Stuart Adamson

William Stuart Adamson - who was born on April 11th, 1958 - was an English-born Scottish rock guitarist and singer, most-famous as the the frontman of the pop-rock band, Big Country.  Born in Manchester, England, to Scottish parents William and Anne (nee Muir), at the age of four Adamson's family relocated to the small mining town of Crossgates (about a mile east of Dunfermline) in Fife, Scotland.  Educated at Beath High School in Cowdenbeath, Adamson formed the Dunfermline band Tattoo in 1976, before creating Skids, who performed in the Edinburgh area, in 1977.  Skids' biggest success was the song Into The Valley which reached number 10 in the U.K. singles chart in March of 1979.  After four charting singles that year, Adamson quit the band in 1980, forming Big Country the following year.  The band's first hit, Fields of Fire, reached number 10 on the U.K. singles chart in 1983, and was also a success in New Zealand and the U.S.  The subsequent album, The Crossing, powered by the single In a Big Country, reached at least the top-20 in North America as well as New Zealand and the U.K.  Big Country's following three albums all reached the top ten in the U.K., although were less-successful abroad.  The band continued recording studio albums and touring until 1999, although with gradually-decreasing record sales.  In November of 1999, Adamson went missing for a time, causing Big Country to have to cancel stadium gigs supporting Bryan Adams on a tour of Scotland.  With his first wife Sandra, Adamson had two children - Callum (born: 1982) and Kirsten (born: 1985) - who both became musicians.  Adamson had struggled with alcoholism in his earlier years, but became sober around 1990.  In 1996, he split with his first wife and moved to Nashville, U.S.A., where, in 1999, he married Melanie Shelley, a hairdresser.  Whilst in the U.S., Adamson founded his final band: an alternative-country duo called The Raphaels with Nashville songwriter Marcus Hummon.  Adamson's alcoholism began returning in the early 2000s, and he had been due to face drink-driving charges in March of 2002, and had been ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous.  On November 26th, 2001, Adamson's second wife reported him missing; the pair had been estranged for six weeks at the time, and his wife had filed for divorce on the day he disappeared.  Adamson disappeared after leaving a note for his son Callum on Wednesday, November 7th, saying, "Back by noon, Sunday."  Appeals were put out for his whereabouts, including by his former Big Country bandmate, Bruce Watson.  The last clue to his location was a credit card transaction record, showing that he had checked out of the Best Western Hotel on Music Row, Nashville, on December 3rd.  On December 16th, 2001, Adamson's dead body was found in a room he had booked into in the Best Western Plaza Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii.  According to a local police report, he had committed suicide by hanging himself with an electrical cord from a pole in a wardrobe.  A subsequent Coroner's Office report found that he had consumed a "very strong" amount of alcohol around the time of his death.  Stuart Adamson was 43 years old.

