Diego Vallmitjana

Diego Vallmitjana, who has died aged 36, was a cartographer, meteorologist, photographer and "backcountry" skier in the Andes, where he also became an expert on the habits of the world's largest bird, the condor, by paragliding in their midst.

Vallmitjana was what Spanish speakers call an Andinista, a breed for whom mountains are both a natural habitat and an irresistible lure. The Patagonian Andes, towering over Chile and Argentina, were his patch. He climbed them with his father and was a member of the local mountain rescue team while still at school.

In recent years there were few mountaineers, high-altitude skiers, paragliders, hang-gliders or serious trekkers from around the world who, before venturing into the southern Patagonian Andes, did not call in at Vallmitjana's Bariloche home to consult his maps and weather forecasts.

Most recently Professor Rory Wilson and Emily Shepard of Swansea University had called on his expertise for a project, funded by the London-based Leverhulme Trust, to tag Andean condors. The aim was to establish how these mammoth birds can travel so far and so high merely by gliding.

With his knowledge of the mountains, weather systems, air currents and of the condor itself, Vallmitjana was a key part of the team. He studied condors while paragliding himself, and was fascinated by how the birds rely on columns of rising air to gain altitude before gliding for miles. He observed that they could not sustain level flight, even by flapping their massive wings, without a "free ride" from air currents.

Sergio Lambertucci, of the National University of Comahue in Argentina, also helped the Swansea team tag condors' back feathers with "daily diary data loggers" –devices developed by Professor Wilson to map the birds' flight paths.

"Condors are effectively engaged in a three-dimensional game of snakes and ladders, transiting between sources of rising air (their ladders) and avoiding down currents (their snakes) in order to find food and return to their roosts at night," noted Emily Shepard. Vallmitjana's contribution was crucial, she said, because he devised models of how air flows around mountains according to wind strength and direction.
He had used these models to produce maps for paragliders and hang-gliders that were subsequently employed to determine the condors' "low-cost" flight paths.
Vallmitjana had already seen the precision of his wind current maps dramatically vindicated in 2006, when his work helped an Italian hang-glider, Angelo d'Arrigo, to soar to an astonishing 9,100 metres (29,850ft) over the Tupungato volcano on the Chile-Argentina border. The ascent used the same thermal air currents which allow condors to glide up the volcano's walls.
Diego Vallmitjana was born in San Carlos de Bariloche on March 24 1974, the son of one of Argentina's most famous historians, Ricardo Vallmitjana, known to his compatriots as "Yipi". Diego was drafted in as a volunteer mountain rescue guide and firefighter while still a schoolboy because of his prodigious knowledge of the Andes, not least the effects of the mountains' winds.
He was happiest when paragliding in the wake of condors over the Osorno or Mount Tronador volcanoes, usually with a camera attached to his helmet. He was in the air on December 30 when a freak gust of wind smashed him against a mountainside.
"He lived and breathed it, the ways of the air, from forest fires to the flight of the condor," said Emily Shepard. "He would watch the way each and every bird made its way. Sometimes it was as if he got so caught up with the winds and the clouds that he struggled to come down to earth."
Diego Vallmitjana is survived by his parents, Ricardo and Alba, and by his brother Martín, himself a leading paraglider.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8302155/Diego-Vallmitjana.html

Bea Seal

It was as an official that she was involved in a controversial incident in June 1972 at the London Grass Court Championships at Queen’s Club. The former world number one, the excitable American Pancho Gonzales, was playing a semi-final against Britain’s John Paish, the son of Geoff Paish, who with Tony Mottram was prominent in British tennis immediately after the war.

When one of his serves was called a fault, Gonzales shouted at the linesman saying: “That makes four in this goddam game.” When the line-call dispute could not be settled by the umpire, Gonzales demanded to see Bea Seal to adjudicate as championship referee.

“Either that linesman goes or I go,” said the scowling Gonzales, who at 6ft 3in towered over the redoubtable Mrs Seal. “The linesman stays,” she replied.

A stand up row ensued, with Bea Seal pointing a finger and Gonzales shouting: “Don’t come too close to me, lady, or I might lose my temper”. Bea Seal disqualified Gonzales from the tournament on the spot, the American packed up and left, and John Paish found himself in the final.

