Penguin Random House has confirmed that one of the UK’s and indeed the world’s, most acclaimed and successful authors of children’s books, Allan Ahlberg, has sadly passed away, aged 87 years.
His more than 150 much loved children’s books, published over a period spanning more than five decades, are known for their gentle humour and are enjoyed by both children and grown-ups.
Born an illegitimate child, in Croydon, South London in 1938, he was brought up by adoptive parents in the market town of Oldbury, West Midlands, England. He worked as a postman, a plumber and a gravedigger, before training to become a teacher at Sunderland Teacher Training College. It was here that he met his first wife Janet, who later died from breast cancer.
In 1975, Mr Ahlberg and his first wife Janet published their first book together, “The Brick Street Boys”. Later they collaborated to produce titles such as “Each Peach Pear Plum” and “The Jolly Postman”(Latter published in 1991 and winner of the Kurt Maschler Award, selling over six million copies), for which Janet was also awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal for illustrators in 1978.
Other titles included “The Old Joke Book”, “Burglar Bill”, “Peepo”, “The Vanishment of Thomas Tull”, “The Runaway Dinner”, “The Pencil” and “Woof”, latter which was about a little boy who turns into a dog, and inspired a TV series which ran on former ITV channel, between the years 1989 and 1997.
Mr Ahlberg also wrote prize-winning poetry and fiction from his home in Bath. Their joint publications went on to sell millions of copies around the world.
Back to School. by Allan Ahlberg
In the last week of the holidays, I was feeling glum. I could hardly wait for school to start; Neither could mum.
Now we’ve been back a week, I could do with a breather. I can hardly wait for the holidays; Teacher can’t either. END.
Please Mrs Butler. Poem by Allan Ahlberg
Please Mrs Butler, this boy Derek Drew Keeps copying my work, Miss, what shall I do? Go and sit in the hall, dear, go and sit in the sink. Take your books on the roof, my lamb, do whatever you think.
Please Mrs Butler, this boy Derek Drew Keeps taking my rubber, Miss, what shall I do? Keep it in your hand, dear, hide it up your vest. Swallow it if you like, my love, do what you think is best.
Please Mrs Butler, this boy Derek Drew Keeps calling me rude names, Miss, what shall I do? Lock yourself in the cupboard, dear, run away to sea. Do whatever you can, my flower, but don’t ask me. END
Mr Ahlberg made news headlines in 2014 when he turned down a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’, after discovering that this same award was sponsored by Amazon, which was facing criticism over its then tax arrangements.
Mr Ahlberg is survived by his second wife Vanessa, daughter Jessica and stepdaughters Saskia and Johanna.
English veteran jazz singer and actress Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth (born Clementine Dinah Hitching) has sadly passed away.
Cleo Laine – Send in the Clowns
Lyrics: American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Vocals: Veteran jazz singer and actress Dame Cleo Laine.
Born to a then single mother, Ms Minnie Hitching, a farmer’s daughter from Swindon. Her father, Jamaican World War I veteran, Mr Alex Campbell and her mother both married after her birth.
Lady Dankworth, who began singing aged 3, during her career was nominated for five Grammy awards and would become the first British singer to win a Grammy Award, in a jazz category, having shared the stage with such accomplished performers as Duke Ellington, Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra.
She made her first film appearance, at the age of 12 years, as an urchin in Alexander Korda’s film “The Thief of Baghdad” in 1940. With parents now divorced, she left school at 14, working as a hairdressers assistant, as a hat maker assistant and in a pawnbroker’s shop.
In 1946, Lady Dankworth married Mr George Langridge, a roof tiler, with whom she gave birth to one son, Stuart. The couple divorced some eleven years, in 1957. Her son from that marriage, predeceased Lady Dankworth in 2019, aged 72 years.
On receiving an invitation to try out with the jazz group, “The Johnny Dankworth Seven” in 1951, Clementine was offered a job at £7:00 per week.
One problem now arose; her name was too long to fit on posters, so the band put some shorter alternatives into a hat. “Cleo” and “Laine” got pulled out, so she now became newly christened as “Cleo Laine”.
