Guide Cats Birthdays

This page lists birthdays from the Guide Cats for the Blind series

and other relevant dates. This list can be used by listeners to

help them to tie in requests for radio airplay, which has been

proven to make a significant difference to fund-raising.
Presenters may use this list as a resource if they feature celebrity

birthdays, “On this day in history”, or wish to play tracks on

National Poetry day.

January

14th: Billy Butler - It Was The Surprise More Than Anything.
29th: Clare Balding – The Charge of the Light Brigade (with Jimmy McGrath).
30th: Les Barker (Guide Cats author/composer/lyricist) (Manchester, now resident in Wales) - Guide Cats for the Blind(title track), Déja Vu, Cosmo the fairly accurate knife thrower, The church of the wholly undecided.

February

2nd: Ken Bruce – Across the plains of Africa, MacPherson’s Lament.
2nd: Frank Hennessy - Death By Daffodils (BBC Radio Wales).
3rd: Don Thompson - Sidney, King of Rome (as half of Sic Transit).
8th: Roger Lloyd Pack - One-legged Horse, Non Sequiturs, Knot.
15th: Clive Lever (Guide cats creator) - Sidney, King of Rome (as half of Sic Transit), Detritus (musical version, with Dave Cash), Waste Not Want Not (piano accompaniment with Gerard McDermott).
18th: Ned Sherrin – Stamped Addressed Antelope.
20th: Norma Dixit – Reg was a lonely Glow Worm.
25th: Bernard Wrigley – The man who was eaten by his own bum.
29th: Joss ackland - If (see also Rudyard Kipling, Oh Lord when I die.

March

15th: Judi Spiers – Go, Stay and Fetch.
17th: David Reay – Unigate Milkman (as half of Galliard).
30th: Johnnie Walker, MBE - The Man Next Door’s a Burglar.

April

2nd: Paul Gambaccini - Last but one of the Mohicans (see also James Fennimore Cooper).
2nd: Gay Reay - Unigate Milkman (as half of Galliard).
4th: Ryan Kelly - Blessed are the meek, Self-knowledge.
4th: Anniversary of EyeT4All launch – All tracks, especially Ancientmariner.com.
7th: Andrew Sachs - Leonardo da Thingy (see also Leonardo da Vinci), On Performing Poetry.
10th: Nicky Campbell - The Phoenix.
15th: Leonardo da Vinci - parodied by Andrew Sachs in Leonardo da Thingy.
23rd: Ed Stewart - Spot was not like the rest.
29th: Professor Heinz Wolff - Administerium and the science of unclear physics.

May

4th: Charlotte Green – Voicemail.
7th: Harvey Andrews (Birmingham) - The Missing Persians File (title track).
9th: Tessa Peake-Jones – Acupuncture.
12th: Genevieve Tudor - Everything Glows, Travel Iron.
12th: Tony Hawks - I Used To Be a Singer in a Rock Band.
16th: Roy Hudd - An Infinite Number of Occasional tables.
17th: Jeremy Vine - Napoleon’s Circular Retreat from Reading.
19th: Michael Cochrane - Home Improvement.
19th: Trevor Peacock - Captain Indecisive, A very English Thing, Inconsonants.
21st: Martin Carthy - Hard Cheese of Old England.
23rd: Desmond Carrington - Undead Parrot.

June

18th: Peter White (Hampshire) - I can’t find my camouflage net.
22nd: Prunella Scales - A Crufts Conversation, No May, My Snails have not yet arrived (with Timothy West).
27th: Bill Caddick (Wolverhampton) - Custard Creams.
29th: Mark Radcliffe (Bolton) - Jason and the Arguments (with Marc Riley, as ‘Mark & Lard).

July

8th: Sarah Kennedy - Sprouts.
10th: Marc Riley - Jason and the Arguments (with Mark Radcliffe, as Marc and Lard”).
17th: Tim Brooke-Taylor - Mute Swan, Author’s Story.
18th: Dave cash - Detritus/Haiku/Sheep Haiku (with the Five Guide Cats of Arijaba), The Franco-Prussian War of the Spanish Succession.

August

3rd: Sir Terry Wogan - Have You Got Any News of the Iceberg?
5th: Alfred Lord Tennyson - Parodied by Sally Boazman in The Crawl of the Light Brigade and by Clare Balding an Jimmy McGrath in The Charge of the Light Brigade.
17th: John Humphrhys - The Stealth Comma.
23rd: Peter Donaldson - My phone’s out of order.

September

4th: Edward de Souza – Disaster at Sea, The End.
5th: James Fennimore Cooper - Parodied by Paul Gambaccini in The Last But One of the Mohicans.
11th: Brian Perkins – Shipping Forecast.
13th: Sally Boazman - Crawl of the Light Brigade.
17th: Brian Matthew - The Dog Formerly Known as Prince.
20th: Nonny James - Nobody Hugs a Hedgehog, Lorna the Library Book Burglar, Top Cat White Tie and Tails (title track).
21st: Sir Jimmy Young - Reg the Vegetable Gardener.

October

1st: Stanley Holloway - Parodied by Gerard McDermott in Waste Not Want Not and King Harold Was A Ventriloquist.
4th: National Poetry Day - all tracks.
5th: Marriott Edgar - Wrote the Stanley Holloway Monologues (see Stanley Holloway, gerard McDermott).
8th: Allan Beswick - Jehovah’s Witness at the Door.
10th: Nicholas Parsons - Amnesia.
11th: Emma Chambers - I Don’t Like My Boomerang.
12th: Cyril Tawney - Sammy’s Bar (revisited), Lassie Free and Easy.
20th: Timothy West - My Snails Have Not Yet Arrived (with Prunella Scales).
21st: Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Parodied by Ian MacMillan in ancientmariner dot com.
23rd: Mike Harding (Crumpsall, Manchester) - The curse of the Baskervilles.
31st: Tom Paxton - Will the Turtle Be Unbroken?

November

15th: Gerard McDermott - Waste Not Want Not, King Harold was a ventriloquist (see also Marriott Edgar and Stanley Holloway), The Y Files.
27th: Rodney Bewes - One Way Cul de Sac.

December

13th: Robert Lindsay - The Mask of Mono.
17th: Christopher Cazenove - Chronology.
20th: Jenny Agutter - Garden Waste, Bungee Jumping for Lemmings.
30th: Rudyard Kipling - Parodied by Joss Ackland in If.
31st: June Tabor (warwick) - Git along little doggie.

Note: we are still looking for the birthday of Jimmy McGrath, Australian-born racing commentator. If you can help us, please email guidecats@bcab.org.uk