Famous People from Bexley

S

Seeley, Colin

Colin Seeley, the motorcycle champion and bike designer was born in 1938 in Crayford and lived in Belvedere. A motorcycle frame builder of genius, his Seeley Suzuki machines gave the career of the young Barry Sheene a race-winning boost, Seeley is considered by far and away the most successful British chassis maker, moulding his frames around every conceivable engine, British and foreign. Before that, came his own giant-killing sidecar racing exploits with his nerveless partner, Wally Rawlings. Seeley was described by a friend as not only “a business contemporary of a certain Mr B C Ecclestone but also a race car builder, a great raconteur and possibly the world’s most disorganised man, judged by the amount of flat batteries, lost keys and missing mobile phones that bedevil his life.”

Selkirk, Alexander

Alexander Selkirk – originally Alexander Selcraig – the castaway believed to have been the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’, landed at Erith when returning from his ordeal. The son of a shoemaker and tanner in Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland, he was born in 1676. An unruly youth he was summoned to appear before the kirk session in 1695 for indecent behaviour in church. But, according to the records (original spelling) he “did not compear having gone away to pe sea: this business is continued till his return”. Serving on the galleon Cinque Ports in the South Seas Selkirk correctly developed grave doubts about her seaworthiness (she later sank losing many hands) and opted to remain on a deserted island where they had stopped to replenish water. He had assumed a passing vessel would soon pick him up but, in fact, he was trapped there for four years.

Return to top of page

Shovell, Sir Cloudesley

Sir Cloudesley Shovell (there are various spellings of both names) lived at May Place, Crayford, for some years. Rising through the ranks of naval command he became a popular British hero. His celebrated naval career was brought to a disastrous end when returning with his fleet to England after a successful campaign, his ship HMS Association and several others struck rocks near the Isles of Scilly and foundered with the loss of about 2,000 lives. The unhappy Admiral was cast ashore still alive but was murdered by a fishwife for the sake of his jewellery. The tragedy of the shipwreck prompted the passing of the Longitude Act in 1714 offering a huge prize (£20,000) for a practical and useful solution to the problem of finding longitude at sea. Years later £8,750 was, reluctantly, awarded to a Yorkshire clockmaker, John Harrison, who spent 40 years developing a marine chronometer, now kept at the Old Observatory, Greenwich.

Return to top of page

Shute, Neville

Neville Shute Norway, the author of many books (‘A Town Like Alice’, etc) and a successful aeronautical engineer, worked on the R100 airship at Vickers, Crayford, during the 1920s and lived at Hatherley Road, Sidcup. He worked under Dr Barnes Wallis, who went on to design the bouncing bombs used on the Dam Busters’ raid. Two airships were being built in competition, the R100 by private industry and the R101 by the Government’s Royal Aircraft Factory. The R100 was completed first and made a successful return flight to Canada. The R101 was to take ministers and senior military men to an Empire conference in India. It crashed in France ending Britain’s airship ventures. The R100 was broken up. During his time at Crayford Shute began a second career as an author, dropping the surname Norway to separate his two lives. As Norway he went on to co-found Airspeed Aviation, which made Airspeed Oxford trainers and Airspeed Envoys. He left the firm before the outbreak of World War II and ended up working on secret projects for the Admiralty’s Department of Miscellaneous Weapons. His novels were based on his professional knowledge. His ‘ No Highway’ predicted the problems of metal fatigue, which were to strike the De Havilland Comet jet liner.

Return to top of page

Smith, Delia

Delia Smith the TV cook was born in Woking, Surrey, in 1941. As a girl she lived in Bexleyheath and attended Bexleyheath School, which she left at 16, without qualifications, to work as a trainee hairdresser. In 1962 she got a job as a dishwasher in The Singing Chef, Paddington. She moved to waitressing and was later allowed to help with the cooking. In 1969 she began to write for the Daily Mirror, where her future husband, Michael Wynne-Jones, was deputy editor and her first recipe was published. In 1973 her first television series, Family Fare, was shown on BBC1. In 1990 Delia’s Christmas was broadcast and published in book form selling more than a million copies. In 1994 she was awarded the OBE. In 2001 Collins Dictionary listed the ‘Delia effect’, where the whole nation tries to buy something she has recommended. In 2003 she announced she was giving up professional cookery to concentrate on her directorship of Norwich City FC.

