From Dame Janet Baker to Eric Liddell: Twenty Four Treasures of Albion

1. From Dame Janet Baker to Jack Wild: Ten Musical Treasures of Albion

Dame Janet Baker, born Yorkshire, 1933, retired mezzo-soprano who specialised in the works of Elgar, Mahler, and Britten, as well as sacred music, and Classical and pre-Classical opera, but who was also a surpassing interpretor of French melodies, the songs of Berlioz, Faure, Duparc, Chausson, Debussy, Ravel, being surely among the - if not the - most perfect ever composed.

Al Bowlly (1899-1941), born Mozambique of Greek and Lebanese parentage, and raised in South Africa, Albion's first great vocal stylist. Very much England's answer to Bing Crosby and other seminal American crooners, he possessed a truly beautiful and charming soft-baritone voice, which, matched by the Mediterranean good looks of a matinee idol caused him to be known as The Swoon of the Thirties, adored and pursued in equal measure. He made his London debut as a singer in 1931 and was killed ten years later at the height of the London blitz by the explosion of a parachute mine outside his apartment.

Gary Clark, born Dundee, Scotland, 1961, singer-songwriter with a crooner-style baritone voice - one of the finest in Rock history - that is arguably every inch the equal of Scott Walker's, and former leader of the desperately undervalued trio  Danny Wilson, which produced two hyper-melodic masterpieces in Meet Danny Wilson (1987) and Bebop Moptop (1989), before dissolving  at the height  of  their  artistic powers. Whereupon Clark embarked upon a career as a solo artist, and songwriter and music producer for other artists.

Nicky Holland, born Hertfordshire, 1965, pianist, composer and singer-songwriter who studied at the Royal Academy of Music, and who, after co-writing songs with Roland Orzabal for '80s superstars Tears for Fears' final album, Sowing the Seeds of Love (1989), and for American soul singer Oleta Adams's Circle of One (1990), released her self-titled first album, a beautiful work whose mournful and passionate songs of endless romantic desideration demonstrated a very rare creative gift, in 1991. Her second, Sense and Sensuality, being released six  years later in 1997.

Paddy McAloon, born County Durham, 1957, front man and kingpin of Prefab Sprout, the legendary Indie band that achieved so much so soon, with five albums in just a little over six and a half years, namely Swoon from '84, Steve McQueen, '85, From Langley Park to Memphis, '88, Protest Songs, '89 and Jordan: The Comeback, '90, all of which gave testament to a compositional gift that place him among the greatest songwriters Albion ever sired. A  further five, including the largely instrumental McAloon solo work, I Trawl the Megahertz, being released in the succeeding quarter century or so.

Ken Moule (1926-1987), born Barking, east London, pianist, composer, conductor, and arranger, whose works include Toad at Toad Hall, and the Adam's Rib Suite, an innovative yet shockingly overlooked Jazz suite recorded in 1970 by the London Jazz Chamber group featuring the Patrick Halling String Quartet, and Jazz Legends Kenny Wheeler, Roy Willox, Louis Stewart, Lennie Bush, Ronnie Stephenson and Moule himself, and characterised by infectiously rhythmical Smooth Jazz pieces alternating with slower semi-classical passages of a melodic richness reminiscent of Debussy or Ravel.

Gilbert O'Sullivan, born Raymond O'Sullivan in Waterford, Ireland, 1947, but raised from the age of 11 in the highly urbanised Wiltshire town of Swindon, brilliantly original singer-songwriter, discovered playing in a wine bar by impresario Gordon Mills of Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck renown. Massive worldwide success ensued, including in the US, with such exemplars of the songwriting craft as Alone Again (Naturally), Clair, and Out of the Question, as well as the albums, notably his masterly debut, Himself, and while his superstar status may have ultimately faltered, the songs never did, neither in quantity, nor quality.

Brian Protheroe, born Salisbury, Wiltshire, 1944, actor and singer-songwriter, who secured a UK hit record in 1974 with the haunting and languorous Pinball, taken from the flawless masterwork of the same name, the first of several albums bespeaking quite transcendent melodic and lyrical gifts.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), England's greatest ever composer, and yet still undervalued compared to other Romantic and late Romantic composers. A simple man of a genially rustic demeanour, he was far too self-effacingly English to value his own work, which had a detrimental effect on his reputation as a great composer. Renowned for exquisite pastoral music based on English folk songs, including Fantasia on Greensleeves and the sublime The Lark Ascending, but there was far more to his genius than those supremely English pieces: he composed nine symphonies that are still under-appreciated, as well as oratorios, operas, concertos,  chamber music, songs etc. Yet, Albion's own beloved Vaughan Williams was recently voted number 30 on the list of the 100 Greatest Classical Composers.

Jack Wild (1952-2006), born Royton, Greater Manchester, cherub-faced actor and singer. Played Jack Dawkins the Artful Dodger to absolute perfection in the 1968 film version of Lionel Bart's Oliver based on Dickens' Oliver Twist, arguably the greatest film musical of the last five decades, before becoming a millionaire superstar and teen idol through the cult comedy series, H.R. Pufnstuff. With immense and touching fortitude, he successfully battled both alcoholism and cancer, to become a happily married Born Again Christian man in his early 50s, only to succumb to mouth cancer aged just 52.

2. From Anthony Andrews to Gerry Sundquist: Ten Histrionic Treasures of Albion

Anthony Andrews, born Finchley, London, 1949, award-winning actor perhaps best known for having delivered what was arguably the finest and most hauntingly powerful performance ever in a British television drama series as the tragic Catholic aristocrat Lord Sebastian Flyte. This in the masterful 1981 TV film version of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, adapted by John Mortimer, and directed by Michael Lindsay Hogg and Charles Sturridge. And more recently for having played Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in the Oscar-winning 2010 historical drama, The King's Speech.

Peter Finch (1916-1976), born South Kensington, London, underrated British-Australian  actor  of  immense  charm and sensitivity most famous for having won a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor in Sidney Lumet's Network (1976), while his finest work remains comparatively obscure, such as  the haunted, exquisitely modulated  performances he gave in  Ken Hughes' The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) and John Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967).

Dame Celia Johnson (1908-1984), born Richmond, Surrey, actress of unconventional sad-eyed beauty, whose performance in David Lean's Brief Encounter, one of the most romantic films ever engendered by the melancholy isle of Albion, is a masterpiece of repressed Anglo-Saxon passion. Primarily a stage actress, she was knighted for her services to the British theatre in 1981.

Kevin Lloyd (1949-1998) born Derby, Derbyshire, actor brother of the television journalist Terry Lloyd,killed in Iraq in 2003. Best known for the role of portly moustachioed detective DC Tosh Lynes in Britain's longest running police drama series, Thames Television's The Bill, he began his career as a strikingly attractive stage actor in Joe Orton's What the What the Butler Saw, and with the Bristol Old Vic and RSC, following his tenure at the East 15 drama school. Tragically, he lost a long battle with alcoholism in 1998, predeceasing his brother by almost exactly five years.

Gerry Sundquist (1955-1993), born Manchester, one-time histrionic wunderkind whose screen credits include Alexandria... Why?,directed by Youssef  Chahine, and the British Saturday Night Fever, Ian Sharp's The Music Machine, both from 1979, and who for television played Michael Radlet in the 1979–80 adaptation of Catherine Cookson's The Mallens, and Pip in Great Expectations, directed by Julian Amyes in 1981, among other major roles. It could be said that circa 1977, Sundquist was, in much the same way perhaps as fellow northerner Peter Firth, the quintessence of the gilded young actor of infinite promise. And as such was conceivably  foremost among the forerunners of later generations of English actors of beauty and brilliance when they themselves stood on the brink of glittering international acting careers. Although he was operating in an era in which the latter arguably didn't enjoy the kind of high profile they do today in Hollywood, and so was perhaps prophetic of things to come. While being symbolic of a deeply tragic aspect existent within the nature of actorly aspiration insofar as the degree of success presaged by his early career failed to materialize as it might have done, while befalling so many of his successors.

3. From John Wesley to Eric Liddell: Four Christian Treasures of  Albion

John Wesley (1703-1791), born Epworth, Lincolnshire, co-founder of the Methodist movement, who while never disassociating himself from either The Church of England nor the Reformed tradition, went against the grain of both in certain extremely vital respects.Hisemphasisonpersonal Holiness went on to exert a colossal influence on the evolution of Pentecostalism, and of course the Holiness movements that preceded it. These included the Salvation Army, and the lesser known Church of the Nazarene. Both are spiritually Wesleyan in so far as they uphold such doctrines as Conditional Salvation, or the ability of the Believer to make a shipwreck of his faith and so lose his or her salvation...which runs contrary to traditional Reformed or Protestant theology; and by Wesleyan, I mean Arminian, after the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius. And few men in history have done more for the Arminian cause than England's own beloved John Wesley. But rather than any lukewarm variant, Wesley's was a truly Biblical Arminianism with a powerful emphasis on personal Holiness, the very type, in fact, that was bequeathed to several generations of churches up to and including the early Pentecostals. It lives on to this day among ClassicalPentecostals of every stripe,notleastthose of the Alliance of Biblical Pentecostals...as well as various fundamental Arminian groups including the Fundamentalist Wesleyan Society, and the Society of Evangelical Arminians.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885), born London, missionary, philanthropist and social reformer. Ceaselessly, selflessly and tirelessly campaigned on behalf of the mentally ill, mill workers, mineworkers, women labourers, climbing boys (apprentice chimney sweeps), even brute beasts, such was the extent and depth of his compassion for the exploited and marginalised of Victorian Britain.

David Livingstone (1813-1873), born Blantyre, Scotland, missionary, explorer and sworn enemy of slavery. Sought to make the Western World aware of Africa, and to expose the Slave Trade as "the open sore of the world". On one occasion, such was the passion and power of his sense of rightness and justice, Livingstone cut some cruelly bound slaves free after having single handedly chased a horde of traders away. Died on his knees in prayer by his bed aged 60 in northern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). His devoted African friends accorded him the longest funeral procession in history.

Eric Liddell (1902-1945), born Tianjin, China, Chinese-born Scottish missionary and Olympic running champion, beautifully portrayed by Ian Charleson in Hugh Hudson's Academy Award-winning 1981 movie, Chariots of Fire. As depicted in Chariots, he refused to take part during the Paris Olympics of 1924 in the heats for the 100 metres, and the 4x100, and 4x400 relay races, which were his best events, as they fell on Sunday and doing so would have conflicted with his deeply felt belief as a Christian that Sunday is a sacred day set aside for God. But he went on to win a Gold medal for Britain in the 400 meters, breaking the world record in the process. Almost two decades later while serving as a missionary in his beloved China, Liddell entered a Japanese internment camp where he died soon after his 43rd birthday in January 1945.