Trivia

Son of an army officer, he saw military action himself during World War II. Taken prisoner in Calais in 1940, he was interned in a POW camp in Poland for five years. There, he took charge of theatrical activities among the prisoners, writing and staging plays.

Outlived by his wife by over 30 years, Lavender Kydd died on September 15th 2012 aged 97.

His wife, Lavender 'Pinkie' Barnes, was an outstanding table tennis player, competing for England in three world team championships; later she became one of the first women advertising copywriters at Masius and Ferguson.

Subject of the "Spot Sam Kydd" game.

He was the father of actor Jonathan Kydd.

Belfast-born, he lived in England from aged 7. During his acting career, he specialised in playing irrepressible cockney characters and Irishmen. He in fact spoke RP (received pronunciation) as he'd been to Dunstable School. He had a great ear for accents and in many of his early films was a northerner, a west country man, Scots, and even eastern European. This facility with different characters worked superbly in the Televison sketch comedy he did in he 1950s.

His wife Pinkie was 1949 World Doubles Table Tennis Finalist.

When WWII came he joined the army but he was captured at Dunkirk and spent four years as a prisoner of war. He wrote a book of his experiences: 'For You the War is Over'.

Before the war he was a dance band leader and a vocalist at the Hammersmith Palais.