Birthdays

Patric Dickinson has been the Richmond Herald of Arms for 17 years. “I design coats of arms, trace family trees and dress up as a playing card twice a year.” He always likes to go abroad on his birthday, this year Paris, last year New York. He has a colleague’s funeral to attend first: “Fortunately, it is on the way to Heathrow so I can rejoin the Piccadilly Line.” He says he likes to change the recreation he lists in Who’s Who every year. In the past it has been “attending memorial services” and “avoiding Christmas”— this year it is “tying up loose ends”, which, he adds, “I guess that is rather what heralds do all the time.” Patric Dickinson is 56 today. RGT

David Blakey, Chief Constable of West Mercia, 1991-99, 63; Ian Botham, cricketer and broadcaster, 51; Billy Connolly, actor and comedian, 64; Beryl Cooper, a Recorder of the Crown Court, 1977-98, 79; Roger Dancey, chief master of King Edward’s School, Birmingham, 1998-2005, 61; Judge Elisabeth Fisher, circuit judge, 62; General Sir Richard Lawson, Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces Northern Europe, 1982-86, 79; Lord Moser, Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, 1984-93, 84; Charles Osborne, author, 79; Vivien Saunders, golfer, 60; Mark Taylor, director of the Museums Association, 48.