Arthur Marshall (broadcaster)
Arthur Marshall, MBE (10 May 1910 – 27 January 1989) was a British writer, raconteur and broadcaster,[1] born in Barnes, London[2] in the UK.
[3] He was enrolled at the kindergarten section of the Froebel Institute in Hammersmith in 1916, for two years, and then went to Ranelagh House, a co-educational school overlooking Barnes Common.
In the summer of 1920 his father moved the family to Newbury in Berkshire and Arthur was sent away to a preparatory boarding school, Stirling Court, on the Hampshire coast where his brother was already a pupil.
The last play in which he appeared for the ADC was directed by Rylands, a production of George Bernard Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion, starring Michael Redgrave in the title role and who was, according to Noel Annan, 'acted off the stage by Arthur Marshall as Lady Cicely'.
[6] As Marshall could not find enough acting work, or convince his parents that they should support his desire to pursue a career in the theatre, in 1931 he became a teacher of modern languages, again at Oundle School.
He signed a contract in 1935 with Columbia and made five gramophone records featuring sketches involving headmistresses and schoolgirls – he was an avid reader of books for girls from childhood and had been performing skits from the early thirties for his friends.
He was asked to contribute an article each Christmas on the best books for girls published during the year – Angela Brazil was nearing the end of her career but Winifred Darch, May Wynne and Dorita Fairlie Bruce were still very productive.
He wrote in his autobiography, "Absence of food, coupled with exhaustion, made the nights seem unusually cold and there is little of comfort, save protection of a sort, to be found in a sand dune.
His wartime radio programme A Date with Nurse Dugdale was popular, and he wrote numerous revue sketches for performers such as Hermione Gingold.
His association with the New Statesman ended in 1981 when he was sacked from its "First Person" column by editor Bruce Page, allegedly for being overtly sympathetic to Margaret Thatcher.
Having retired to Devon in 1970, he lived in Christow for the last fifteen years of his life, where he shared a cottage with Peter Kelland, a former schoolmaster.