She was born Beatrice Mary Watson on January 13 1914 at Courtrai in Belgium, where her father worked in the flax industry. Before her parents fled from the advancing Germans, Bea had become the Belgian ladies’ golf champion.

Earlier in the 1930s, while still in her twenties, she had played at Wimbledon in the singles, ladies’ doubles and mixed doubles, making it into the third round in all three events on different occasions. Her playing partners included some of the best-known figures in prewar tennis: Audrey Osborne, Mary Halford, Georgie and Billie Woodgate and Peggy Dawson Scott in the ladies’ doubles and, in the mixed doubles, Don Butler, Geoff Ward and the Pole Czezlaw Spychala, among others.
After the war, she played at every Wimbledon championship from 1947 until 1960, in which year she was captain of the victorious British Wightman cup team. She had a successful county career playing tennis for Middlesex in the early 1950s. When her playing days ended, she became an official Lawn Tennis Association referee.
Following the failure of her marriage to Gerry Walter, tennis correspondent of the News Chronicle, she lived for several years with Vernon Seal until his sudden death in the early 1990s. Bea Seal played veterans’ tennis until she was in her eighties.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8296862/Bea-Seal.html

Malcolm Lyell

Lyell’s clients included kings and princes, maharajas, presidents and prime ministers from a dozen different countries. Hollywood film stars, hunters, sportsmen and trophy collectors from around the world came to visit the company’s premises in Bruton Street, Mayfair, and found themselves invited for dinner that evening at his home in west London .

Malcolm Lyell

Malcolm Charles Alastair Lyell was born on January 9 1922, the son of Angus Lyell, MC, a partner in the private banking house Child & Co. Malcolm’s great-great-uncle was Sir Charles Lyell, the Victorian geologist and mentor of Charles Darwin, and as a boy he showed an early interest in natural history and archaeology, creating his own museum at the family home in South Kensington (“admission 1d”) and breeding butterflies in the conservatory. He was educated at Bryanston and then at Westminster.

Commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1940, he was invalided out the next year owing to his lifelong propensity to sleepwalk. Disappointed by this development, he retreated to Devon and joined the Local Defence Volunteers, patrolling Dartmoor on horseback and looking out for enemy parachutists. In 1943 he embarked on a degree in Forestry at Bangor University, and after graduating worked in the Lake District.

In 1947, aged 25, Lyell was hired as manager of the London showrooms of the gunsmiths Westley Richards, in Conduit Street, where the other staff were in their 70s. Knowing nothing of gun-making, he was sent on a three-month course to the firm’s Birmingham factory.

In the 1950s the future of the London gun trade seemed uncertain. Lyell realised that he could best develop the business by buying and reselling second-hand guns and double rifles, particularly from India. He also stocked the shop with what were then novel sidelines: books, sporting and wildlife pictures, and clothing.

