IAN WRIGHT was left baffled by the omission of Kobbie Mainoo from the England squad.

The former Arsenal and Three Lions legend was in attendance as Manchester United knocked out Liverpool in the FA Cup yesterday.

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Erik ten Hag’s team won 4-3 thanks to a last gasp from Amad Diallo.

Despite the winger stealing the headlines, Wright focused his praise on Mainoo.

The 18-year-old midfielder impressed during his 80 minutes on the pitch and the retired striker believes he should be given his international debut in the upcoming friendlies against Brazil and Belgium.

Wright took aim at manager Gareth Southgate and said: “Why isn’t Kobbie Mainoo in the England squad?

“Come on man, come on, man was immense today.”

Wright also turned to Roy Keane and asked him the same question, but his answer was not heard in the clip.

Instead of Mainoo, Southgate selected Declan Rice, Jude Bellingham, Conor Gallagher and Jordan Henderson as his central midfielders.

Fans agreed the teenage prodigy should be in the squad, with one saying: “Southgate will be thinking about why he didn’t pick him.”

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Another added: “Mainoo definitely deserves a spot. The man was on fire yesterday.”

More commented: “Mainoo is talent, he should be in the England squad.”

If he doesn’t make the choice quickly, the player could decide to switch his allegiance to Ghana.

He has represented England at under-16, 18 and 19 level.

The FA are said to be confident of retaining his services but have received no guarantees.

Ian Farquhar, a long-time friend of King Charles, has died at the monarch’s Highgrove estate aged 78.

The famous hunter was also the Queen Mother’s equerry and even served in the Queen’s Own Hussars, a cavalry regiment of the British Army.

Mr Farquhar was also close to Queen Camilla and lived on the king’s estate in a rented farmhouse for many years. It is said he died there on Wednesday morning.

Sergeant Andrew Parker Bowles, Camilla’s first husband and friend, told the Mail’s Richard Eden that the situation was “very sad” and that he had been in poor health in recent months.

He described his friend as “wild as a hawk in his youth, but always a lot of fun.” Parker Bowles added that ‘The Captain’, as Farquhar was known, ‘will be judged by history as one of the great Master of Hounds’.

One source said he often trekked through the fields to meet the monarch for dinner, but left his car “when it got hopelessly stuck” and instead waited for it to be rescued by tractors.

Ian married Pammie-Jane Chafer after leaving the army and the couple had three daughters.

Farquhar and Charles became further intertwined when Prince William briefly dated Rose Farquhar in 2000 after completing his A-levels at Eton.

The couple met at the Beaufort Polo Club in Gloucestershire and she was described at the time as the Prince of Wales’s ‘first love’.

William and Rose went on romantic picnics together in the Gloucestershire countryside before he met Kate at St Andrews University in Scotland.

They are still friends to this day, as the prince attended her wedding to George Gemmell in 2022.

Farquhar and Pammie-Jane separated and as time went on, they managed to rekindle their friendship, but they continued to live separately.

Mr Farquhar was also Master of the Beaufort Yacht for 34 years. It is the oldest and largest fox hunt in the West Country.

Fox hunting was made illegal in 2004, but the Hunting Act allows groups to hunt using animal scent.

In an Instagram post, the page shared a video with multiple images of Ian throughout his life and wrote: ‘It is with broken hearts that we send our love and condolences to the family and friends of our very own Captain Ian Farquhar, who guided us so brilliantly . For 34 years and passed away peacefully this week.

‘Captain’, as he was known to many, was loved and cherished by the entire yachting community, as someone who was supportive, friendly and always present with excellent forward-thinking advice to anyone who asked him for it.

‘He had a wicked sense of humor and anyone who was fortunate enough to be in his company and listen to stories of his extremely varied and adventurous life, both in the military and hunting world, will hold those memories forever.’

The post said Mr Farquhar’s passions were his ‘dogs, his family and dogs’ and that he was a ‘true countryman and gentleman’.

News of his friend’s death comes as King Charles continues treatment for his cancer while fulfilling royal duties.

He met the High Commissioner of Jamaica, Alexander Williams, who was accompanied by his wife Carol Watson-Williams at Buckingham Palace yesterday.

The king has postponed all public engagements as he continues his treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer, but has been conducting audiences and office duties behind the palace walls.

High commissioners and ambassadors in London have a customary audience with the monarch shortly after taking up their roles.

Charles’ meeting came after he held a video call with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The king previously met with the Ambassador of Algeria, Nourredine Yazid, and Samba Mamadou, Ambassador of Mauritania.

The king was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer earlier this year after hospital treatment for an enlarged prostate, which was unrelated to him.

He was treated at the same hospital as the Princess of Wales, who underwent abdominal surgery for an unknown condition in January.

Dad’s Army star Ian Lavender was remembered by celebs and villagers alike at his funeral at St Mary’s Church in Woolpit, Suffolk on Thursday. 

The actor, best known as the young Private Pike, was the last remaining main cast member from the wartime-set BBC show and died on Friday, February 2 aged 77, with his wife and sons at his side.

The service included an emotional rendition of Bring Him Home by Alfie Boe and Rick Wakeman as well as touching tributes to his role in Dad’s Army. 

Draped on top of his coffin was an army beret worn by his character and a scarf in the colours of his favourite football team, Aston Villa. 

Stars including Tim Healy, of Auf Wiedersehen Pet and Benidorm fame, were also in attendance.

