callmemadam (callmemadam) wrote,
callmemadam
callmemadam

RIP

News today of the death of June Whitfield, aged 93. Most of the praise seems to be coming from the cast of AbFab who, unlike so many of the people Whitfield worked with, are still alive. She was of course brilliant in that and I always thought it very generous of Jennifer Saunders to write her the best lines and give her the last word. My memories of her go back much further, to when I was a mere child in the 1950s. I liked listening to a radio comedy programme called Take It From Here, in which Whitfield played Ethel, the long-suffering fiancée of Ron Glum. Her catchphrase was a plaintive ‘Oh, Ron!’ You can hear her say it at 1.07 into this episode.



I was also very sorry to hear that Andrew Strauss’s wife had died. I knew nothing of her except that Strauss had resigned from his job as Director of England Cricket in order to look after her and their two young sons. She was only 46. Whenever someone dies young, I ask myself, ‘What have you done in the extra years you’ve been granted and they didn’t have?’ The answer is always, ‘Not enough.’
Tags: cricket, death, june whitfield, radio
Subscribe

  • On the radio: Singing Together with Jarvis Cocker

    I meant to listen to Singing Together yesterday evening but forgot, so I caught up with it on the iPlayer this morning. Singing Together is the…

  • Oh joy! Gloomsbury is here

    I’ve written before about the excellence of Sue Limb, and in particular her radio series The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere. That was on so long ago that…

  • Postcards on the Box

    I’m finding more and more often that BBC4 is my channel. Nothing on? There’s bound to be some quirky documentary to knit by and so it proved…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
    Help
  • 2 comments