Assisted by his wife Rosamunde (née Wilmer), whom he married in 1949, he showed a natural flair for salesmanship. When, in 1955, the parent company sought to close the London operation and sell the lease, he was able to persuade a number of British and American sportsmen to finance its acquisition, setting himself up in business as Westley Richards (Agency) Ltd, and buying Jeffery’s, the gun-makers, and later Farlows, the fishing tackle specialists.
In 1959 he was invited by the then chairman of Holland & Holland to merge his company with theirs. He became managing director and moved the company to new premises in Bruton Street. He visited many European gun makers to bring the Harrow Road factory up to date; set up an apprentice scheme; and imported skilled Spanish craftsmen. He also developed the loss-making shooting school at Northwood as a venue for corporate entertainment.
In 1952 Lyell had been introduced to Prince Ali Reza, brother of the Shah of Iran, which led two years later to a request to show some rifles to the Shah himself. An invitation followed to visit the head of the Arabshaibani tribe, who took Lyell shooting in his tribal area, and then in the Shah’s preserves east of Tehran in search of ibex. In 1957 Lyell and his wife went to Afghanistan to hunt markhor as guests of Prince Abdul Azim Mahmoud Ghazi .
Another customer of Holland & Holland was Prince Asserate Kassa of Ethiopia, who invited the Lyells to shoot ibex in the Simien mountains and later in the Red Sea Hills .
Lyell had begun to trade with India in the 1950s, acquiring princely armouries such as that of the Nizam of Hyderabad and going on shikar (hunting trips) in the royal game reserves of Indore and Bikaner, and in the Terai.
Rosamunde Lyell’s mother had been a friend of BJ Gould, the political officer for Bhutan, Sikkim and Tibet, and through this connection the Lyells got to know the Chogyal of Sikkim and were guardians to his daughter when she was at school in England.
King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, the 3rd King of Bhutan, had first met Lyell in 1949 when, as Crown Prince, he came to the Westley Richards showrooms to buy hunting rifles. Lyell and his wife were invited by the king to Bhutan in the early 1970s, when it was largely inaccessible to foreigners — the only way in was by a gruelling road trip from India.
Using hand-drawn maps prepared by the botanist Frank Ludlow in 1949, Lyell and his family made the first of four expeditions into the then largely unknown northern mountains to get a glimpse of bharal (the Himalayan blue sheep, which they found at 15,000ft) and blue bear, which has been suggested as the animal behind yeti sightings. They also saw wild yak and snow leopard.
In 1974 Lyell was invited to the coronation of the 4th King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, which he and his eldest daughter attended in full Bhutanese dress. Bhutan was Lyell’s favourite country, and his London house became an unofficial consulate for Bhutanese students and scholars visiting England .
Soaring inflation in the 1970s meant that Holland & Holland was not making a profit on handmade guns that had to be ordered and priced as much as two years before delivery.
Lyell had conceived the idea of presentation guns that, while being fully functioning weapons, would increase in value as works of art and were priced accordingly. Inspired by the gun makers of the 18th century, he came up with the Rococo gun, with deep engraving in gold and silver of classical motifs such as Diana the Huntress.
The Rococo gun had been described in The Shooting Times in 1966 as the finest gun of modern times, and from then he produced a series entitled “Products of Excellence”. These included such guns as the Set of Five, beautifully matched shotguns in every gauge from 12 bore to .410; the African Hunters series of big game rifles; and finally the Saurian Four Bore, decorated with scenes of prehistoric life.
Many of Holland & Holland’s clients were Americans, who loved the clubbable atmosphere of the gunroom in Bruton Street, and who would stray into Lyell’s office to be given tea and biscuits and exchange tales of hunting adventures; often they became personal friends and invited the Lyells to shoot quail or dove on their estates or ranches. In turn, a visitor to Lyell’s house might find himself having dinner with Jimmy Stewart or Stewart Granger.
From these American friends Lyell acquired a love of the loud check jackets and colourful Hawaiian shirts which became his trademark . Not everyone, however, received the benefit of Lyell’s hospitality. He claimed to have ejected the Soviet ambassador — who had come in to buy guns for Leonid Brezhnev — from the shop in August 1968, telling him that he could return only when the Soviets had left Czechoslovakia.
Lyell was appointed deputy chairman of Holland & Holland in 1985 and retired in 1988; the company was sold shortly afterwards to Chanel.
In retirement he and his wife lived in Wiltshire, where he created a beautiful garden out of a paddock. He had not shot for many years before he died .
Malcolm Lyell is survived by his wife and their two daughters

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8293942/Malcolm-Lyell.html

Peter Phillips

During his 25 years at Granada, Phillips designed an impressive body of work which included plays by notable writers such as George Bernard Shaw, Noël Coward, Edward Albee and Harold Pinter. His designs for Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976), directed by and starring Laurence Olivier, were among his most lavish studio-based sets. But the work for which he will remain best known is Brideshead Revisited (1981), directed by Charles Sturridge and starring Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews and Diana Quick.

Peter Phillips with his Bafta

This lavish adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel was a huge and risky show for Granada to undertake at a time when the economics of television production were becoming a prominent issue. The projected production costs nearly caused its cancellation amid concerns that Brideshead would appeal to only a relatively small number of viewers. But members of the creative team, Phillips among them, persuaded Granada’s chairman Sidney Bernstein to proceed.

As production designer, Phillips was responsible for the Brideshead “look” which became so popular among the “young fogeys” of the 1980s, influencing everything from fashion to interior design. His sumptuous sets and choice of locations provided atmospheric backdrops for the actors and contributed significantly to the success of the series, winning him a Bafta award for Best Scenic Design.