Return to top of page

Smith, Linda

Linda Smith, the comedienne and radio panellist, was born and bred in Erith and attended Bexleyheath School. She studied English and Drama at Sheffield University and joined a professional touring theatre company in 1983 where she met her partner, Warren Lakin. The mid-90s saw the start of her prolific career on BBC radio, as a regular on the Radio 5 news satire programme, The Treatment. She wrote and performed two series of her own Radio 4 sitcom, A Brief History of Time Wasting, became a regular and the first woman team captain on The News Quiz, and was a frequent guest on Just a Minute and I Haven’t a Clue. In 2002 a poll of Radio 4 listeners voted her the Wittiest Person. She still found time for theatre appearances with a 35-date national tour in 2004, performing her show, Wrap Up Warm. She died of cancer aged 48 in February 2006.

Return to top of page

Squires, Dorothy

Dorothy Squires, the actress and singer, lived in Wansunt Road, Old Bexley. She was born Edna May Squires in Pontyberem, near Llanelli. She got her first break thanks to bandleader and composer, Billy Read. She joined his accordion band when she was 18 and stayed for more than 10 years. The two became joint owners of a theatre, the Llanelli Astoria. Her career moved on. She became a national star and, in 1953 married the actor, Roger Moore, and they lived in Old Bexley. The marriage didn’t last. Bankruptcy followed from which she was rescued by a lifelong fan who provided a rent-free home in Trebanog, mid-Glamorgan. She died of lung cancer.

Return to top of page

T

Thatcher, Sir Denis

Sir Denis Thatcher, husband of former Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was born in Lewisham and educated at Mill Hill until he joined the family business, Atlas Preservatives of Erith. His grandfather set up Atlas, originally a firm producing weed-killer for railway tracks, the basis of the family fortune. Sir Denis joined the firm – by now dealing in paint and chemicals – in 1933. A trade visit to Germany convinced him that war was on the way. He joined the Territorial Army and during the war, because of his bad eyesight, carried out staff duties in the Royal Artillery Searchlight Regiment. He married, first, Margaret Kempson in 1942 but because of war circumstances they never lived together and divorced in 1948. He met Margaret Roberts (as Baroness Thatcher then was) in 1951 and they were married after the general election of that year. A biographer described him as “one of the most tested, impressive and amusing consorts of all time, Prince Albert not excluded”. As an example of his dry wit and attitude to political life, when asked by a stranger what his wife did, he replied: “She has a temporary job.”

Return to top of page

Thatcher, Margaret (Baroness Thatcher)

Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven, entered the House of Lords in 1992 after serving as Britain’s first female Prime Minister and the longest-serving of the 20 th-century. The grocer’s daughter, born in Grantham, Lincolnshire in October 1925, studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, before beginning her career in active politics in 1950. As Margaret Hilda Roberts she unsuccessfully attempted to wrestle the safe Labour seat of Dartford, which then included Erith, Slade Green and Crayford (all now part of Bexley borough) from Norman Dodds MP. During the campaign she met her ‘rock’, Denis Thatcher (qv) a well-to-do divorced businessman with a family firm in Erith. They married in 1951 and had two children, Mark and Carol in 1954. In 1959 she was elected for Finchley, which remained her Commons seat. She became party leader in 1975 in a successful challenge to Sir Edward Heath, the Bexley MP, who had been defeated as Prime Minister in the 1984 general election. She was elected Prime Minister in May 1979 with a majority of 43 and served three consecutive terms. The Falklands victory helped her win a landslide election in 1983. In 1984 she narrowly escaped death when the IRA planted a bomb at the Conservative Party conference at Brighton.

Return to top of page

Townsend, Andy

Andy Townsend, former captain of the Republic of Ireland football team and an analyst and commentator for ITV, attended Bexleyheath School and started his playing career at Welling United when working as a computer operator with Greenwich Council. He made 105 appearances for Welling before transferring to Weymouth in 1984 for £13,500. He was ‘discovered’ by Southampton and went on to play for Norwich, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough before injury forced him to retire in 2000 after a short spell at West Bromwich Albion. He was capped 70 times for Ireland and scored seven goals at international level. During his five seasons with Villa he won two League cups.

Return to top of page