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August RIP

Discussion in 'Hull City' started by Cityzen, Aug 2, 2022.

  1. TIGERSCAVE

    TIGERSCAVE Well-Known Member

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    Goodness this is a bad couple of days.... I have one of Lamonts albums I was offered £250 years ago..... this was my favourite track...
     
    #41
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  2. Ric Glasgow

    Ric Glasgow Well-Known Member

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    Lamont Dozier RIP.

    My first memories of music were Motown...Holland,Dozier,Holland,it doesn't get any better than that.
     
    #42
  3. originallambrettaman

    originallambrettaman Mod Moderator
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    The Snowman author and illustrator Raymond Briggs dies aged 88
     
    #43
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  4. Chazz Rheinhold

    Chazz Rheinhold Well-Known Member

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    Lovely obituary
    RIP


    Raymond Briggs obituary
    Author-illustrator known for The Snowman and Father Christmas whose books often explored the quiet heroism of ordinary lives
    Martin Salisbury
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    Raymond Briggs, who has died aged 88, did a great deal to elevate the art of illustration to being something much more than a servant of the written word. Though he was best known for his hugely popular books Father Christmas (1973) and The Snowman (1978), his output also explored themes such as war, politics and the environment through a deeply human, very British lens that often settled on the quiet heroism of ordinary lives.

    Briggs may be seen to sit comfortably in the English anecdotal tradition exemplified by Randolph Caldecott in the 19th century and Edward Ardizzone in the 20th, but his often wordless graphic literature built bridges between the picture book and the comic or graphic novel, introducing a new way of reading to the adult publishing market, or at least asking grownups to relearn the business of reading a silent visual sequence.


    He started out in 1957 by hawking his portfolio around as a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art, London, picking up freelance illustration work from newspapers, magazines and design studios. His first book commission came from the editor Mabel George at Oxford University Press, in the form of illustrations to Peter and the Piskies: Cornish Folk and Fairy Tales (1958) by Ruth Manning-Sanders.

    George championed the work of a number of artists who were to transform picture-book illustration in the early 1960s, including Brian Wildsmith and Charles Keeping. She sought out printers who were at the cutting edge of developing technology, and who could do justice to the work of these emerging artists. But, as with most illustrators, Briggs’s early working years involved undertaking a range of commissions, drawing anything and everything, starting off with a schematic diagram for House and Garden magazine in 1957 – “how deep to plant your bulbs”.

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    Raymond Briggs’s illustrations for his 1978 book The Snowman, which was adapted into a film in 1982.Photograph: © Raymond Briggs
    As various narrative texts came his way, he realised that not all of them were of the highest quality, and took to writing himself. In 1961 he wrote and illustrated two books, Midnight Adventure and The Strange House, for the publishers Hamish Hamilton, with whom he would have a lasting working relationship.

    That year, he began teaching illustration part-time at Brighton College of Art (now Brighton University’s faculty of arts) at the invitation of the then head of department, the calligrapher and engraver John R Biggs. He continued to teach for a day a week at Brighton until 1987, and his tuition was much admired and appreciated by generations of artists including the prolific illustrator and Observer political cartoonist Chris Riddell.

    In 1963 Briggs had married the painter Jean Taprell Clark. Her death from leukaemia in 1973, and the deaths of his parents, led Briggs to throw himself into his work. A major breakthrough had already come in 1966, with The Mother Goose Treasury, for which he received his first Kate Greenaway medal. Father Christmas brought him a second, and catapulted him to fame. His grumbling, lavatorial and flawed Santa was immensely popular.

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    Raymond Briggs’s artwork for Father Christmas, about a grumbling, flawed Santa. Photograph: © Raymond Briggs
    As with all Briggs’s subsequent titles, the book is full of autobiographical elements and references. His own childhood home and Loch Fyne holidays appear regularly and he himself pops up in the follow-up, Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975).

    Briggs can be found standing ahead of Father Christmas in the queue for a shave at the campsite, along with the illustrator John Vernon Lord (sporting his initials on his wash bag). The author’s VW Camper van would make regular appearances too. Fungus the Bogeyman (1977) could also be seen as a character very much close to home, displaying as he does an extreme version of the author’s own tendency to be outspoken and impatient.

    At Hamish Hamilton the newly arrived editor Julia MacRae (later to set up her own imprint) played a major role in developing the artist’s career. The illustrator John Lawrence, who was also published by Hamish Hamilton, recalled those days with great fondness: “All the talk was about ‘is the world ready for Fungus the Bogeyman?’ and we all turned up at the launch party in green wellingtons surrounded by buckets of suspicious-looking green liquid, wondering whether it might be the wine.”