Annie St. John

Ann Florence Heywood - who was born on September 8th, 1954, in Blackpool, Lancashire, England - was a British television presenter.  Growing up in Blackpool, Lancashire, she attended Blackpool Collegiate Grammar School for Girls and the Rose Bruford Drama School.  As a young woman, she worked as a mahout (an elephant rider, trainer, or keeper) at the Blackpool Tower Circus, and performed at repertory theatre in Bolton, Salisbury, and at the Young Vic in London.  In 1976, she married the actor, Michael St. John.  Annie first made her name on television in 1978, working as a hostess on the first two series of the networked Yorkshire Television gameshow, 3-2-1, before joining HTV West in 1981 as a newsreader and continuity announcer.  Her popularity in the West-Country was such that viewers launched a Save Our Annie campaign when she left the station in 1983 to join Tyne Tees Television in Newcastle.  During her time at Tyne Tees, St. John continued to freelance for HTV West and also for London Weekend Television.  As well as announcing duties, she presented various regional programmes, including Ask Oscar; a weekly What's On programme; It's Nearly Saturday; and the advice series, Problems.  By the late 1980s, St. John had become one of the main anchors of the nightly regional news programme, HTV News, alongside Bruce Hockin and Richard Wyatt, whilst still pursuing her continuity role.  She also presented a request show for the local independent radio station, Radio West.  In November of 1990, after colleagues became concerned when she failed to turn up for work, HTV director of programming Derek Clark and a staff rigger went to her flat in Baltic Wharf, Bristol, where they found St. John naked and semi-conscious on a bed, clutching a teddy-bear, having taken an overdose of champagne and drugs.  She was able to confirm to an ambulanceman that she had taken 80 tablets from two bottles that were found by her bed.  Apparently, St. John suffered a heart attack shortly after arriving in hospital, which left her in a vegetative condition.  On Monday, December 10th, 1990 - 38 days after taking the overdose - she died in hospital.  St. John's funeral was held at St. Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol, and she was cremated in the city.  Her grave is located at Carleton Cemetery in her hometown of Blackpool.  Survived by her husband of 14 years, Michael, an inquest later recorded a verdict of suicide.  It also transpired that St. John had been having an affair with Nick Kerswell, an HTV journalist, for six months before her death; although, on the evening of her overdose, she had been sharing a drink for forty minutes with her estranged husband.  Her husband later said that she had mentioned having a row with someone, but didn't want to dwell on it, and otherwise she seemed fine.  A briefcase found in her house contained several letters and photographs addressed to Kerswell, which he claimed to have destroyed after reading.  Pathologist Nicholas Rooney attributed St. John's death to bronchial pneumonia caused by a cerebral haemmorhage.  Annie St. John was just 36 years old.

Angela Scoular

Angela Margaret Scoular - who was born on November 8th, 1945, in London, England - was an English actress and "Bond Girl".  Her father was an engineer, and she was the niece of the Australian-born actress, Margaret Johnston, who encouraged her to take up acting.  After attending St. George's School in Harpenden, and Queen's College in Harley Street, London, Scoular studied at RADA.  Her first acting role was on the television series No Hiding Place in 1963.  A few more T.V. roles culminated in her landing the part of "Buttercup" in the 1967 James Bond film, Casino Royale.  That same year, Scoular played the lead role of "Cathy" in a BBC adaption of Wuthering Heights.  In 1969, she once again became a "Bond Girl", when she played "Ruby" in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  Numerous more parts followed, including a stint in Coronation Street in 1972.  Scoular met the actor Leslie Phillips in 1976 when they appeared in a play together, moving in together the following year.  At the time, Phillips, who was 21 years her senior, was still married to his first wife, who had been crippled by a stroke, whilst Scoular was pregnant with another actor's child.  They raised her son, Daniel, together, and Scoular became stepmother to Phillips's four children.  After Phillips's first wife died in a house fire in 1981, he married Scoular in 1982.  In later years, Scoular had prominent parts in the BBC series You Rang, M'Lord? from 1988 to 1993, and As Time Goes By in 1996.  By this time, she was drinking heavily, and had been suffering from anorexia nervosa and mood swings.  In 1992, she attempted to commit suicide by slashing her wrists.  She was found by her husband, who said that he had saved her from being sectioned in a psychiatric hospital years earlier.  Scoular was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2008; despite being declared cancer-free after treatment, she was haunted by thoughts of it returning.  In early 2011, she was arrested for drink-driving after crashing her car in Wales.  On April 11th, 2011, at her home in Maida Vale, Scoular, suffering from severe depression, ingested drain cleaner, which contained 91% sulphuric acid, also pouring it over her body, causing non-survivable 40% burns to her throat, body, and dietary tract.  She was pronounced dead at a Central London hospital at 5.28 p.m. that day.  A coroner's inquest concluded that Scoular killed herself "while the balance of her mind was disturbed", curiously adding that the death was not a suicide.  The cause of death was listed as "ingestion of a corrosive substance and multiple fractures".  At the time of her death, Scoular was on medication for bipolar disorder, had anxiety about debts, and was drinking between 150 and 210 units of alcohol a week.  Angela Scoular was 65 years old.