Remembering Dad’s Army actor John le Mesurier

British actor John Le Mesurier with his cat, 1971. (Photo by Michael Ward/Getty Images)

John le Mesurier found fame as Sergeant Wilson in the long-running BBC comedy series, Dad’s Army.

Although he wasn’t born on Guernsey, he had links to the island – and a Guernsey surname, even though it wasn’t the name he was born to.

John Elton Le Mesurier Halliley was born in Bedford in 1912 to Amy Michelle Halliley. Amy had been born on Guernsey and was the descendant of the last hereditary governor of Alderney. Her maiden name had been Le Mesurier and her marriage might have spelled the end of the name in that particular branch of the family were it not for her husband’s apparent dislike of the acting profession.

After leaving school and some time spent working in his father’s office, John le Mesurier enrolled in an acting school. He quickly found success under the name John Halliley, but in September 1937, after several seasons in the theatre, he adopted his mother’s maiden name, le Mesurier.

His biographer wrote that he hadn’t explained why he had done this, but The Rough Index to the Le Mesurier / Le Messurier Family by the Guernsey Society (PGF) states that his father “would not countenance a mere actor bearing his name. As a result John had to use Le Mesurier as a stage name.”

Thus, the le Mesurier name reappeared.

In a wonderfully self-deprecating interview given to Channel Television in 1978, he talked about his Alderney connections but explained that he had never lived in Guernsey, despite claims having been written to the contrary in the years since.

He died on 15 November 1983 of cirrhosis of the liver. He had been known to be a heavy drinker through much of his life.

First published at On this day in Guernsey, remembering his death, November 15, 1983

Georges Remi, cartoonist who created Tin-Tin, dead at 75

Georges Remi, better known as Hergé, at work in 1975 on his final book of the “Tintin” series.Credit...
Photo: Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma, via Corbis

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Georges Remi, the Belgian cartoonist and author whose creation Tin-Tin won the admiration of Brigitte Bardot, Charles De Gaulle and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, died Thursday night of leukemia. He was 75.

Officials at the Saint Luc hospital in Brussels said Remi had been admitted a week ago for treatment of the disease.

Known by his pen-name Herge, Remi's books on the adventures of the globe-trotting boy reporter Tin-Tin were translated into 32 languages and distributed around the world.

Born in Brussels on May 22, 1907, Remi developed his talent as a cartoonist and illustrator as a student, winning fame with the publication in 1929 of Tin-Tin's adventures in the Soviet Union.

'Tin-Tin, like me, was a reporter who never wrote a single article,' Remi once said.

'There's an element of protest in Tin-Tin which I wasn't at all aware of when I started. Tin-Tin is an adolescent fighting the adult establishment -- gun runners, prevaricating politicians, drugs ... the person I should have liked to have been, the hero,' Remi said.

With his upturned curl of orange hair and a blank stare, Tin-Tin captured the imagination of such diverse fans as Miss Bardot and Madame Chiang Kai-shek.

Even the late General de Gaulle shed his Olympian reserve once with the remark, 'my only rival on the international scene is Tin-Tin.'

Remi's pen-name Hergé is taken from his initials. He published 23 Tin-Tin adventures up to 1976.

First published at United Press International, (UPI) March 4, 1983