Round and round

BEEN AND GONE
By Nick Serpell
BBC Obituary Unit

Round and round

Our regular column covering the passing of significant - but lesser-reported - people of the past month.

Thousands of British motorists found themselves going round in circles after Frank Blackmore invented the mini roundabout. A professional traffic engineer, he became frustrated with hold ups at conventional junctions, and campaigned for a system of priority from the right. When this failed to be accepted, he came up with the idea of a small roundabout with no centre. The first was installed in Peterborough 1969 with Blackmore, in attendance, shouting instructions at motorists through a loud hailer.

Trevor Wilkinson fuelled boy racer fantasies

Trevor Wilkinson, far from being a frustrated motorist, founded the iconic British sports car company TVR. A professional engineer, Wilkinson was quick to take advantage of the use of a glass-reinforced plastic body over a metal frame. This became the basis for all his future cars, which featured powerful engines in a light body, giving very high performance. Early models were sold in kit form which allowed customers to avoid the tax payable on ready assembled vehicles. Wilkinson left TVR in 1962, but his legacy lives on its name, a shortening of Trevor.

The Spinners, with Cliff Hall, top right

The Spinners carved out a successful career as one of Britain's top folk bands thanks, in part, to their lead singer Cliff Hall. The Liverpool-based group became one of the biggest acoustic acts in Britain playing not only traditional folk songs but also music from Hall's Jamaican heritage. A black singer in an otherwise white band was a rarity in the 1960s but reflected Liverpool's multi-racial mix. The band released more than 30 albums and became regular TV performers.

Psychedelia, rather than folk music, was Alton Kelley's stock in trade. Based in San Francisco in the 1960s, he designed album covers and posters reflecting the acid-drenched culture of the time. His work included the skull and roses poster, adopted as their image by The Grateful Dead, as well as publicity material for bands such as Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother & The Holding Company. Many of his posters quickly became collectors' items. Disillusioned with what he saw as the commercialisation of the hippy dream, he went back to his previous work painting custom cars and hot rods.

The wonderfully-named Kermit Love was the Big Bird creator

While Kermit Love's name was not the inspiration for the Muppets' green front frog, he did create Big Bird, the 8ft-tall yellow star of Sesame Street. Love began his career as a costume designer on Broadway before meeting Muppets creator Jim Henson in the 1960s. He designed Big Bird so that the creature would shed feathers while it moved, believing this made it look more natural to younger viewers. He created other Sesame Street favourites such as Mr Snuffleupagus and became a consultant on The Muppet Show.

Neculai Ivascu became one of the few politicians to be elected to office after his death. The long serving mayor of the small Romanian village of Voinesti died just days before local elections were due to be held on 17 June. Despite his demise, he managed to poll more votes than his nearest rival, although the election commission later declared his win invalid. "I know he died, but I don't want change," one villager told Romanian TV.

Among others who died in June were French fashion designer Yves St Laurent; Mel Ferrer, actor and director and one time husband of Audrey Hepburn; rock music pioneer Bo Diddley; Jonathan Routh, star of Candid Camera; and leggy American actress Cyd Charisse.