Following her divorce from George Langridge, in 1958, she married, her band leader in secret, at Hampstead Registry Office, the now late English jazz composer, saxophonist, clarinettist and writer of film scores John Phillip William Dankworth, (Johnny Dankworth, 1927-2010). The couple had two children together, bassist Alec Dankworth and singer Jacqui Dankworth. They would remain married until his death and on that same day, having performed at a concert at “The Stables”, Buckinghamshire, UK, (to mark the venue’s 40th anniversary) Lady Dankworth announced Johnny’s death, on stage, at the end of her performance.
Awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1979, she reluctantly became a ‘Dame’ in 1997; an honour she hesitated to accept, but finally deciding to do so “for jazz”.
Once described as “quite simply the best singer in the world,” Lady Dankworth passed away yesterday, July 24th, at her home in Wavendon, Milton Keynes, UK, at the ripe old age of 97 years.
Lyrics and Vocals: American country-folk singer, songwriter and guitarist, the late John Edward Prine, (1946-2020).
Paradise.
When I was a child my family would travel, Down to Western Kentucky, where my parents were born. And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered, So many times that my memories are worn.
Chorus. And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County? Down by the Green River where Paradise lay. Well, I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in asking, Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.
Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River, To the abandoned old prison, down by Airdrie Hill, Where the air smelled like snakes we’d shoot with our pistols, But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
Repeat Chorus.
Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel, And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land. Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken, Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
Repeat Chorus.
When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River, Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam. I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’, Just five miles away from wherever I am.
Lyrics and Vocals: American country music singer-songwriter Alan Eugene Jackson.
I Leave A Light On.
Alan Jackson.
I do alright, most of the time. I’ve learned to move on, I’ve learned to get by, But sometimes I can’t find the reason to be free, So I leave a light on for your memory.
I leave a light on for your memory, So it will be easy to come back to me. When it’s late and I’m alone, I need some place to be, I leave a light on for your memory.
You found a new love and I’d like to believe, That you’re really better off without me. The good days have slipped away, but I sometimes dream, So I leave a light on for your memory.
I leave a light on for your memory, So it will be easy to come back to me. When it’s late and I’m alone, I need some place to be, I leave a light on for your memory. Yeah, when it’s late and I’m alone, I need some place to be. I leave a light on for your memory.
American pop singer, actress and one of the top-charting female vocalists of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Ms Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, known professionally as Connie Francis, sadly passed away on Wednesday last, in Pompano Beach, Florida on July 16th 2025, at the age of 87 years.
During her career she was estimated to have sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
Ms Francis had recently been treated for pelvic pain, caused by a fracture and had been confined to a wheelchair.
Vocals: American singer the late Ms Connie Francis(1937 – 2025). (Sung to the melody of “Lara’s Theme” from the film Doctor Zhivago.) Lyrics: American lyricist and three time Academy Award winner the late Paul Francis Webster(1907 – 1984).
Somewhere My Love.
Somewhere, my Love, there will be songs to sing, Although the snow covers the hope of spring. Somewhere a hill blossoms to green and grow, And there are dreams all that your heart can hold. Someday we’ll meet again, my love, Someday whenever the spring breaks through. You’ll come to me out of the long ago, Warm as the wind, soft as the kiss of snow. Till then, my sweet, think of me now and then, God speed my love till you are mine, Till you are mine again. END
Ms Francis grew up in a working-class Italian American family in Brooklyn, New York. She started playing the accordion at the age of three, encouraged by her father. By the time she was a teenager, she had changed her name from Concetta Franconero, to Connie Francis.
During her early career she was turned down by almost every record label; only securing a contract with MGM Records, because her demo song, ‘Freddy‘, happened to be the name of the then president’s son. She would go on to sell millions of records in multiple dialects, including teen hits like ‘Lipstick On Your Collar‘ and ‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool‘.
Following being beaten and raped at knife point in 1974 at her motel, at the Westbury Music Fair in New York, she became a recluse, spending several spells in psychiatric hospitals. At her lowest point, she attempted suicide using sleeping pills. She later won $1.5 million lawsuit against the Howard Johnson’s motel chain, for failing to provide safe locks on the glass door through which her attacker entered.
Ms Francis had just begun her return to the stage in 1981, when her younger brother George Franconero, who had testified against the Mafia, was shot to death in front of his house. This event plunged her deeper into depression, leaving her to spend much of the next decade receiving treatment, during which time she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
She would go on to become an outspoken voice within victim advocacy groups, including Women Against Rape, and the Victims’ Assistance Legal Organisation, and became a spokesperson for Mental Health America.
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