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    Raymond Briggs’s Fungus the Bogeyman displayed an extreme version of the author’s own tendency to be outspoken and impatient. Photograph: © Raymond Briggs
    The subject of mortality formed a recurrent theme, addressed explicitly in Briggs’s account of his parents’ lives, Ethel & Ernest: A True Story (1998), which was made into an admired full-length animation broadcast at Christmas in 2016, and implicitly in the melting at the end of The Snowman and the disappearance of The Bear in the 1994 book of that name.

    But perhaps the most powerful motivation was a hatred of injustice by authority toward the powerless and naively respectful common man. The latter could be seen most directly in When the Wind Blows (1982), Briggs’s examination of an elderly couple’s attempts to follow government guidelines as nuclear war breaks out; and The Tin-Pot General and the Old Iron Woman (1984), a thinly disguised General Leopoldo Galtieri and Margaret Thatcher.

    In 1982 he told the Times: “When I did [When the Wind Blows] I was not remotely a CND supporter. I simply thought it was good subject. It is highly depressing and fairly political, and I could not even think who was going to buy it. But I never think of the potential audience when I embark on a book; this was not even done specifically for children.”

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    Raymond Briggs in 1980. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
    Nevertheless, the children of his long-term partner, Liz, provided inspiration and source material for other projects, notably The Puddleman (2004), which grew from a remark made by one of the young children on passing a puddle while the family were out walking in the countryside.

    His final book was consciously intended to be just that. Compiled across several of his last years, Time for Lights Out (2019) is a poignant, funny and deeply honest exploration of the experience of ageing and reaching the end of life, in the form of a collage of verse, drawings and random thoughts.

    Many of Briggs’s books were successfully adapted for film and other media, Channel 4’s 1982 animated film version of The Snowman, with its familiar theme song Walking in the Air, became a staple of Christmas Day TV. Briggs endorsed a sequel, The Snowman and the Snowdog, broadcast in 2012. Other books were translated for stage and radio, with Briggs taking a keen interest in the overall production.

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    Raymond Briggs, second from left, among authors and publishers delivering a recommended reading list for Margaret Thatcher to No 10 in 1985, to support book action for nuclear disarmament. Photograph: Matt Crossick/PA
    He was born in Wimbledon, south-west London, to Ethel (nee Bowyer) and Ernest Briggs. Their first meeting is beautifully described in the wordless opening sequence of the book devoted to their story. Ethel, a young parlour maid in a Belgravia house, had been innocently shaking out her duster from an upper window as Ernest passed by on his bicycle and confidently returned what he took to be a friendly wave.

    Briggs attended the local Rutlish school and went on to study at Wimbledon School (now College) of Art, the Central School of Arts and Crafts (now Central Saint Martins) and, after a two-year break for national service, the Slade. His father, a milkman, had tried to dissuade his son from studying at art school, fearing that it would not equip him for stable employment.

    Briggs’s keen interest in narrative drawing was not welcomed at Wimbledon School of Art, which was rooted in traditional representational painting. He recalled: “I had gone to art school to learn to draw so as to become a cartoonist. But I was soon told that cartooning was an even lower form of life than commercial art.”

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    A scene from Ethel and Ernest, the 2016 film of Raymond Briggs’s book devoted to the story of his parents. Photograph: Vertigo Films
    Such prejudices, still not entirely eradicated today, were commonplace at art schools of the time. Although he bemoaned his tutors’ failure to recognise a “natural illustrator”, the formal training that he received imbued in Briggs a strong sense of structure and of the importance of good draughtsmanship. These equipped him well in book illustration, although he left the Slade with what he saw as a poor sense of colour and a dislike of paint. When he eventually arrived at the film version of The Snowman, he expressed pleasure at how it so faithfully and painstakingly replicated his coloured-pencil technique, despite the massively labour-intensive approach that this necessitated.

    The characteristic that the journalist John Walsh described in a 2012 interview as a very English “strenuous curmudgeonliness” had become in later years a stereotype that Briggs embraced, exemplified by his column in the Oldie, Notes from the Sofa, collected in book form in 2015, where he would rail against sundry incomprehensible aspects of modern life.

    But friends knew another side to Briggs – loyal and playful, an inveterate practical joker. Lord once made the mistake of confessing to a dislike of dogs in the presence of Briggs, thereby immediately committing himself to becoming the recipient of all manner of canine-related gifts on subsequent birthdays and Christmases. Like so many of his characters, Briggs’s grumpiness never quite managed to conceal an underlying warmth and kindness. In 2017 he was appointed CBE.