Led by Reverend Ruth Farrell, the congregation heard tributes from his film director son Sam Lavender and musician Rick.

On departure to the churchyard, the Dad’s Army theme tune was played on the organ, to remember his time in the comedy. 

The Birmingham-born actor was well-known in the village of Woolpit, with many residents attending to pay their respects.

Alfie and Ian performed together at the Royal British Legion concert produced by Live Nation and the BBC back in 2015. 

Lavender revealed he would take his cast-members’ secrets to the grave just months before his death. 

He told of how the show’s iconic cast were so close they shared secrets with each other that they ‘never told their wives’. 

The actor admitted that he once promised co-star John Laurie (who played Private James Frazer) that he would never divulge the secrets they shared.

Lavender told the We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast: ‘I talked with John [Laurie]  for so many hours. He said, ‘There are things I’ve told you I’ve never told my wife, or my daughter. You must promise me you must never tell anybody yourself’.

He went on to gush about his fellow co-stars and recalled filming as ‘great fun’ 10-weeks every year with ‘wonderful people who became great friends’.

Lavender also revealed that the cast were shocked with the show’s success after the first series originally failed to find an audience. 

The post announcing his death read: ‘We are deeply saddened to hear the passing of the wonderful, Ian Lavender.

‘In what truly marks the end of an era, Ian was the last surviving member of the Dad’s Army main cast.’

Lavender, who was born in Birmingham in 1946, was twice married. His first wife was actress Suzanne Kerchiss in a union that lasted from 1967 to 1976, and the pair had two sons Dan and Sam.

From then on, he lived happily with American-born Miki Hardy. The couple married after 16 years together in 1993, following Lavender’s diagnosis with bladder cancer, which was successfully treated. He also survived a heart attack.

Outside of acting, he was a keen supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and chose a claret and blue scarf as part of Pike’s wardrobe.

Lavender had only recently graduated from drama school and had just one previous TV appearance to his name when he was cast in Dad’s Army, in stark contrast to the rest of the cast – who were comic veterans.

He was earning £9 a week during a six-month stint at Canterbury Rep when someone came up to him and said he looked stupid enough to do Pike.

‘I was a complete beginner and I suddenly joined what was probably Britain’s most experienced team of character actors,’ he said.

‘I was in a state of shock finding myself suddenly among so many great actors. When the moment came for me to speak, that funny voice of Pike just came out in a moment of panic.

‘Since then at the start of every new series it has been one hell of a job trying to conjure it up again.

‘But Private Pike took me from obscurity into the TV big time. I could never have achieved that if I hadn’t learned to say: ‘Ooh Captain Mainwaring, my mum said even if the Germans come I mustn’t catch cold.”

The acting gig was only expected to last for eight weeks – but the show’s phenomenal success meant it endured for the best part of a decade. 

Attracting audiences of 18 million, it ran from 1968 to 1977 and saw Lavender become a household name.

As Pike, Lavender was a comedic stooge in the series, frequently berated as a ‘stupid boy’ by the troupe’s Captain Mainwairing, played by Arthur Lowe, although the other members of the reserve army behaved more warmly to him.

Lavender was key to one of Dad’s Army’s funniest moments where he had performed a song that called Hitler a ‘twerp’ in front of German forces.

The Nazi captain says his name will also go on a list of people he will take revenge on. Asked what it is, Captain Mainwaring urges ‘Don’t tell him, Pike’, accidentally revealing his name.

His bungling soldier routine in the Home Guard comedy brought him fan mail from all over Britain – especially from women who wanted to mother him.

‘I get letters from schoolgirls and middle-aged ladies who want to mother me. I miss out on ladies my own age,’ he joked once.

Lavender’s closest friend and mentor amongst the cast was Scottish actor John Laurie, who starred as the gruff undertaker Frazer.

Offscreen, the pair would often chat and tell each other jokes, a skill Lavender learnt from Laurie.

‘If I could choose one member of the cast to survive it would be John,’ Lavender told the Telegraph in 2018.

‘I loved him, actually. He was naughty, he was impish and he suffered no fools.’

In retrospect, Lavender suggested the part of Pike had put limits on his career, once telling The Independent: ‘I’ve certainly been typecast, but nobody expects you to come up with that character.

‘People don’t want Frank Pike, but they do expect you to be funny.’

After years of service in the show’s fiction seat of Wilmington on Sea, guest-starred in many television series and also took to the stage. He treaded the boards with Dustin Hoffman in The Merchant of Venice and also appeared in Sister Act: The Musical.

Outside of Dads Army, his biggest impact on the silver screen was as Derek Harkinson in EastEnders from 2001 to 2005, and again from 2016 to 2017. Initially the boyfriend of Christian (John Partridge), Derek became firm friends with the show’s matriarch Pauline Fowler (Wendy Craig). 

He starred in 240 episodes of the BBC One soap in total.

Lavender was the last surviving member of the Dad’s Army cast. Clive Dunn, who played Lance Corporal Jones, died in 2012, while Bill Pertwee (air raid warden Hodges) died in 2013.

Arthur Lowe died from a heart attack in 1982 and John Le Mesurier, the long-suffering Sergeant Wilson, died the following year.

Lavender made a cameo appearance as Brigadier Pritchard in the 2016 Dad’s Army film, which starred Toby Jones and Bill Nighy.

In the film, The Inbetweeners star Blake Harrison played Private Pike.

As Dad’s Army’s last surviving cast member Ian Lavender passes away, what happened to stars of the beloved BBC sitcom? 

