That could almost be the name of a book or a TV series, it’s got a really good ring to it but unfortunately I’m talking about the death of two famous people.

Tom Sharpe was a British satirical novelist who managed to be deported from South Africa in 1961 for writing anti-apartheid plays. He was white, one of his characters was an older lady, white who complained the screams of the tortured prisoners stopped her having her afternoon nap; somehow I don’t think that’d work if the colours of the people were the other way round. Sharpe died at the good age of 85.

Esther Williams was the swimming star of MGM. She started off her career in swimming and was preparing to win gold at the 1940 Olympics when it was cancelled due to the war, Williams was signed on my MGM instead and had a fabulous career in the swimming pool they built specifically for her and her talents. She took the world by storm with synchronised swimming. They knew she was a star when they screened her opposite Mickey Rooney as his love interested and the public loved her so they gave her movie after movie. I love all those old movies and remember her with immense fondness. Williams died at the age of 91, a good innings.