Alfred Burke(1918-2011)

Burke was born in Peckham, South London after his family arrived from Cork, in Ireland. He was educated in Leo Street School, Peckham, then Walworth Central. At 15, he left school and became an office boy with a railway wagon repair firm. A year later, he became a steward in a businessmen's club in Bishopsgate. His job ended abruptly when he quarrelled with a barmaid and she squirted soda in his face. Too frightened to tell his parents, he ran away to Brighton, but post-Winter there was no work and he was forced to return home to a job in a silk warehouse in Cheapside. At 17, he left home and went into lodgings in New Cross. For the first time, he started going to the cinema and the theatre. Finding it exciting, he took up amateur dramatics with a local group and went to Morley College where he won a scholarship to RADA in 1937. Burke eventually met and married Barbara, an actress, who was originally training to be a singer. They had two sets of twins, Jacob and Harriet and Kelly and Louisa, all musically inclined. Alfred became well known when he played private eye Frank Marker in the TV series Public Eye.