Arthur Lowe: Captain George Mainwaring

Arthur Lowe had a career spanning 37 years and was one of the most recognisable faces on British TV.

Although he was known as Captain Mainwaring, Lowe only began acting professionally in 1945, after the end of WWII where he had been one of the first to be called up in 1939. 

After the end of the war, the actor took part in productions with local troupes before finding fame as the Home Guard platoon leader.

When not acting the pompous and bumbling Captain, Lowe was in productions with Sir Laurence Olivier at the National theatre and worked on shows including the ITV comedy Doctor at Large and an adaptation of David Copperfield in 1974.

The actor suffered from narcolepsy which often meant he fell asleep on set and even in the middle of sentences.

He died at the age of 66 in Birmingham in 1982. 

John Le Mesurier: Sergeant Arthur Wilson

John Le Mesurier appeared in more than 120 films across his career which was slow to start after his flat and the theatre he was working in in Brixton, South London were bombed during the Blitz. 

After serving with the Royal Tank Regiment where he was posted to India, he struggled to find work, often accepting smaller supporting roles. 

He took small roles in films including the 1956 Second World War film, Private’s Progress and the 1969 classic The Italian Job with Michael Caine and was a self confessed ‘jobbing actor’ 

He also appeared in a Coronation Street spin-off series, Pardon the Expression, opposite his Dad’s Army co-star Arthur Lowe.   

He was married three times, most notably to Carry On actress Hattie Jacques but after their relationship broke down his health took a turn and he died in 1983.

James Beck: Private Walker

Beck who was known as the cheeky cockney spiv was rarely out of work, with roles in Coronation Street and A Family At War.

Despite the success of the BBC sitcom, the actor from North London yearned for greater challenges.

Just as the recording of the sixth series of Dad’s Army was wrapping up, Beck suddenly became ill and was rushed to hospital.

Beck, a heavy drinker, died three weeks later due to a combination of heart failure, renal failure and pancreatitis, aged 44.

Arnold Ridley: Private Godfrey

Arnold Ridley who played the elderly bumbling Private Godfrey was much less bumbling in real life. 

A brave soldier who survived the Somme, he was blighted by his wounds which included an almost useless left hand, shrapnel in his legs and he was prone to blackouts after receiving a German rifle butt to the head.

He was honourably discharged from the army due to his wounds and was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal for his service.

Despite have served in WWI, Ridley volunteered for WWII in 1939 and after serving joined the Home Guard, much like his Dad’s Army character.

In between serving as a soldier, Ridley toured with theatre groups and adapted novels into plays such as Agatha Christie’s novel Peril at End House which debuted on the West End play in 1940

His acting credits also include Doughy Hood, the village baker, in the radio soap opera The Archers.

His great- niece is Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley. 

John Laurie: Private Frazer 

Laurie was a thespian through and through, starting out his career in Shakespeare, he went on to work with Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean and Laurence Olivier.

The Dumfries native starred in classic such as The 39 Steps, Hobson’s Choice and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.

The dad’s Army favourite worked all the way up to his death and starred in The Prisoner of Zelda just one year before he died. 

His niece is Star Wars actress Daisy.

He died aged 83 in 1980. 

Ian lavender: Private Pike 

Ian Lavender was the youngest of the cast, getting the part of Private pike at the age of 22. 

The job was only supposed to last for a week but almost 10 years later, he was still playing the part of the lovable Pike. 

While he later revealed that the part of the ‘idiot boy’ cost him other big film roles, he also said he had no regrets about taking the part.

As well as staring alongside comedic greats, he starred alongside Hollywood heavyweights like Dustin Hoffman in The Merchant of Venice.

The actor also took on more tv work including Eastenders as well as theatre – one of his later roles was in Sister Act: The Musical.

He died aged 77.

Clive Dunn: Lance Corporal Jones  

Despite only being 48 when he took on the role of Lance Corporal Jones, he made a name for himself playing the doddery Jones, a type he would lean into throughout his career.

Starting off in touring theatre companies a made his first television appearance in Surprise Attack before taking on a starring role in The Tony Hancock Show.

After playing the old Jones in Dad’s Army, Dunn continued to play grumpy older characters, taking on Charlie Quick, in the slapstick children’s TV series Grandad, from 1979 to 1984.

Despite a a glittering career on tv, Dunn retired to the Algarve where he died in 2012, leaving behind two daughters and a his wife Priscilla, also an actress.

By Lily Jobson for Mailonline

Published: 10:18 EST, February 26, 2024 | Updated: 10:24 EST, February 26, 2024

The King and I, from legendary theater composers Rodgers and Hammerstein, is another West End hit, this time starring Call The Midwife’s Helen George.

The story concerns Anna Leonowens, a widow who traveled to Siam in the early 1860s to teach English to the wives and children of King Mongkut of Siam.

Although the musical and subsequent film are set more than 150 years ago, they are considered so controversial in Thailand – as Siam became known in 1959 – that the musical has been banned there for more than 70 years.

(An earlier 1946 film adaptation of the book was briefly shown in Siamese cinemas. It was the more irreverent musical that caused the outrage).

The main reason for the ban is that the Thai monarchy was completely revered until recently.

Criticism of this was taboo and draconian laws punished anyone who openly criticized the royal family.

People knelt when a royal car passed by and when King Bhumibol died in October 2016, after a reign of 70 years and 126 days (88 days less than Queen Elizabeth’s), his people wore black mourning for a year.

