Glen's life was a Cavalcade

Tribute to the much-loved kids' entertainer who passes away peacefully aged 99

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Glen Michael, of Glen Michael's Cartoon Cavalcade, long running STV family cartoon/ magazine programme in the 60s to 90s, died peacefully last Wednesday in his South Ayrshire home. He was 99.

Born Cecil Edward Buckland on May 16th, 1926 in Paignton, Devon to Mabel and Arthur Buckland Glen was named after his uncle who died in the First World War during a training exercise as a pilot. Unsurprisingly he was advised to change his name to Glen Michael early on in his showbusiness career.

Glen had an itinerant childhood as his father regularly changed jobs when he got restless or fell out with his employers. His father, Arthur, was a butler and his mother Mabel, a housekeeper.

She and her husband Artie were employees of many prestigious families. However, one of Glen’s earliest memories was being bundled out of one of his father’s employers’ houses late at night leaving the unsuspecting family with no butler or housekeeper to make and serve breakfast when the family arose the next day. Such had been his father’s ire with his employer.

Another early memory for Glen was as the five-year-old playmate of the man who would grow up to become the late queen Elizabeth's horse racing manager Lord Porchester, who was to become 7th Earl of Carnarvon.

Glen simply knew him as ‘Porchey’ as the youngsters played in the grounds of Highclere more commonly known today as the setting for Downton Abbey.

Mabel, Glen's mother, was horrified when she discovered the two young boys had become firm friends as in those days upstairs and downstairs simply didn’t fraternise.

The family had an early tragedy when Glen's older brother Gerald died aged 13 from meningitis.

The family had their struggles and Glen also recalled sleeping under a hedge one night aged 12, freezing cold being cuddled by his mother as they had nowhere else to go.