Obituaries

 Obituaries

Gustav Wancre 5/5/21 - 5/11/12

Friend and confidante of the composer John Cage, Wancre bore an uncanny resemblance to the American maestro.  Often, when spied by passers-by as they strolled the streets of Boston, people would  say, "There go a couple of Wancres".  Like Cage, Wancre was passionate about music which didn't have a tune. He said in an interview with Joan Bikewell on BBC2's High Minded Bollocks programme in 1985, "My stuff is like, cerebral and I certainly don't want people whistling it."

Sadly, Cage and Wancre fell out after the first performance of Cage's Four and a Bit Minutes of Silence piece, with Wancre claiming that the last two minutes were his.

Wancre leaves thirty-two children and a tortoise.

Dame Ellen seen here just prior to the demise of an
un-named Gestapo Officer during an especially
robust foxtrot.

Dame Ellen Pudding 12/4/25 – 6/11/12

Created a Dame in 1977 for her services to her country, most people of her generation knew that this referred to Ellen Pudding’s hugely secret activities behind enemy lines during WW2.

The teenaged Ellen Pudding stood 6feet 5inches in her stockinged feet and weighed in at over 18 stones. SOE watchers in her home village of Fiddler’s End soon singled her out as a possible secret weapon. Late in 1944, using a special quadruple parachute and equipped with a suitcase full of diaphanous gowns, she did indeed drop behind enemy lines and rapidly established herself as a nightclub dancer in Paris. Massively popular with German officers, Dame Ellen single-handedly squashed to death at least twenty three high ranking Nazis. R.I.P.

Angus, Laird of Cromarty, Minches and German Bight.  23/7/21 - 1/11/12.

Known locally, and not without affection, as "The mad wee bastard in the big hoose", Angus died as he chose to live, surrounded by his beloved Brillo collection.  A world-acknowledged expert in scouring, Angus McEyebroo inherited at an early age and dedicated the rest of his life and not inconsiderable fortune on getting aluminium pans really clean. 

The death, in Wiesbaden, at the age of 121, is reported of Count Karl Vonnguturn-Krasch-Bang-Wallop, one time advisor to von Zeppelin.  It was Vonnguturn who, upon hearing that the gas von Zeppelin was using in his airships was dangerously volatile, suggested porridge. 

After leaving Zeppelin's employ Vonnguturn joined the emerging German army and was decorated during the refurbishment of his local headquarters.
Defeat in 1918 shattered him.  He is quoted as saying '****ing hell!  We lost!'  And spending his remaining 80+ years squandering his considerable inheritance on edible false teeth.

Piers Bentley-Tadpole (b. 13/4/2003)

Always a precocious lad; his demise is a tragic loss to parents Obadiah and Verrucca. From the age of 8 months he showed a predilection for dressing as a washerwoman, and the cause of the suspicious-looking bulges under his apron was a matter for much speculation in his home town of Cridling Stubbs.

He is shown here demonstrating how you can play tennis using a fat ball nicked from the bird table and a hand mirror.

Unfortunately a toad virus which had been affecting the local amphibian population saw the washerwoman's outfit, mistook him for the owner of Toad Hall, and done him in. The name didn't help either.