The musical with its brightly colored account of the relationship between king and master would cause problems among his subjects.

We see Anna trying to introduce Western ideals and culture to the royal court, in conflict with the unyielding King Mongkut.

The tension between the two masks their growing passion. There is also passion between one of the king’s wives and her lover, a romance that Anna helps to conceal.

In reality, King Mongkut was scientific and deeply religious. He had spent the first half of his life as a Buddhist monk and founded a new Buddhist order as well as a temple in Bangkok.

He spoke Western languages ​​and after becoming king in 1851 at a time when European countries sought greater influence in the east, he skillfully maintained Siam’s independence by working with these dominant nations rather than against them.

In her diaries, Queen Victoria gives us a glimpse of how Mongkut’s diplomacy certainly won her over.

In November 1857, seven envoys from Siam presented her with a gift ‘consisting of an oriental crown of gold and enamel, with diamonds, emeralds and rubies, a gold collar, thickly studded with rubies, a large star, a massive ring set with various precious stones. , a gold belt with rubies, a state chair or throne, a rare and valuable white shell, entirely set with jewels – an agate cup and saucer, a state sedan chair, a state saddle and bridle, a number of umbrellas, covered with gold embroidery, solid gold , boxes and cups, silver embossed trays, a metal drum and various other valuable jewelry.’

Not surprisingly, she was able to say to the envoys, “I was very pleased with the presents,” although she was amused by the deference shown to her.

‘When saying goodbye, the envoys crawled backwards all the way out of the room – it was really very difficult to keep face.’

Mongkut was known for his tolerance and open-mindedness and for his determination to modernize his country, which earned him the nickname “The Father of Science and Technology” in Siam.

Having been celibate until he became king at the age of 47, he soon made up for lost time by acquiring 32 wives and, by the time of his death, at the age of 64, a total of 82 children.

The desire for the latter to be educated in the Western tradition was the reason for hiring Anne Leonowens, who taught the royal children and built a strong relationship with the eldest son, Prince Chulalongkorn.

Anna was at court for only five years and returned to England in 1867, the year before Mongkut died, after contracting malaria while attending a large gathering to celebrate the 1868 solar eclipse in Wakor, a remote spot in western Thailand, to watch.

Two years later, Anna wrote her memoirs about her time at the royal court.

It was greatly exaggerated and controversially portrayed as a tyrant. She also falsified details about her own background, claiming she was born in Wales.

In fact, she was of mixed race – her mother was English and her father Indian – at a time when she was lower class, and being half Indian would have made her a social pariah.

She wasn’t even a real governess, as she was only engaged to teach the royal children English rather than give them a well-rounded education.

Anna’s memoirs angered the Siamese court.

Thirty years after she left office, Leonowens was reunited with King Chulalongkorn when he came to London during his European tour.

Although the king kindly thanked her for her teaching, he nevertheless criticized her memoirs and asked, “Why did you write such a bad book about my father, King Mongkut?” You know you made a complete fool of him.”

The unrepentant Anna replied that she had written “the whole truth” and that Mongkut had indeed been “a ridiculous and cruel, evil man.”

The royal consternation continued well into the next century.

During a visit to the United States in 1960, the monarch of Thailand, King Bhumibol, while admitting that he had not seen the musical, nevertheless claimed that, based on what he had been told, Mongkut’s portrayal seemed 90 percent exaggerated. My great-grandfather was actually a very mild and kind man.’

Strangely enough, even though the musical was banned in Thailand, Anna’s two volumes of memoirs have always appeared in print there, translated into Thai.

Leonowens’ time in Siam only became known with the publication of a 1944 biography by Margaret Landon called Anna and the King of Siam.

This became the basis of the 1951 musical that opened on Broadway to rave reviews for stars Yul Brynner and Gertrude Lawrence.

Two years later it moved to London in the coronation year of 1953, this time with Herbert Lom as Mongkut and Valerie Hobson as Anna.

It yielded no fewer than 926 performances. Princess Margaret visited several times and played the hits on her piano at Clarence House, later returning with the Queen Mother to see it again.

The film of the same name was released in 1956 and starred Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr.

There have been many revivals in Britain alone and the current show at the Dominion Theater is the sixth West End version of the musical, a testament to Rogers and Hammerstein’s truth-changing creativity.

IAN WRIGHT poked fun at Alan Shearer as Newcastle were hammered by Arsenal on Saturday.

Mikel Arteta’s men stayed within two points of leaders Liverpool as they defeated Toon 4-1 in the Emirates.

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Goals from Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka and Jakub Kiwior came after an own-goal from Sven Botman to give Arsenal another crucial victory.

The Gunners dominated the match from start to finish as they overturned the Champions League defeat to Porto in midweek.

But Newcastle legend Shearer was left furious with his side’s performance in London.

At half-time he criticized the Magpies for their poor performance in the capital.

Shearer wrote on social media: “Is there a danger of a bloody tackle being put in?”

But his anger only seemed to please close friend and former Arsenal striker Wright.

The icon couldn’t resist posting a cheeky response to Shearer in the form of a video.

The short clip showed Wright tucking into a tasty-looking takeaway.

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And the fan favorite couldn’t stop grinning as he looked into the camera as he enjoyed his feast.

Supporters certainly found Wright’s banter hilarious.

One said: “Arsenal are partying.”

Another stated: “Wrighty! We eat well!”

