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Sunday 20:30-21:00 (rpt)
Radio 4's weekly obituaries programme | | | | Contact us | | | | | | | | | | This week | Friday 30th May 2008
(Rpt) Sunday 1st June |
| | | |  | | |  | Beryl Cook OBE
Artist who has died aged 81
The art of Beryl Cook was both instantly recognisable and hugely popular. Beryl Cook specialised in large women; drinking, laughing and dressing up. She had no formal training as a painter, taking to easel and canvas relatively late in life. With her husband John she ran a boarding house in her adoptive city of Plymouth, and became a regular at the Dolphin pub in the Barbican district. By all accounts she would sit and watch, and then return home to paint vibrant, fleshy versions of her fellow drinkers.
After an exhibition at the Plymouth Art Gallery in 1975 attracted national media coverage, Beryl Cook’s reputation soared. Her celebrations of working class women were turned into birthday cards and posters.
John Wilson talks to Jackie Collins who has a large Beryl Cook collection and to Jess Wilder who is co-owner of London’s Portal Gallery.
Beryl Cook was born September 10th 1926. She died May 28th 2008. | | | Martin Kelly
Plastic surgeon who has died aged 43
Martin Kelly packed a lot into his short life. He was a leading plastic surgeon whose NHS work helped reconstruct the features of people maimed by accident or disease. He also ran a private clinic, treating celebrity clients in search of a new look.
After working with young victims of war and torture in Afghanistan, he co-founded a charity which specialised in reconstructive surgery for children in the developing world. He was married to the actress Natasha McElhone – who is pregnant with the couple’s third child. Last week, when she was away filming in Los Angeles, Kelly collapsed and died on his doorstep, soon after performing surgery at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
John Wilson talks to Martin Kelly’s friend and colleague Neil Randhawa.
Martin Kelly was born May 7th 1965. He died May 20th 2008. | | | Brian Keenan
IRA leader who has died aged 66
Brian Keenan was, at one time, the biggest single threat to the British state, according to Tony Blair’s former chief of staff Jonathan Powell. Keenan was a member of the IRA’s ruling council and is regarded as the mastermind behind the IRA bombing campaigns of the early 1970s, which claimed civilian victims in Birmingham and Guildford. Brian Keenan rose through the ranks, becoming the IRA’s Quartermaster, forging new links overseas and procuring arms from paramilitary groups in South America and from Libya. But at his funeral this week, Keenan was hailed as a peacemaker by Gerry Adams. Without Keenan’s endorsement, the peace process would never have taken place, according to the Sinn Fein President.
To discuss Brian Keenan’s life, Last Word spoke to Ulster Unionist politician Lord Ken Maginnis, Jim Gibney, senior Sinn Fein political advisor and a former IRA prisoner, and to Ed Moloney, author of A Secret History of the IRA.
Brian Keenan was born in 1941. He died May 21st 2008. | | | Siegmund Nissel
Member of the Amadeus Quartet who has died aged 86
The saying to “play second fiddle” to others suggests an unwanted subordinate role. However, for four decades, as a member of the world renowned Amadeus Quartet, Sigmund Nissel was very happy playing second fiddle. His string quartet won critical acclaim and audience applause for a repertoire of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, along with music by 20th composers including Tippett and Britten.
The group was founded amidst adversity – three of the players – including Sigmund Nissel - met during the war in internment camps on the Isle of Man, having escaped Nazi persecution in their native Austria. Nissel, along with Norbert Brainin and Peter Schidlof, recruited the fourth member of the quartet after moving to London.
Cellist Martin Lovett remembers the camaraderie that the group enjoyed when they took to the road, at the start of their forty-year worldwide career.
Siegmund Nissel was born January 3rd 1922. He died May 21st 2008. | | | The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites |
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