I did not tune into the Master chef competition until the Final two programmes when the three contenders cooked for 400 staff at Buckingham Palace and 200 competitors and dignitaries, including Royalty, at the Burghley Horse Trials annual dinner, for half a dozen International Chefs with 16, Michelin stars between them. Then before the final three course meal cooked within two hours they were sent individually to three of the top ten restaurants in the world. The impression gained from the first programme and the first part of he second is that there were two outstanding amateur chefs, with one the eventual winner Matt, the most creative. His limitation was a lack of finesse in presentation.. His interest was in combinations of natural ingredients and hearty food. He is big man with a soft heart who was in tears of joy on several occasions when master chefs expressed their appreciation for his work.
Married with three children, born in New Zealand to British parents who moved back to the USA and the oldest of winner at the age of 42, he had previously worked by day as an IT engineer. His transformation even during the last two of 24 programmes in the six week series, but which involved several months in actual work and filming, was breathtaking. I have reservations about the justification for creating dishes which can involved thirty processes and a similar quantity of ingredients and are then delivered with prices for a three course meal of £100 upwards before the wine. This is because food is such a basic to human existence and millions do not have sufficient and continue to die from starvation and the illness associated with under nourishment.
However as with fine wine there are those with the financial means and the interest to develop the palette to appreciate the various mixtures of flavours and textures as well as eye catching presentations.
For the record the winning meal comprised a starter of a trio of pieces of rabbit with nettles and pancetta crisps. We used to eat rabbit as this used to be a cheaper dish than meats and at one time my birth mother bought two rabbit with the intention that they would bread, but they just got fatter and father until taken to the butchers as she could not eat to eat them.
The main course was a was a spider crab thermidor with mussels, foraged sea vegetables and a side dish of large chunky chips.
The pudding consisted of cream lavender and blackberry moose with honey comb and blackberry sauce.
I had a soup, two brown finger rolls with thick pieces of cold gammon and a seer and black pepper mustard with earlier a pork chop and apple sauce with new potatoes garden peas and whole carrots.
After the failure of the national cricket team to fail to win the last Test yet scoring over 500 runs in their first innings and then having the opportunity to insist that the West Indian team should follow on, because of injuries to bowlers’s they bated themselves but deciding to go to a lead of 500, only for the opposition to bat on with the help of some rain breaks, I debated watching the start of the 4th test. When England won the toss and got off to an excellent start and by close had scored another 300 runs for the lost of three weeks.
In the afternoon there was a visit to the dentist to see the dental hygienist, something which required mouth open contortions.
I listened to Tina Tuner, art artist I have enjoyed seeing in an arena twice, on video and listening on CD two of which I posses. I have seen the film based on her life and read the book. I also have an Ike and Tina turner tape compilation. Addicted to Love, Golden Eye, River Deep Mountain Eye, I don’t want to fight, When the heartache is over, Cose Bella Vita, Whatever you need, Something Special and Paradise is Here. Better be good to me and What’s love got to do with it, Complicated Disaster and In your Wildest dreams, Open Arms and In Great Spirits.
I went to sleep during a two hour, well one hour fifty minutes to be accurate dramatization of the last days of Margaret Thatcher as British Prime Minister. Previously there was a dramatization of her rise to power, an amazing story in which she overcame the prejudice of a Tory party which preferred to see woman stay in the home looking after children, or being restricted to professions such as teaching and nursing rather then taking an active role on politics, which still believed there was no role for women in politics After winning the nomination she won the General Election and commenced to rule her party, the Government and the UK with a clear vision of Britain competing on equal terms with the rest of the world. She was adamant about a number of issues which she held in black or white alternatives and where compromise was not a word she recognised. She was respected by senior members of the Labour Party more than many of her political colleagues and she was also hated by them for the policies she was able to push through Parliament. They secretly cheered as she paved the way for them to break free from enchainment to the trade unions, and many were as hostile as she to the role of social services and social welfare, and to the public services, wanting everything not only to be run as a business, but to be in non governmental hands. She might have succeed, especially after the success of defending the Falkland Islanders which contrasts with the reaction to Tony Blair who led the British participation and where the number of service personnel killed and wounded are broadly the same. What did for Mrs Thatcher was the change in the system of financing local government in much the same way that the abolition of the ten pence income tax rate nearly did for Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
With hindsight the evidence is that she would have won a fourth election as despite the strength of feeling against her, the middle class remained worried about the implications of having a Labour government. As the programme highlighted she was with four votes of winning the first ballot outright. She was the author of her own downfall expecting loyalty with the House of Commons Party and failing the personally court votes. The problem she faced was the combination of hatred within the Parliamentary Party from those she had excluded from Government and the cowardice of those who feared loss of their livelihoods at the following General Election. The snake in the grass was John Major who successfully courted both wings of the party to gain the leadership once the majority of her Cabinet colleagues told her they would not support her if she insisted on standing in the second ballot. This was the reality of British Party politics. Power and wealth always corrupts
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