One commented: “Wrighty with a piledriver from 50 yards.”

Another said: “You are a super legend Wrighty.”

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BURNLEY and Leeds United legend Ian Lawson has died aged 84.

The Premier League club announced the sad news ahead of today's visit to Liverpool.

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The former forward was originally spotted by the Clarets playing for Pelton schoolboys in County Durham.

He moved to Turf Moor in 1954 and turned professional two years later, on his 17th birthday.

Less than a year later, he burst onto the scene in incredible fashion.

Lawson scored FOUR goals as Burnley beat Hesterfield 7-0 in the FA Cup.

He followed that up a month later with a hat-trick in another FA Cup romp, this time 9–0, over New Brighton.

International honors soon came as he was capped by England at youth level.

Lawson played thirty games for Burnley and scored fifteen goals before leaving for Leeds in 1962 for a fee of £20,000.

He helped them win the Second Division title under Don Revie in 1964, but headed south to join Crystal Palace 12 months later.

Lawson went on to play for both Port Vale and Barnsley before hanging up his boots in 1968.

He is survived by his wife Maureen, daughter Sharon and son Michael.

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Elizabeth II always kept one of her favorite photos on her desk. It shows her father, King George VI, with the future Charles III on the young prince's third birthday.

Neither the queen nor her father realized at the time that the king was dying of cancer.

Seventy years later, we are experiencing a sea change in the way the royal family deals with sensitive health issues among themselves, and also in the way they communicate this to the rest of us.

There is even a huge difference in where the royal family undergoes medical procedures.

King Charles will of course be treated in hospital, but King George had his left lung removed at Buckingham Palace, where the Buhl Room was converted into a makeshift surgery.

It sounds like an amateurish operation, but staff at Westminster Hospital transformed the room (where Prince Charles was born) into a fully equipped operating room.

The operating table, made by the Genito-Urinary Manufacturing Co Ltd, was donated to the Science Museum in 1984, where a plaque 'records with gratitude the recovery of His Majesty King George VI after surgery'.

The chance of recovery was even very small, as the king's right lung was also infected and he could have lived for a maximum of two years.

Ultimately it was a coronary thrombosis, which peacefully ended the king's life in his sleep on February 6, 1952.

The truth behind the king's illness was kept hidden from both the press and the public. A bulletin issued by the palace announced that the king had undergone a 'pulmonary resection'.

This perplexed many people, including opposition leader Winston Churchill, who questioned his doctor, Charles Moran.

He told him that the use of a bronchoscope during the diagnosis and the specialties of the surgeons meant cancer for him.

As was customary at the time, the patient himself was kept in the dark. The king's official biographer, John Wheeler-Bennett, writes: 'He was not told that he was suffering from cancer – and is never known to have known it.'

His family didn't know either. Princess Margaret told a friend that her father had died “just as he was beginning to get better” and the new monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, wrote to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who knew the king when he was commander-in-chief of the Allied forces. Europe: 'It is difficult to understand that he has left us; he was so much better, and so full of ideas and plans for the future.'

Perhaps she later regretted not being fully informed about the severity of her father's illness.

Interestingly, decades into her reign, she commemorated the link between her father's death and cancer on two important occasions.

On February 6, 1992, she marked the 40th anniversary of his death by visiting Tapping House, a hospice support group in Norfolk that cared for cancer patients.

Ten years later, on the same day, she marked the start of her golden jubilee year by opening the £1.2 million Macmillan Center at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn.

The Queen Mother underwent surgery for colon cancer in December 1966, but chose to avoid it for the rest of her life.

The first the public knew was when it was announced that she had gone to King Edward VII Hospital in Marylebone for 'observation'. Four days later, a bulletin claimed she had undergone a procedure for “the relief of a partial intestinal obstruction.”

A persistent myth is that she had a colostomy – a rumor that even appeared in her obituary in The Times in 2002.

Her official biographer William Shawcross wrote 'this was not true', although he added that nevertheless 'the cancer from which she had suffered was serious.' She of course made a full recovery, the cancer did not reoccur and she performed royal duties for another 34 years.

The public also remained in the dark about the declining health of the Duke of Windsor.

His impending death in May 1972 made daily headlines in the world press, but even 24 hours before Edward's death, his private secretary John Utter denied rumors that the Duke had cancer.

This was supposedly an attempt to protect the exiled king's privacy and after his death on May 28, it was made clear that he had indeed died of throat cancer.

King Charles' willingness to share his cancer diagnosis, even if its specific nature remains unclear, is not only a welcome sign of transparency in the way the palace communicates such sensitive news, but also highlights certain health concerns.

When it was announced in January that the King would undergo treatment for an enlarged prostate the following morning, the NHS website page on the subject was visited eleven times more than the day before, with a total of 16,410 hits.

If this and the announcement of cancer cause more men to contact their own doctors, and even one life is saved, then the king will at least be happy that he can be a force for good.

Dad's Army and EastEnders star Ian Lavender has died aged 77, it was announced today.

The news was revealed at 12pm via Dad's Army's official social media account, as they paid tribute to the sitcom's final cast members.

The message read: 'We are deeply saddened by the passing of the great Ian Lavender.

“In what truly marks the end of an era, Ian was the last surviving member of the main cast of Dad's Army.”

Lavender, best known as the young Private Pike, was cast in the classic comedy series in 1968 at the age of 22.

