WRITERS
Amor Towles
“Dry witted” investment banker turned bestselling modern-day F. Scott Fitzgerald-esque author Amor Towles is a civilised gent who has “led a life straight from one of his novels.”
The Living Edition
The Roll Call
Notable lives and reputations, selected from today and the archive.
Latest in The Roll Call
Margaret Burke
Former Neo-Nazi supporting HMP Holloway jailbird turned one-time Labour Party councillor Margaret Burke happily hung around with hypocrites Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and Caroline Flint; will she get a ‘photo op’ with the drippy dope Sir Keir Starmer during General Election 2024?
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- 02THE ROLL CALL
Jane Dotchin
Octogenarian Jane Dotchin is best known for completing a 600-mile round ride from Hexham, Northumberland to Inverness and back on her Irish cob mare pack pony, Diamond, annually in seven weeks or thereabouts.
- 03THE ROLL CALL
Julian Sessé, ‘The Belgravia Butler’ (1906 – 1970, murdered by meat cleaver)
Belgian born butler Julian Sessé was said to be a “kind and generous man;” devoted to his employer Lord Bernstein, he was slayed with a meat cleaver in a basement in Belgravia on a snowy December evening in 1970.
- 04THE ROLL CALL
Malin Baker Bogue (AKA Lord Bailey’s ‘Red Dress’ Partygate Pisshead)
Tory twerp Malin Baker Bogue will go down in history for being Partygate’s pisshead in a red dress; a wastrel woman filmed dancing to The Pogues as the rest of Britain followed the rules of COVID lockdown 2.0 in 2020.
- 05THE ROLL CALL
Big Zuu (Birth Name – Zuhair Hassan)
A rapper and grime MC turned TV star of ‘Big Zuu’s Big Eats,’ Zuhair Hassan is an example of a youngster with infectious positivity and great talent. A modern-day Keith Floyd in the making.
- 06THE ROLL CALL
Ken Smith (AKA ‘The Hermit of Treig’)
After having been attacked and left for dead aged 26, Derbyshire born Ken Smith found solace in the Scottish Highlands and has lived as a hermit for around 46 years in a cabin that is 27 miles from the nearest settlement. He lives off the land and has 70 gallons of hooch on the go and “wants everyone to be merry” when he dies.
- 07THE ROLL CALL
Dr Margaret McCollum (AKA ‘Mrs Mind The Gap’)
Voice of “mind the gap” on London’s Northern Line underground service’s widow Dr Margaret McCollum got him back there.
- 08WILDCARDS
‘Mr Black Lives Matter’
A regular outside Peggy Porschen’s Parlour in Ebury Street, Belgravia, SW1 ‘Mr Black Lives Matter’ attempts to entertain those queuing for somewhat overpriced cakes. Though little is known about this dreadlocked man and despite the fact he is not popular with the staff of this bizarre “boutique bakery,” one titled local comments: “His music is […]
- 09THE ROLL CALL
Roy Rocket (AKA ‘The King of Brighton’ and the ‘Brighton Legend’, 2010 – 2021)
Legendary racehorse Roy Rocket was a wildcard punters’ favourite at Brighton. He was trained by John Berry and was allowed to do as he wanted at his yard. “Roy’s the boy” was regularly cheered to success by an octogenarian with a flask full of gin.
- 10THE ROLL CALL
Luke Durbin
Luke Durbin from Hollesley, near Woodbridge went missing aged just 19 after a night out with friends in Ipswich. After after being unable to afford to pay for a taxi home at about 4am, this grocery store worker was last seen on CCTV wandering around the town centre in the early hours of the 12th […]
- 11THE ROLL CALL
Penny Streeter OBE (née Penny Stiff)
A classic ‘rags to riches’ tale is that of Penny Streeter. Born in what was then Rhodesia, this police superintendent’s daughter came to England when she was 12 and worked on Margaret Thatcher’s Youth Training Scheme and in Pizzaland at the age of 16. She went into business with her mother at 22, went bust […]
- 12THE ROLL CALL
Steve Cotten (AKA ‘Britain’s Grumpiest Landlord’)
Alongside a cat (yes, a cat) named ‘(Frederick Albert) Hitler’ as his barman, the landlord of the “maddest pub in Britain” Steve Cotten is not known for being the most involved of hosts. On TripAdvisor, whilst one grumbler pointed out that his attitude to diners is: “If you want to eat, bring your own food… […]
- 13THE ROLL CALL
Barbara Smoker (1923 – 2020)
A promoter of “causes many of us now take for granted,” Catford born campaigner and humanist activist Barbara Smoker believed in surviving “on her wits” and “making an extra bit on the horses.” She once “embark[ed] on a crusade around the neighbourhood, telling all the kids that there was no Santa Claus… [so that she […]
- 14THE ROLL CALL
Lawrence Stroll (born Lawrence Strulovitch)
Montreal born “archetypal billionaire,” “fashion mogul” and “Ferrari fanatic” Lawrence Stroll arranged £536 million of funding to save Aston Martin, much of which came from his own very, very deep coffers, in early 2020. Without him, the firm that has manufactured James Bond’s favourite motorcar since 1913 would likely have gone bust for the eighth […]
- 15WRITERS
Susie Steiner
“I’m sorry I still love him” unabashedly declared author, journalist and “stationary addict” Susie Steiner of Tony Blair on Twitter during the coronavirus lockdown whilst amusingly adding of Boris Johnson: “If only I could retreat to Chequers.” Registered fully blind and a mother of two, this former Guardian commissioning editor did a “little one-page feature, […]
- 16THE ROLL CALL
Alan Holmes (1943 – 1996)
Attacked for just £1,000 in his own home in Parkway, Camden, NW1 on Christmas Day 1995, Derry born police mechanic Alan Holmes was left “tightly tied” to his bed, face down and fully clothed for ten days in a building where he was the last remaining tenant. Discovered only after he failed to show up […]
- 17THE ROLL CALL
Emily Bolton
A Shackleton Award winning campaigner who “fights miscarriages of justice and demands reform,” practicing solicitor Emily Bolton is married to Reprieve founder and one of “Britain’s most powerful civil rights lawyers,” Clive Stafford Smith. This Dorset born stonemason’s daughter, herself, founded the Centre for Criminal Appeals in the UK in 2011 after previously representing wrongfully […]
- 18WRITERS
Michael Russell (1933 – 2020)
Described in The Telegraph’s obituary of him as a “publisher, wit and author,” Michael Russell is best known for writing the spoof memoirs of J. R. Hartley – the charming mythical old man of Yellow Pages advert fame in the 1980s. Bournemouth born, Oxford educated and a father of three, Russell loved horse racing and […]
- 19WILDCARDS
Evelyn McHale (1923 – 1947)
Little is known about what drove Evelyn McHale to jump from the Empire State Building and be captured in the “most beautiful suicide [photograph] ever” on 1st May 1947.
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