The son of an officer at the School of Artillery, Peter Phillips was born in Kent on October 11 1925 and educated at various establishments, culminating in Canterbury School of Art. Towards the end of the war he joined the RAF and was sent to Stanmore camp for officer training, but was prevented by illness from entering active service.

Phillips’s career in design started when he was employed as assistant to Laurence Irving, to work on films for J Arthur Rank, among them the 19th-century costume drama Uncle Silas (1947). Unfortunately the job lasted for only two years, ending when Rank closed down.

After a period spent working on aircraft design, he was offered a job in Canada with the newly-established Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His arrival in Canada coincided with the beginning of a period in which television became an increasingly popular medium, giving creative people scope to innovate and experiment.
Initially Phillips worked on light entertainment shows, but he was then given the opportunity to design the sets for the world television premiere of the Benjamin Britten opera Peter Grimes.
In 1963, back in Britain, Phillips started to work for Sidney Bernstein at Granada Television. Bernstein recognised that in Phillips he had not only an excellent designer, but also a man whose knowledge and understanding of literature enriched his designs, enabling him to form close and productive working relationships with producers, directors and writers.
This was exemplified by the success of Granada’s production in 1963 of War and Peace (directed by Silvio Narizzano), which won the first Emmy to be awarded outside the United States. Although Phillips subsequently worked on other, better-known, productions, War and Peace remained the work of which he was most proud. The technical complexity of this four-hour studio-based epic, which was transmitted live, was an outstanding achievement for the production team and remains a landmark in the early development of television. Movement on the set, sensitive lighting and the stimulating use of colour, even before the advent of colour television, all contributed to the actors’ performance on camera.
Peter Phillips married, in 1957, Daphne Wilson, who survives him with their son and daughter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/8291572/Peter-Phillips.html

Charles Sellier

Charles Sellier - creator of the book,
film and TV series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams - has died aged 67.Dan Haggerty starred in the Grizzly Adams film and TV series

A spokesman for Sellier's production company said he died unexpectedly at his home in Idaho, but did not specify a cause of death.

Sellier wrote and produced dozens of family-friendly TV movies, many of them with faith-based themes.

He introduced Adams, a man accused of murder who befriends a bear while on the run, in a 1972 novel.

The character, played by Dan Haggerty in a 1974 film and a subsequent TV series, was loosely based on a real 19th Century trapper and bear trainer.

Sellier went on to produce a string of documentary TV films, including In Search of Noah's Ark and Mark Twain's America.

In 1980 he was nominated for an Emmy for his work on children's TV film The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12353837

Maria Schneider

French actress Maria Schneider, best known for playing Marlon Brando's lover in Last Tango in Paris, has died in Paris aged 58 after a long illness.

The actress was 19 when she was cast opposite Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial 1972 film.

It saw her play a young Parisian who embarks on a sexually charged relationship with his middle-aged American businessman.

The film was banned in several countries due to its explicit content.

Born in 1952 in Paris, Schneider was the daughter of French actor Daniel Gelin.

Marlon Brando (r) was Oscar-nominated for his role in the film

She began her film career in uncredited roles before being given 
her first break in 1970 film Madly.

Last Tango in Paris provoked such controversy that the actress resolved never to do nude scenes again.

Yet she was briefly seen naked three years later in Jack Nicholson film The Passenger, albeit in long shot.

Schneider battled drug addiction in the 1970s but went on to star in mostly low-budget European films.

She was last seen on the big screen in 2008 French film Cliente, about a married construction worker who leads a double life as a gigolo.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12355496

Margaret John

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In November 2009, ahead of the final series, Margaret John talked to Wales Today's Lucy Owen about her character in the comedy - and her varied career.

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Gavin and Stacey actress Margaret John has died at the age of 84, it has been announced.

John, who also starred in the BBC Wales comedy High Hopes, died in hospital in Swansea after a short illness.

The actress, who received a Bafta Cymru Lifetime Achievement award in 2009, starred as neighbour Doris in the Barry-based BBC hit comedy.