Born in Birmingham in 1946, Lavender was married twice. His first wife was actress Suzanne Kerchiss in a union that lasted from 1967 to 1976, and the couple had two sons Dan and Sam.

From that moment on he lived happily with the American-born Miki Hardy. The couple married in 1993 after 16 years together, following Lavender's diagnosis with bladder cancer, which was successfully treated. He also survived a heart attack.

In addition to acting, he was a huge supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and chose a burgundy and blue scarf as part of Pike's wardrobe.

Lavender had only recently graduated from drama school and had only one previous TV appearance to his name when he was cast in Dad's Army, in stark contrast to the rest of the cast – who were comedy veterans.

The acting gig was only expected to last eight weeks, but the show's phenomenal success meant it lasted for the better part of a decade. It attracted an audience of 18 million people, lasted from 1968 to 1977 and saw Lavender become a household name.

As Pike, Lavender was a comedic stooge in the series, often berated as a “stupid boy” by the group's Captain Mainwairing, played by Arthur Lowe, although the other members of the Reserve Army behaved more cordially towards him.

Lavender was the key to one of Dad's army's funniest moments, when he sang a song calling Hitler a 'twerp' to the German troops.

The Nazi captain says his name will also appear on a list of people he will take revenge on.

When asked what it is, Captain Mainwaring insists, “Don't tell him, Pike,” accidentally revealing his name.

In retrospect, Lavender suggested that Pike had set boundaries for his career, when he told The Independent: “I've certainly been typecast, but no one expects you to come up with that character.”

“People don't want Frank Pike, but they expect you to be funny.”

After years of service in the show's fiction home, Wilmington on Sea, he guest-starred in many television series and also took to the stage. He tread the boards with Dustin Hoffman in The Merchant of Venice and also appeared in Sister Act: The Musical.

Outside of Dads Army, his biggest impact on the big screen was as Derek Harkinson in Eastenders from 2001 to 2005, and again from 2016 to 2017. Initially, Christian's (John Partridge) boyfriend Derek became close friends with the show's matriarch, Pauline Fowler. (Wendy Craig).

He appeared in a total of 240 episodes of the BBC One soap.

Dr Alan Keightley was head of religious studies at a West Midlands sixth-form college when he began writing to Ian Brady in 1992, at the suggestion of the mother of his youngest victim, Lesley Ann Downey. 

For years, he visited Brady in prison every month, spoke to him on the phone every day and received hundreds of letters from him — the most recent a Christmas card last year. 

From this archive, Dr Keightley has written a biography that sheds a unique light on Brady’s evil and today, in our second extract, he reveals how Brady told him, despite her denials, that Hindley took part in the killings willingly and ruthlessly… 

Before they began their killing spree, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the infamous Moors Murderers, experimented with pornography, with themselves as the anonymous stars of a series of dirty pictures.

Quite early on in their relationship, Brady took his photographic equipment round to Myra’s house and waited for her grandmother to go to bed. Then he and Myra stripped naked, wearing just white hoods with eye-slits to conceal their identities.

Brady put his camera on a tripod and set the delayed timer. There were 30 photographs in all, half showing them together in the normal sex act, the others on their own in various poses. They are pretty tame by today’s standards, but were racy enough to find a market in the early Sixties.

And that seems to have been the couple’s motive — not deviant sexual thrills, which might help us to understand their perverted minds, but simply to make easy money.

Later on, they were to take truly dreadful pornographic pictures as each of their young victims was subjected to horrifying sexual abuse. But, for now, what was significant about this weird photographic session was that, years later, Myra’s version was that she had been forced into it against her will.

Brady, she said, had got her drunk and she was semi-conscious when the pictures were taken. He might even have drugged her. She then claimed he used the pictures to blackmail her into joining him in the murders.

In conversations with me, Brady dismissed her version as fanciful. He told me that ‘whip marks’ on her buttocks in one photograph, which Hindley claimed were proof of the beatings he had given her, were drawn with lipstick and were intended just to excite the viewers, as was the knotted whip visible in one of the shots.

However, it was typical of Hindley to claim coercion — that she had been a pawn in Brady’s perversions, forced to go along with them for fear of her own life. This was her argument to the world for years, her case for being released from prison on parole to resume a normal life. Many came to accept her version, believing the Moors Murders were the work of a psychopathic, sadistic sexual predator, who had benefited from having a compliant girlfriend.

But, as Brady told me in our many conversations in the Ashworth Hospital for the Criminally Insane where he was incarcerated, and in the innumerable letters we exchanged for years, Myra was no innocent, but every bit as much of a driving force in the brutal killings as he was.

There can be no doubt that Brady was the instigator of the murders. He was the one with warped philosophical theories in his head and the need to prove himself as an individual different from the common herd. But it was Myra who, from the start, spurred him into action.

Without her active involvement, it is possible Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans would have made it to adulthood instead of being murdered, the victims of two serial killers.

For all her later claims that she was Brady’s misused and abused puppet, Hindley played an active role in the whole ghastly nightmare of the Moors Murders. She really was, as he described her to me, ‘a girl as calculating and merciless as I was’.

To those who question whether he was telling me the truth, I can only repeat what he often said to me: ‘The world and times I knew have gone. I am finished. I have no reason to lie.’

In November 1963, 12-year-old John Kilbride had been to the cinema with a friend when he was lured by Hindley and Brady into helping them find a lost glove on the moor — the same ruse Hindley had used to lure their first victim, Pauline Reade, to her death four months earlier.

