Only this, which would serve as a starter: but you'd need her marriage certificate to get her father's name. Mary Isobel Sugden was born in Keighley in Yorkshire on July 21 1922. Her father ran an iron and steel company. Mollie Sugden was educated at the local Grammar School, then worked during the war in a munitions factory in Keighley making shells for the Royal Navy. When she was later made redundant, she enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Away from showbusiness, Mollie Sugden enjoyed gardening, cooking and driving fast cars. "I used to speed about in a Porsche," she told an interviewer in 1995. "But seven or eight years ago I was done for doing 92mph on the motorway, so now I drive a Mercedes." Mollie Sugden and her husband had identical twin sons, born when she was 41.She confessed that when they were very young she had to keep them labelled so that she could tell them apart and that "more than once I bathed the same one twice". Her husband died in 2000. The TV star, best known for playing Mrs Slocombe in long-running BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?, died at the Royal Surrey Hospital after a long illness on 1 July 2009. The Yorkshire-born actress's twin sons, Robin and Simon Moore, were at her bedside, agent Joan Reddin said. Sugden, who lived in Surrey, was married to fellow actor William Moore, best known for his role as Ronnie Corbett's father in sitcom Sorry! It was while treading the boards in 1956 that she met her husband. They married two years later, when she was 35 and he was 39. Their twin sons were born six years later. cheers Maggie

On 8 Mar 2010 at 8:45, [email protected] wrote: > Only this, which would serve as a starter: but you'd need her marriage > certificate to get her father's name. > > Mary Isobel Sugden was born in Keighley in Yorkshire on July 21 1922. < But you don't need a marriage certificate to get her father's name. There is a biography at: http://www.officialmolliesugden.co.uk/biography.html which names her parents as Willie Sugden and Mary Shackleton and supposedly takes her Sugden ancestry back to 1811, assuming it's accurate. She had a brother John Paul born in 1908 and if the biog is correct, then both her parents were over 40 when she arrived. Actually, I was interested to see her mother was a Shackleton since I, too, descend from the Keighley Shackletons (as did Sir Ernest Shackleton), so quite possibly I was distantly (very) related to her. Thanks for the prompt! I may now check out her ancestry myself. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE