Category: Did Cliff Robertson die in 633 Squadron

East Sussex Lay Subsidy Rolls: 1550 – Rotherfield, Cuckfield, Horsham, Lewes and others.

There is a permanent page for this post here . Update: I recently attempted an analysis of what the cow hides actually list, which you can view at your own risk on the permanent page.

In 2009 I paid for the National Archives to copy these Lay Subsidy Rolls (tax payments collected on cow hides), because nobody has previously requested this be done, so they were not available. These rolls (rots) may also be relevant to other genealogists, so I am sharing high resolution images of them here. I still have a record of the receipts.

Key
Amounts are usually given in Pounds, Shillings and Pennies
The ‘j’ indicates the last penny of each amount

Note
It would take me far too long to order these rolls (rots) according to their Borough, village or district and I could easily make a mistake, because they are so hard to read. Thus I will simply list them with their Roll file index name and leave it to others to dig further! Continue reading “East Sussex Lay Subsidy Rolls: 1550 – Rotherfield, Cuckfield, Horsham, Lewes and others.” →

Cliff Robertson Honorary Documentary

My all-time favourite film, set during wartime, is 633 Squadron (1964), starring Academy Award Winner Cliff Robertson. You may know him better as Peter Parker’s uncle in Spider Man.

633 Squadron is also one of my favourite movies of all time. The editing is tight and the action is the edge-of-your-seat stuff of legend. Here’s some trivia for you: did you know 633 Squadron was George Lucas’s inspiration for the Death Star attack in Star Wars IV – A New Hope? A great deal of the credit for the film’s taught style and human depth can be attributed to Cliff Robertson, who had enough influence in Hollywood at this time to ask for rewrites of film scripts. Cliff was at the very pinnacle of Hollywood’s acting elite and is still, to my knowledge the only actor to win a Grammy each for film, theatre and advertising. His Oscar for Charly was well-deserved and if you haven’t seen that, PT 109 (where Cliff played John F Kennedy) or 633 Squadron, see them.

Cliff was one of my childhood heroes and I was lucky enough to correspond with with Cliff at the end of his life. Along with many other fans, I always wondered what happened to his character, Roy Grant, at the end of the film. He is badly wounded but we can’t be sure whether he survives or not. After a heated discussion on youtube, I decided to try and contact Cliff to find out. With the help of Stephen Thompson, Cliff’s Press Agent, I was able to write a letter with a set of questions and get these to Cliff. Continue reading “Cliff Robertson Honorary Documentary” →

Cliff Robertson Biographical film

Just a quick post:

I had a very short correspondence with Cliff at the end of his life, because I was a huge fan of his since I was a child, and I wanted to ask him some questions about my favourite film, 633 Squadron. He was mad about aircraft himself. I found Cliff to be incredibly warm and friendly, and he tried to answer most of my questions. He even asked me over to do a ‘mano a mano’ interview. I would have loved to have gone, but I couldn’t really find the time. I regret this now, because I didn’t know how ill he was. Please help raise some money, so we can honour this outstanding and inspirational man. Click on the link below and find out more:

https://www.thomcomm.com

Facebook page no longer exists.

But you can comment on the blog:

https://cliffrobertsonhonorarydocumentary.blogspot.com/

I have asked Steve Thompson  who is guiding this project to post about this project on this blog in the next few weeks.