Notable People Associated With Belper

Belper is a town eight miles to the north of Derby, on the A6 road, on the river Derwent in the Amber Valley of Derbyshire, in the East Midlands of England. There are a number of notable residents associated with the town, from the fields of movies, TV, novels and government.

The children’s writer Monica Edwards was born in Belper in the year 1912. She went on to create a number of successful books, the most well known of which are the Romney Marsh and the Punchbowl Farm series. Monica had a colourful early life. Her father Harry Newton was a vicar and also a diocesan exorcist. He and often took Monica and his other children along to exorcisms. In the year 1928 Monica saw a lifeboat capsize. Everyone on board died, and Monica knew all 17 crew members personally. Monica wrote a novel called Storm Ahead about the sinking of the lifeboat, which was published in the year 1953.

Lord George Brown, born in the year 1914 was the Labour candidate for Belper and went on to become deputy leader of the Labour party during the nineteen sixties, and served in a number of positions in the Labour Government under the Prime Minister of the time, Harold Wilson. One of the positions he held was Foreign Secretary. He was always known as George Brown and kept the name Lord George Brown for his peerage title, instead of the more conventional peerage title of Lord Brown.

The movie actor Timothy Dalton, the fourth James Bond from the year 1987 to the year 1989, was born in the year 1946 and raised in Belper. He played the James Bond character in The Living Daylights, released in the year 1987, and Licence to Kill, released in the year 1989. James Bond is a fictional M16 agent created by the novelist Ian Fleming in the year 1963. The character has been played in movies by a number of other actors including Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.

The actress Tracy Shaw was born in Belper in the year 1973, Tracy’s parents ran the Talbot Hotel in Belper. Tracy went on to play the hairdresser Maxine Peacock in the highly popular soap opera Coronation Street throughout the nineteen nineties and the early years to the 2000s. Tracy’s character was written out of the show in the year 2003 when her character was murdered. She set up a charity to help teenagers combat eating disorders during the 1990s.

The Olympic swimmer Ross Davenport was born in Belper in the year 1984 and went to Belper School in the year 1995. He went on to win two gold medals in the Commonwealth Games in the year 2006 in Melbourne, Australia. In the same year he won the accolade of BBC East Midlands Sports Personality of the Year. He participated in the Beijing Olympics in the year 2008 where he won the two hundred metres freestyle competition. He now is a resident of Loughborough.

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