Gavin and Stacey co-star James Corden Tweeted: "A great actress and an incredible lady. She will be missed."

Mathew Horne, who played Gavin, sent this Twitter message: "Really sad to hear Margaret John has passed away. She was such a good woman and so fun to work with."

Rob Brydon, who played Uncle Bryn in the series, also wrote: "Just heard the terribly sad news that Margaret John has passed away. What a wonderful person she was, everyone on G&S adored her."

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What a wonderful person she was, everyone on G&S adored her”

Rob Brydon

Joanna Page, who was Stacey in the hit series, said: "Margaret was a warm, kind, cheeky, fun and beautiful lady. She was an incredible actress and it was an honour working with her. I'll truly miss her. All my thoughts are with her family."

Fellow actress Ruth Madoc said: "It's very sad news. Margaret John was a great Welsh icon - and an era has passed away with her.

"She had a wonderful sense of humour. We were part of the Taffia in London in the 60s - and I always looked up to her."

John appeared on stage in Calendar Girls in the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff last summer.

Paying tribute, the venue hailed her a "national treasure".

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She was one of our best-loved actresses and there was always a touch of humour or a glint of wickedness about her”

Alun Ffred JonesHeritage Minister

Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones said: "She was one of our best-loved actresses and there was always a touch of humour or a glint of wickedness about her.

"It's a sad day but it was a life lived to the full and we are all the richer for having her."

BBC Cymru Wales director Menna Richards praised John as "a cornerstone of the television and radio industry in Wales".

"Her vitality, energy and enthusiasm endeared her to generations of people and I'd like to pay tribute to her for the immense pleasure she gave to her many fans in Wales and beyond," she said.

A tribute programme, Margaret John: National Treasure, charting her career which spanned 50 years, will be shown on BBC One Wales on Sunday, 6 February, at 10.00 BST.

Her last appearance on screen was in the new S4C drama Alys on Sunday night.

Margaret John starred as neighbour Doris in Gavin and Stacey

Although known in recent years for her colourful one-liners in Gavin and Stacey, the Swansea-born actress had a long and distinguished career.

Born in Swansea, John left drama school in 1950.

Her earlier career included a brief spell in Coronation Street in 1965 as well as a role in Z Cars, Dr Who, Dixon of Dock Green and Emmerdale Farm.

John also starred in David Schwimmer's British film comedy Run Fatboy Run (2007) and enjoyed recent appearances in medical dramas Casualty and Doctors, and the Welsh-set BBC drama Framed with Trevor Eve and Eve Myles.

The late 1970s saw John star as Marian Owen in another soap opera, Crossroads (famous for its wobbly sets), and from 1984 she starred in medical drama The District Nurse as Gwen Harris alongside fellow Welsh actor Nerys Hughes.

Margaret John played Mam in the BBC TV series High Hopes from 2002-08

She played the part of Elsie 'Mam' Hepplewhite in BBC Wales comedy High Hopes between 2002 and 2008, starring alongside Robert Blythe and Boyd Clack.

John recently had a role in spoof valleys film comedy A Bit Of Tom Jones and an appearance in the second series of BBC Three drama Being Human.

Last year the actress lent her support to a £20m scheme to reduce social loneliness among the elderly people in Wales.

Her agent, Gemma McAvoy, said: "Margaret worked tirelessly for charity; always happy to give her time and boundless energy to help others.

"She completed 'the mile' for Sport Relief; performed with Only Men Aloud and stuffed money into John Barrowman's trousers for Children in Need and played drums for the Gavin and Stacey Comic Relief Barry Islands in the Stream sketch.

Bittersweet comedy

"Locally, Margaret worked with the PDSA, the George Thomas Hospice and was the face of the Big Lottery Fund AdvantAGE campaign which aimed to create social opportunities for older people, to name but a few examples.

"Professionally, Margaret was just as generous; consistently giving her time and expertise to help up and coming filmmakers."

A tribute programme, Margaret John: National Treasure, will be shown on BBC One Wales on Sunday, 6 February, at 10.00 GMT.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday 2 February, at 19.00 GMT The Diaries of Mrs Bebb, a bittersweet comedy starring Margaret John as Mrs Bebb will be broadcast on BBC Radio Wales.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12342913