Beachcomber
Entry updated 25 February 2017. Tagged: Author, House name.
A House Name of the UK newspaper The Daily Express for its By the Way column (formerly a venue for unsigned humorous pieces in The Globe 1903-1909, with P G Wodehouse as the department's assistant editor and, from August 1904, chief editor). Its first Express incarnation, from 1917 to 1919, was a society-doings column written by Major John Arbuthnot (1875-1950), who inaugurated the Beachcomber byline. D B Wyndham Lewis reinvented By the Way as an outlet for whimsical Humour in 1919, continuing as Beachcomber until 1924. The greatest and best-remembered Beachcomber era was that of the house name's and column title's use by J B Morton from 1924 to 1975, much but very far from all of this material being collected into book form before and after Morton's death in 1979. Spike Milligan played Beachcomber and other roles in the Morton-based BBC Television comedy The World of Beachcomber (1969), which ran for 19 episodes. By the Way returned to the Express in 1996 and is currently written by William Hartston (1947- ). [DRL]
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