    Liz died in 2015. He is survived by her children, Clare and Tom, and grandchildren, Connie, Tilly and Miles.

    Raymond Redvers Briggs, illustrator and author, born 18 January 1934; died 9 August 2022
     
    #44
  5. Cityzen

    Cityzen Well-Known Member

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    The sound you heard in every club in the 1960s, starting with Heatwave. Co-wrote 14 US No1s and 4 UK No1s.
     
    #45
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  6. rovertiger

    rovertiger Well-Known Member

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  7. Chazz Rheinhold

    Chazz Rheinhold Well-Known Member

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    Musical Youth star Frederick Waite Jr who drummed on band's megahit Pass the Dutchie dies aged 55
    By Jack Wright For Mailonline 13:32, 11 Aug 2022 , updated 14:56, 11 Aug 2022

    • Musical Youth star Frederick Waite Jr has died aged 55, the band announced
    • He played drums on British-Jamaican reggae band's megahit Pass the Dutchie
    • Legions of fans paid tribute to Waite after Musical Youth broke the news
    • Musical Youth was the first black act to have a music video played on MTV
     
    #47
  8. Qatartiger Cambridgetiger

    Qatartiger Cambridgetiger Well-Known Member

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    That's sad no age. Rip.

    Wasn't they part of the Birmingham closing ceremony?
     
    #48
  9. originallambrettaman

    originallambrettaman Mod Moderator
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    Former CEO of Burton Group and founder of Topshop Ralph Halpern has died at the age of 83.

    He was quite a nice bloke, I had shirt concessions in over 100 of his stores back in the day.
     
    #49
  10. rovertiger

    rovertiger Well-Known Member

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    Terry Neill's funeral today.
    R.I.P. Terry.
     
    #50

  11. The B&S Fanclub

    The B&S Fanclub Well-Known Member

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    Anne Heche
    Aged 53. US actress. Died 12th August following car accident in Los Angeles.
    RIP
     
    #51
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  12. GLP

    GLP Well-Known Member

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    Lenny Johnrose passed today from MND. Such a cruel disease.

    RIP Lenny
     
    #52
  13. Tigerglenn

    Tigerglenn Well-Known Member

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    Coronation Street star Duggie Brown has died at the age of 82 - after playing THREE different characters on the soap - as comic Tommy Cannon pays tribute
    • The comedian's passing was announced by fellow comic Tommy Cannon, 84, who praised him as a 'funny, funny man'
    • Duggie had an illustrious career in comedy, starring on the likes of light entertainment programme The Good Old Days from 1971 to 1980
    • He also made three separate appearances on Corrie as a trio of different characters, with his most recent being Ted Spear earlier this year
     
    #53
  14. Chazz Rheinhold

    Chazz Rheinhold Well-Known Member

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    Sad news
    RIP duggie

    it’s the plumber I’ve come to mend your pipes…..

     
    #54
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2022
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  15. Ron Burguvdy

    Ron Burguvdy Well-Known Member

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    #55
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2022
  16. Tigerglenn

    Tigerglenn Well-Known Member

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    Pop Idol's Darius dies aged 41: Scottish singer who shot to fame with cringeworthy rendition of Britney's 'Baby One More Time', and was married to Species actress Natasha Henstridge, is found unresponsive in his US apartment
    • Singer found dead in Rochester, Minnesota, on August 11 – although cause of his death remains unknown
    • Darius shot to fame in 2001 with his quirky rendition of Britney Spears' Baby One More Time on Popstars
    • Didn't make it into the band but following year he finished third on Pop Idol and a year later topped charts
    • Later moved into theatre roles, appearing in West End shows like Chicago, Guys and Dolls and Funny Girl
    • He was married to actress Natasha Henstridge from 2011-2018, whose films include sci-fi hit Species
     
    #56
  17. GLP

    GLP Well-Known Member

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    41 is no age at all. RIP
     
    #57
  18. Chazz Rheinhold

    Chazz Rheinhold Well-Known Member

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    RIP Darius
    Very sad news.
     
    #58
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  19. Phinius T Bookbinder

    Phinius T Bookbinder Well-Known Member

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    Indeed. When life sounds so good it can turn on you. RIP
     
    #59
  20. Sir Cheshire Ben

    Sir Cheshire Ben Well-Known Member

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    Darius, RIP.

    He was responsible for me getting a bollocking at work (it may have been my fault).

    Sad news, 41 is far too young.
     
    #60

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