Frank Thornton(1921-2013)

He was the third child of William Ernest Ball, a bank manager, and Rosina, whose other children were Marjorie (who died in 1980) and John. Thornton was his mother's maiden name and his middle name. He played the cello in his school's orchestra and was a corporal in the Officer's Training Corps, which he left in 1937 to became a clerk with the Guardian Insurance Company in London. He eventually left to follow a colleague who wanted to to be an actor. Frank thought he'd do the same and enrolled in the London School of Dramatic Art evening classes. In 1939, the school evacuated to Whitney in Oxfordshire. He went with them, and, still a student, acted in the local repertory company along with Peter Jones.In 1941, he was in the West End with Donald Wolfit and after that a year in The Scarlet Pimpernel at Manchester Opera House where he met actress Beryl Evans. In September 1943, he was in the RAF and sent to Nova Scotia to train as a navigator, then became a pilot officer and stayed on after the war in the entertainment unit, along with three corporals: Peter Sellers, Dick Emery and Tony Hancock. He was demobbed in 1947 and the same year appeared in the musical The Dancing Years. In mid-November 1950, he was compere on television's The Centre Show, a variety show in which Hugh Lloyd made his debut. Frank married Beryl on the 5th January 1945 and had a daughter, Jane, in 1946, residing in West Wickham in Kent.