Wilfred Pickles OBE (13^th October 1904 to 27^th March 1978)

The popular and successful actor and radio presenter with his wife. He was a bit before my time but being a radio buff, I knew of him and certainly of his way of finished a radio programme, “To all in the North...good neet!”

Though born in Halifax his family moved to Southport and he worked with his father as a builder. He joined an amateur dramatic society and in a local production there, met Mabel Celia Myerscough (also in the grave with him). Her family had a strong connection with the stage. Perhaps it was this that got him a job as a BBC radio announcer and occasional newsreader during the Second World War. He was the first newsreader to speak in a regional accent (he was a proud Yorkshire man.)

He soon became a radio celebrity and pursued an acting career in London's West End theatre, on television and on film. In 1971 he was the subject of This Is Your Life and in 1953 was a guest on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. He died in Brighton aged 73.