subsidising the Wickford football team and sponsoring the very first BBC Essex Children In Need record, spread their reputation and busi- ness boomed. So much so that they opened a fourth shop in Wickford selling, not renting videos. It was the first ever videos to buy shop in Britain. In 1989 the shop was nominated for the National Award of Video Retailer of The Year. The competition was WH Smith, HMV, Woolworths and Harrods. This, their fourth shop, won this prestigious award and they went on to win the award for a further eight years, presented by the likes of Jonathan Ross and Bob Monkhouse. Richard’s success in building the music, CD and video mail order business led to him being offered a ten-year contract from the British Council to be their exclusive supplier of all films and music formats to all their 200+ offices around the world. Business rocketed and Richard and Adrian were now employing 54 staff and had moved from Crouch End to Great Baddow in Essex. When it became obvious that both music and film retailing were changing rapidly, Richard took the opportunity to return to his acting career, appearing at the Chelms- ford Theatre in numerous leading roles including The Madness of George The Third and 40 Years On and in several plays at the Arts Theatre Cambridge. In the 1990s Richard had started working within business training. He spent over twenty years working with hundreds of people around the world, from highly bespoke one-to-one sessions to working with crowds of up to 200 people, constantly receiving praise for his humour, feedback skills, and adroit handling of sensitive issues. As if overseeing shops, acting in plays and business training wasn’t enough, in 2003 Richard joined Adrian in starting up a property portfolio of seven properties which remain to this day. Although always very busy, when he moved to Norfolk Richard soon was co-opted on to the local parish council where he remained a very active member until his death. In the early 90s he received a letter from a woman he didn’t know called Wanda, who transpired to be the daughter of his birth mother, then deceased. Wanda was his half-sister. She and her husband became good friends and he was soon a part of this second family. Sadly, Richard’s brother Tony died suddenly in 1984 leaving behind a widow and two young boys and a girl, all under seven years old. Richard decided he would help his sister-in-law and the children wher- ever he could and he made himself always available to listen to them and help with their schooling costs. He loved nothing more than having them all round with the latest girl or boyfriend every Christmas dinner for the next 27 years. Those children, now grown up with their own offspring, still talk fondly of those times growing up. Sadly, they were without a dad, but, as Richard acted on stage and sold punk and dance music they called him ‘One Very Cool Uncle’!’ Paul Jordan adds: The archives found a number of references to David’s performances at the College in which he demonstrated his considerable acting skills and love of theatre. In 1963 the Eastbournian reviewed a College production of Hamlet : ‘Dyer and Burke (Horatio) were surely two of the most unforced and unselfish actors in the cast. The role of Horatio is a difficult one; to convey loyalty and sincerity more by presence than by words demands a sensitive interpreter. The fact that to an audience early caught up by the story Burke simply was Hamlet’s staunch friend is the measure of his success.’ The following year, the magazine again praised Richard’s skills in Penny for a Song : ‘Burke, as Matthews, dominated the evening by his diction, timing and civilised relish. Some actors cannot help imprinting themselves on their parts (Gielgud, Redgrave); others let the part superimpose itself on them (Guinness, Sellers). Burke is in this second category. He submerges, and when he surfaces again he is a new person, at whose elbow, one feels, stands Burke firmly in control.’ The Eastbourne Herald agreed: ‘To underplay a part without destroying the balance of the action or losing anything in characterisation is very hard to do, but Richard Burke with his delicately poised portrayal of Hallam Matthews, did it beautifully. Every glance, every gesture, every variation of his voice made this complex character come wonderfully alive.’ And from the Eastbournian again for a production of The Caretaker:
the day trips he took us on to Eastbourne and Cambridge. ‘I lost touch with him after he left Oxford. When my letters were not answered after he had gone to hospital with a bad attack of hepa- titis I even feared he might have died. By a happy chance, I discovered via an Internet search in 2017 that he was alive and well and living In Berlin. We were able to catch up with him after nearly 40 years! ‘When Tom arrived in Eastbourne in 1973, he spoke very little English. Despite having to pick up English in just a few terms he gained a place at Keble College, Oxford, in 1975, so went up to Oxford a year before me. Richard Brent (history teacher and house tutor at School House) and his wife Pauline worked wonders to arrange exams so he could get the grades he needed to qualify for his successful Oxford entrance. As he told it to me, he had to take many exams and sometimes had to be invigilated separately to be able to squeeze in all the necessary O and A-levels. Tom was very grateful to Richard Brent and travelled to England for his funeral. ‘His two older children are also OEs. Tom made an interesting comment about how the College had evolved over forty years. When Tom was at the College, he said there was just one other German boy, and he hardly knew him. However, when his daughter first arrived at the College she was shown around the school by another German girl to make her feel welcome. ‘Tom did not pursue a career in the law himself, but became a successful recruitment consultant. He entered this business at a junior level, when he needed to support his young family and worked his way up to a senior level at a very profitable business.’
Richard David Burke (Ascham 1955–59; Powell 1959–64) died on 27 May 2024, aged 78, after suffering a heart attack. We are very grateful to Richard’s partner, Adrian Rondeau, for the following tribute: Richard was adopted by parents Kath- leen and Gerald when nine months old. They also adopted another boy called Tony. They grew up at the family home in Bexhill where Richard went to school before completing his education at East- bourne College, where his passion for
English and especially the theatre were ignited. He soon got a job with the Penguin Players at the Bexhill Theatre playing a vast variety of parts in plays at both the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, and the Devonshire Park, Eastbourne. Before long he would be offered parts in theatre productions all over the country, appearing in many summer seaside plays and national tours. In 1969 he was cast in a play at the Theatre Royal, Bath where he met another actor, Adrian and, when they were both working in the West End (Richard was with the famous actor Kenneth Moore in a play called Signs Of The Times at the Vaudeville Theatre) they bought a house together in Crouch End which they converted into four bedsitters to let to actor friends and the basement into two-floor accommodation for themselves. This was the start of a long and suc- cessful partnership. Adrian had started a small business selling records in Essex, which became so well known that it moved to the High Street in Wickford. Richard offered to build up the burgeoning mail order arm of the business whilst still working as an actor with the likes of Wilfred Hyde White and Richard Murdoch in a play called Not In The Book and with Wilfrid Brambell (Steptoe) in A Christmas Carol . By the early 80s the record business had become worldwide famous and Richard was man- aging a team of eight full time despatch staff. When CDs came along they opened a second shop in Wickford and when videos started up, Richard, a great film fan, opened a third shop for video rental, confec - tionery, cigarettes, take-away snacks etc. This store was enormous so Richard decided to use part of it to house Wickford’s very first ‘Father Christmas Grotto’ which was a great success and ran for many years. Spurred on by this Richard decided to hold regular local summer talent contests in the store which he called Stars On The Rise , a rather cheeky take on Stars In Their Eyes . These local contests, judged by the local MP, radio DJs and well-known actors they had worked with, plus
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