Jenni Murray – d. March 12th 2026

There are stories that half of us strain
to hear over the babble of small print.
Broadcast this message to the unheard
and unseen: turn your radio on. You have
one hour. There’s not a minute to lose.

Read about Jenni Murray here

Country Joe McDonald – d. March 7th 2026

And it’s 1-2-3, what were you fighting for?
The music of sanity in an insane world.
And it’s 5-6-7, open up the pearly gates;
the lost patrol of the counterculture is here,
sounding off one-two in furious ragtime.

Reda about Country Joe McDonald

Jane Lapotaire – d. March 5th 2026

There is a silence in the wings, then
the boards creak, bearing the weight
of an entrance. The first line is spoken
in a voice rustling like stage curtains,
billowing out into breathless theatre.

Read about Jane Lapotaire here

Kenith Trodd – d. March 1st 2026

I choose television;
television without fear,
that sings while others shrug,
that shows the idiot in the lantern
before pulling back to show
ourselves in uncomfortable focus. 

Read about Kenith Trodd here

Neil Sedaka – d. February 27th 2026

Welcome to 1619 Broadway, a place
where writers search for Sixteen
among the keys of an old piano,
where songs pay five dollars a line,
but everybody knows them by heart. 

Read about Neil Sedaka here

Jesse Jackson – d. February 17th 2026

I fell into the company of marchers standing
at the foot of a rainbow, half way between the
mountain and the ghetto. Their leader told me
in a voice of fire Progress is not walking away
from something bad, but marching towards it. 

Read about Jesse Jackson here

Robert Duvall – d. February 15th 2026

If this were your poem, it would ring
with authenticity; it would choose its
words with care, deliver them like an
obscure gospel. But this poem is mine,
and if I say it's safe to write this poem,
then it's safe to write this poem. 

Read about Robert Duvall here

John Virgo – d. February 4th 2026

Our lives depend on how
the pack splits. Some can
plan the future three shots
ahead; others rattle the jaws
of fate’s pocket, never knowing
where the cue ball may be going.

Read about John Virgo here

 

Catherine O’Hara – d. January 30th 2026

Let's get your old folk duo back together
to sing your naive ballads. Let's go out to a
Dog Show, or an alternative Oscars where
they give out statues for vanity and mischief,
where there's no script, but everybody laughs.

Read about Catherine O'Hara here

Nigel Ogden – d. January 27th 2026

The console lights come on; a hiss
of pneumatics before the 64-footer
clears its throat, audible from space.
Hands blur across four banks of keys;
the organist entertains, an orchestra
of ten fingers and a chorus of titans.

Read about Nigel Ogden here

Sly Dunbar – d. January 26th 2026

Three taps on the rim of a snare,
and it can only be you. The skins
pulse to the riddim of your blood;
beat leaves holes in the studio air.
A taut roll as the last track begins;
nothing could ever sound so good.

Read about Sly Dunbar here

Mark Tully - d. January 25th 2026

A voice comes through the heat-haze,
telling a billion stories of a billion lives,
separating truth from myth to camera,
reporting the spirit of a distant people,
unpicking the knotted braids of a nation.

Read about Mark Tully here

Scott Adams – d. January 13th 2026

Let me tell you about my years in Cubeville;
how I learned to fail better and fail faster;
how I escaped before they found me out.
 
Let me tell you about the unspeakable man
in the corner who saw all; who sketched me
and a million lives in caricatures of drudgery.

Read about Scott Adams here

Erich von Däniken – d. January 10th 2026

You said someday a fiery bird would return
to take you home, that its silver-suited pilots
would call you by your cosmic name. I saw
an image of your life viewed from altitude;
a face looking skyward, wanting to believe. 

Read about Erich von Däniken here

Molly Parkin - d. January 5th 2026

You can learn a lot of things about women
from racy novels; most of it untrue. A day
browsing in a boutique is more instructive;
trends wax and wane but the life you think
suits you best is always just out of reach.

Read about Molly Parkin here 

Brigitte Bardot – d. December 28th 2025

I was in love with the idea of a woman,
a creation in medium shot, half insoluble,
half incendiary. Eventually, the camera
caught her in close-up, a picture of
disfigurement I once mistook for beauty.

Read about Brigitte Bardot here

Chris Rea – d. December 22nd 2025

Just when I thought the song was over,
a voice like a bank of smog rolled in,
fogging the road with a grey wisdom,
a melody it would be so easy to ignore,
driving to a place we cannot follow.

Read about Chris Rea here

Rob Reiner - d. December 14th 2025

Met a guy at the Electric Banana
who offered me a part in his movie;
maybe waiting tables, an extra in a
courtroom scene, a lonely novelist.
I asked what he wanted from me;
I want answers, he said. I want truth.

Read about Rob Reiner here

Joanna Trollope – d. December 11th 2025

We are all middlebrow now,
in thrall to he said she said,
the touchable worlds of love,
whether imagined or illicit,
or sometimes even true.
Someone should write this
down; we may be touched by
the significance of small things.

Read about Joanna Trollope here

Stanley Baxter – d. December 11th 2025

Welcome to the extravaganza;
Hollywood in a Glasgow studio,
a man with a thousand voices,
none of them his own, and yet
all of them. Parliamo Tinseltown,
parliamo the lingua franca of joy.

Read about Stanley Baxter here