Hindley claimed that Brady tried to cut John’s throat with a blunt knife before strangling him with string while she was in the car, but Brady ridicules this claim — why would he try to use a blunt knife when he had already murdered Pauline Reade with a razor-sharp one?

He maintains that Hindley held John while he sexually assaulted the boy and she held his legs while Brady strangled him.

The following year, Brady and Hindley took their puppy to the moors with them to check on John and Pauline’s graves.

Brady found Hindley and the puppy in his viewfinder of his camera and pressed the shutter. In the photograph, the dog’s head is peering out of Myra’s coat as she stares down on John Kilbride’s grave.

Keith Bennett, also 12, faced a similar fate on the moors in June 1964 — although this time there was no photographic evidence to assist in locating his grave, which has never been found.

Pitiless Brady refused to disclose the location, even in his dying days, despite desperate pleas from Keith’s family. Again, Brady insisted that Hindley held their victim as Keith was sexually assaulted and strangled.

When I asked him where Hindley was at the moment of Keith’s death, he replied: ‘She was a yard from me. I couldn’t keep her away — she enjoyed it.’

The situation is confused because in the early days after their conviction, Brady tried to protect Hindley, taking all the blame himself. For their first seven years in jail, they remained in touch through letters.

But she turned against him, claiming he’d forced her into participating in the murders against her will. This made him angry because he knew it wasn’t true.

When she appealed to the European Court of Human Rights over her continued imprisonment, Brady said, in a rare statement: ‘If I revealed what really happened, Myra would not get out in 100 years.’

In the story I am about to tell here — as told to me by him — you will see precisely what he meant. Hindley’s protestations of innocence were a sham.

Ten-year-old Lesley Ann Downey was the couple’s fourth victim after Pauline Reade, John Kilbride and Keith Bennett.

Lesley Ann was a frail-looking child, 4ft 10in tall, with blue eyes, brown, curly hair and a fair complexion. She lived with her three brothers, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend in a flat in the Ancoats area of Manchester.

It was Christmas 1964 and her main present had been a toy sewing machine, but she put it aside on Boxing Day for a bigger attraction: there was a fun fair on a local recreation ground.

Nine miles away, in another part of Manchester, lived Brady and Hindley. They had been together for two years and had already acted together in the murders of three children. Now they were planning another.

With four other children, Lesley Ann set off to the fair wearing a blue coat over a red tartan dress trimmed with lace. She had sixpence to spend.

The money had gone in an hour and the children headed for home — all except Lesley Ann, who wanted one last look at the lights and the music.

Later, one of her friends would say he last saw Lesley Ann by the dodgems at 5.30pm. Had he watched for a few minutes more, he would have seen a woman talking to her. A minute more, and he would have seen the woman leave the fair with Lesley Ann.

Hindley had used a trick that had worked before. She asked the little girl to help her carry some boxes to her car. Little Red Rooster by the Rolling Stones was blasting out from the dodgems.

Brady revealed to me that, in their macabre way, he and Hindley associated a popular song of the day with each of their murders. Their choice was often sick with significance. With Edward Evans, it was Joan Baez’s version of Bob Dylan’s It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue. With Keith Bennett, it was Roy Orbison’s number one hit, It’s Over.

The song they would always associate with what they would do to Lesley Ann was Girl Don’t Come by Sandie Shaw. If only the ten-year-old had heeded that advice. But she got in Hindley’s car and they drove to where Brady was waiting a few streets away. All three then drove to Brady and Hindley’s two-up, two-down terrace house.

In a bedroom, Brady had set up his photographic equipment and it was there that Lesley Ann was taken. Hindley claimed Brady went upstairs on his own with the girl, but Brady insisted his lover was with him all the time and took part in forcing Lesley Ann out of her clothes. At least nine photographs were taken of her naked.

There was a struggle in which the little girl screamed for her mother and pleaded to be let go — all of it caught on a harrowing tape-recording which would later be played at the trial. The voices of Brady, Hindley and the girl could all be clearly heard.

Hindley claimed she did not know anything about the tape — the recorder was hidden under the bed — and wept in court when she heard it. But Brady told me: ‘She knew. The tears she shed when she was forced to listen to it were tears of self-pity because she could not lie with the evidence on tape.’

In later accounts, Myra distanced herself from what happened in that bedroom, claiming she had spent most of the time looking away and had then gone to the bathroom to run a bath. When she came back, she said, the little girl was dead and, she assumed, had also been raped.

Brady’s version was very different. He dismissed her claim to be in the bathroom when Lesley Ann was murdered as a complete lie and said she had taken part with him in the sexual acts committed against the child. Both of them had held her down as she fought for her life.

Brady revealed that Hindley insisted on strangling Lesley Ann herself. She used a length of silk cord, which, he added, she openly played with in pubs for a few weeks afterwards, revelling in the deadly secret that it represented.

That night the couple slept downstairs. Hindley would later claim she was so horrified by what had happened that she could not bear to be anywhere near the body. But Brady told me they never slept upstairs anyway. They always slept on a divan downstairs, so they could watch television in bed.

The next morning they went back to the bedroom, where Lesley Ann’s cold, naked body lay face down on the bed with her clothes thrown on top of her. They bundled her into the car and set off for Saddleworth Moor, where they had already buried three bodies.

Hindley stopped the vehicle in a lay-by while Brady went off to dig a shallow grave about 90 yards from the road, hidden by an incline.

