38 Facts About Viv Stanshall

Viv Stanshall lived with his mother while his father served in the RAF during World War II.

Viv Stanshall described this early period as the happiest time of his childhood.

The family moved to the father's hometown of Walthamstow, Essex, where Viv Stanshall's younger brother Mark was born in 1949.

Viv Stanshall's father made him speak with a "plummy" accent for which he later became known.

Viv Stanshall studied at Walthamstow College of Art, where he met fellow students Ian Dury and Peter Greenaway.

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When he was 10, the Viv Stanshall family moved to the Essex coastal town of Leigh-on-Sea.

Viv Stanshall said he was a very bad waiter, but became a great teller of tall tales.

Viv Stanshall enrolled at the Central School of Art and Design in London.

Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were named after a word game that Viv Stanshall played with co-founder Slater, in which they cut up sentences and juxtaposed fragments to form new ones.

The band initially performed under this name, but grew tired of explaining what Dada meant and so it became the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, 'doo-dah' being a quaint expression that both Slater's mother and Viv Stanshall himself used to describe everyday objects; later the name was shortened to The Bonzo Dog Band, or just The Bonzos.

When Bron arrived at the location to check the progress of these endeavours, he found that Viv Stanshall had not written anything at all and had instead built a variety of hutches for his pet rabbits.

Viv Stanshall formed a number of short-lived groups during 1970 alone, including biG GRunt, The Sean Head Showband, Gargantuan Chums, and the slightly longer-lived Bonzo Dog Freaks, with Innes and the ever-faithful Cowan and White .

Viv Stanshall was a regular guest, broadcaster and presenter on numerous series on BBC radio.

In one example, Viv Stanshall visited a tailor's shop where he admired a pair of trousers.

When Viv Stanshall protested, the two men fought and split the trousers in two, so that they ended up with one leg each.

Thanks to his association with Peel, Viv Stanshall was asked to fill in for the disc jockey while he was on a month's holiday.

Viv Stanshall had developed what many consider to be his seminal work, Rawlinson End, as a spoken word performance piece during the first few years of the 1970s, recording an early version as part of The Bonzo Dog Band's reunion project Let's Make Up And Be Friendly.

Viv Stanshall had been playing around with the Rawlinson characters for some time, and they were first referred to on the Bonzos' 1967 number, "The Intro and the Outro": 'Great to hear the Rawlinsons on trombone.

In 1978, Viv Stanshall released an album, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, which reworked some material from the Peel sessions.

At the time, Viv Stanshall was living on The Searchlight, a house boat he had bought from Denny Laine and kept moored near Shepperton on the River Thames.

Viv Stanshall regularly performed live with Grimms, as well as occasionally working with The Alberts and The Temperance Seven during the first few years of the decade.

Viv Stanshall was a frequent contributor to BBC radio at this time, appearing weekly on Start The Week and Jack de Manio Precisely, and on the BBC television satire series Up Sunday.

In 1973, Viv Stanshall recorded tracks for the soundtrack album of the movie That'll Be the Day backed by Moon, Ronnie Wood, Graham Bond and Jack Bruce, and collaborated on numerous musical projects, making a memorable appearance as the Master of Ceremonies on Mike Oldfield's 1973 album Tubular Bells.

In early 1974, Viv Stanshall wrote, arranged, and quickly recorded his first solo album, Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead.

In 1975, Viv Stanshall provided the narration for The Rock Peter and the Wolf, produced by Robin Lumley and Jack Lancaster and featuring, among others, Gary Moore, Manfred Mann, Phil Collins, Bill Bruford, Stephane Grappelli, Alvin Lee, Cozy Powell, Brian Eno and Jon Hiseman.

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Viv Stanshall wrote the script for the film adaptation of the same name, later produced for Tony Stratton-Smith's Charisma Records company in 1980.

In 1982, Viv Stanshall provided a spoken word segment on "Lovely Money", a single by The Damned.

Viv Stanshall joined her on it in 1983, when they opened the doors of the theatre.

Viv Stanshall wrote 27 original songs for the opera, sharing book and lyric writing with his wife.

In 1968, Viv Stanshall married fellow art student Monica Peiser, and their son Rupert was born that year.

On 9 September 1980, Viv Stanshall married Pamela 'Ki' Longfellow, an American writer who had a daughter from an earlier relationship.

Viv Stanshall celebrated Silky's birth in "The Tube", and his marriage to Ki in "Bewilderbeeste", both songs being included on his album Teddy Boys Don't Knit.

Viv Stanshall confessed to having been terrified of his father, who he said had always disapproved of him.

Viv Stanshall said on the same programme that his father had never shown it, not even on his deathbed.

Viv Stanshall was found dead on the morning of 6 March 1995, after an electrical fire had broken out as he slept in his top floor flat in Muswell Hill, North London.

Viv Stanshall needed a producer to channel his energies, but always wanted to remain his own boss, having suffered too many perceived indignities in his early experience of the music business.

On 22 December 2009 BBC Radio 4's Great Lives series featured a programme on Viv Stanshall, who had been nominated by Neil Innes, with Ki Longfellow as expert witness, hosted by Matthew Parris.

Viv Stanshall is represented in the work by two quotes and his name.