Digital camera fault.

[Yorkie]

Hi,

I too was surprised to see that Brian is still with us Big Al; laughter must make us live longer.

Thanks Lawrence; I bet David can enlighten us regarding Brian?

Sir Brian (Lord) Rix CBE, DL (AKA Baron Rix of Whitehall, in the City of Westminster and of Hornsea in Yorkshire) is one of nature’s gentlemen. Now aged 90, he's still full of zest!

He was born in the village in which we’ve lived since 1991 - Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire, the youngest of four children. His father, Herbert Rix, and Herbert's two brothers, ran the shipping (and subsequently, oil) company in Kingston upon Hull, founded by his grandfather Robert Rix. The Rix group today is a major company into petroleum, oil distribution, operates a shipping fleet with tankers and cargo boats, owns a major car sales outfit in Hull (Jordan’s – Fiat Alfa, Chrysler, Jeep). Many of the filling stations in Hull including the 24/7/365 one in our village is owned by Rix.

http://www.rix.co.uk/

He became a ‘radio ham’ in 1937 at the age of 13 and became a life Vice-President of the Radio Society of Great Britain in 1979. His call sign is G2DQU. He’s also Patron of RAIBC - The Charity Working for Radio Amateurs with Disabilities. Apart from the early pre and post was days, I don’t think he ever found time to spend on air. In the early 1980s when CB had its ‘moment in the sun’ one of his brothers rand a CB radio shop in Hull.

He married Elspet Gray - an actress in his company and they were together, domestically and professionally, for 64 years, until she passed away in February 2013. In December 1951 the first of their four children was born - a daughter, Shelley, and had Down Syndrome, in those days referred to as mongolism. There was no welfare support for such children and certainly no education. (Shelly died in 2005, aged 54).

He’s worked tirelessly to improve the lot of people with learning difficulties, both with Mencap, as Chairman and President – a position he still holds to this day. Since entering the House of Lords as a Cross Bencher in 1992 he’s campaigned ceaselessly on any legislation affecting people with a learning disability. He has been one of the most regular attenders in the House and every year has introduced numerous amendments to legislation, mainly that associated with health, social welfare and education.

He’s also campaigned against smoking. Having been a smoker for ten years, Rix gave up smoking on Boxing Day in 1950 when he lost his voice during a matinee of Reluctant Heroes. He subsequently became a rabid non-smoker and a Founding Member of ASH (Action on Smoking and Health).

As an actor, he presented more than 90 one-night-only television farces on the BBC. They might be considered by many today to be ‘passé’ but were often presented at Christmas or on other bank holidays and were hugely popular, with viewing figures regularly topping 15 million. In the early 1960s Rix was the highest paid actor (along with Robert Morley) to appear on BBC TV. Only 6 of his 90 farces remain in the BBC archive - the earliest were never recorded and many of the latest were wiped along with many other memorable programmes, so Brian Rix is rarely mentioned in retrospective programmes looking at the early days of television.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Rix

Another famous actor – the late Ian Carmichael was born in Hull, where his family used to own an upmarket Department store no longer in business:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Carmichael