Hindley waited in the car and was horrified when a police car pulled up beside her. The policeman asked if there was something wrong.

If Hindley really was the innocent she claimed to be, then this was the moment she could have broken away from Brady’s spell and put all the blame incontrovertibly on him.

Instead, she calmly told the officer that her car’s spark plugs were wet from the rain and she was drying them out. Satisfied with this explanation, he left. All the time, Lesley Ann’s body was in the back of the vehicle, Brady told me.

Brady returned to the car and then ran back onto the moor with Lesley Ann’s body. He put her into the grave with her legs doubled up to her abdomen and lying on her right side. Her clothes were buried at her feet.

Thirty years later, Hindley would claim in an interview that the night Brady buried Lesley Ann’s body on the moor, she thought to herself: ‘Now I know there is no God.’

But this supposed attack of conscience hardly fitted with her actions.

A few weeks later, she went back to the moor with Brady and they photographed each other standing near the little girl’s grave, with smiles on their faces.

To my mind, Brady’s account to me of the murder of Lesley Ann Downey puts to rest for ever the notion that Hindley was capable of mercy or remorse. It also vindicates the families who campaigned vociferously — in the face of considerable opposition from do-gooders — that she should never be released.

Yet Hindley persisted with her claims that she had been coerced, in the hope of securing her own freedom. More than 30 years after murdering Pauline Reade, their first victim, she maintained that ‘Brady told me if I’d shown any signs of backing out I would have ended up in the same grave’.

In conversations with me, he denied that he had made any such threat.

Hindley also claimed that it was Brady who had chosen Pauline Reade as their first target, riding on his motorbike behind Myra in the van and flashing his headlights as the signal for her to stop and pick up Pauline on the street.

Brady said to me: ‘I wasn’t there.’ He was still at home, getting ready for the kill. But he was not the one who chose the victim — Myra was.

Hindley would also claim that Brady had set off across the moor with Pauline on his own, then come back to the car half an hour later and guided Hindley to where Pauline lay dying.

In reality, Brady said, it was Myra who led the poor girl to her death, stripped her, violated and then stabbed her unsuccessfully with a knife before he moved in to finish the job.

Pauline’s body would not be found for 22 years, and then only after Brady admitted to a journalist that he had killed her. This led to the police investigation into her death being re-opened in 1986.

Hindley then confessed to the killing and, amid huge publicity, she guided detectives to the grave. She begged for forgiveness, which prompted Lord Longford, a prominent campaigner on her behalf, to call her a heroine and Brady to comment: ‘She only ever regrets when caught out.’

His view was that she confessed because she believed that he had already told the police everything anyway.

When she added, ‘I just hope that some day, in some way I can be forgiven for making the families wait 22 years,’ Brady responded by saying: ‘Liar! They would have had to wait for ever had I not confessed and re-opened the case.’

Neither of them ever came to trial for Pauline’s murder — though if Hindley had ever been granted parole, the police would have charged her in order to keep her inside.

And stay inside she did, for all the attempts of misguided do-gooders such as Lord Longford to secure her release as a reformed character.

It didn’t help her case when it turned out that, for nearly seven years after their conviction, she had kept up a stream of intensely emotional love letters to Brady.

‘Each day that passes I miss you more and more,’ she wrote in one of them. ‘You are the only thing that keeps my heart beating, my only reason for living. Without you, what does life mean? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Freedom without you means nothing, too.

‘I’ve got one interest in life and that’s you. We had six short but precious years together, six years of memories to sustain us until we’re together again, to make dreams realities.’

Sentiments like this were a problem when she decided to cut herself off from Brady and make her case for release from prison by claiming that she had been a victim, too.

‘He used to threaten me, rape me, whip me and cane me,’ she suddenly announced. ‘He dominated me completely.’

What she did had been done ‘under duress and abuse’.

But this begged a vital question — why, when she was out of harm’s way, with him locked up in a maximum-security prison 250 miles away, did she still stand by him, to the extent of applying to marry him so that they could claim visiting rights (a request the authorities refused)?

Brady stayed loyal for longer than she did. Behind bars, he was obsessed with being allowed to see her. His first hunger strikes were staged because this had been refused.

In one of the letters he wrote to her from behind bars, he declared with an astonishing air of romance given the monster he was at heart: ‘Where my love is, there I will be. So much has been lost; our love for each other is all that remains and will always remain. Everything else was an accessory to our love.’

Even when she publicly disowned him, he was surprisingly slow to anger. Twenty years after the split from her, he told me: ‘I’m not out to get her. I can still think affectionately about the old days. I still love her for the innocent, good times we had together.’

He did, though, think she had become a different person — ‘a caricature of no importance’ — and one for whom he did not care. ‘She tried to please the mob,’ he commented, ‘whereas I spat in their faces.’

Eventually, his views about her hardened. Her lies about him and her disloyalty hurt him so much he even wrote letters to the Home Office arguing against her release.

The macabre love affair of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the Moors Murderers, was over at last.

Until the end of her life in 2002, aged 60, Hindley kept up the pretence that she was not to blame for any of the Moors Murders, that Brady had progressively corrupted her, that she had been an innocent drawn into all of his murderous activities and implicated in them against her will.

To the end of his life on Monday, aged 79, Brady maintained the opposite — that from the outset, she took an active and equal part in their acts of unspeakable cruelty.

Ian Brady: The Untold Story Of The Moors Murders by Dr Alan Keightley is published as an ebook and is available from Amazon at £4.99