Myles Peter Carpenter Rudge (8 July 1926 – 10 October 2007) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 famous for writing the lyrics for novelty songs. His songs "Hole in the Ground" and "Right Said Fred

Right Said Fred

Right Said Fred is an English pop band, formed in 1989 by brothers Richard Fairbrass and Fred Fairbrass, later joined by their friend Rob Manzoli. The group is named after a song of the same name which was a hit for Bernard Cribbins in 1962...

" were both Top 10 chart hits in the UK in 1962, both recorded by Bernard Cribbins

Bernard Cribbins

Bernard Cribbins, OBE is an English character actor, voice-over artist and musical comedian with a career spanning over half a century who came to prominence in films in the 1960s, has been in work consistently since his professional debut in the mid 1950s, and as of 2010 is still an active...

 to music by Ted Dicks and produced by George Martin

George Martin

Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

 for Parlophone

Parlophone

Parlophone is a record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch was formed in 1923 as "Parlophone" which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a leading jazz label. It was acquired in 1927 by the Columbia Graphophone Company which...

. His song "A Windmill in Old Amsterdam" was a hit in 1965 for Ronnie Hilton

Ronnie Hilton

Ronnie Hilton was an English singer and radio presenter. According to his obituary in The Guardian newspaper, "Hilton was one of those 1950s vocalists whose career coincided with rock and roll's 1956 onslaught on the ballad dominated hit parade...

.

Rudge was born in Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, where his father was a advertising

Advertising

Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

 copywriting

Copywriting

Copywriting is the use of words and ideas to promote a person, business, opinion or idea. Although the word copy may be applied to any content intended for printing , the term copywriter is generally limited to promotional situations, regardless of the medium...

 clerk. He was educated at Bristol Grammar School

Bristol Grammar School

Bristol Grammar School is a co-educational independent school in Clifton, Bristol, England. The school was founded in 1532 by two brothers, Robert and Nicholas Thorne....

, where a friend and classmate was playwright Peter Nichols

Peter Nichols

Peter Nichols FRSL is an English writer of stage plays, film and television.Born in Bristol, England, he was educated at Bristol Grammar School, and served his compulsory National Service as a clerk in Calcutta and later in the Combined Services Entertainments Unit in Singapore where he...

. Rudge became an actor, working in at the Bristol Old Vic

Bristol Old Vic

The Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, King Street, in Bristol, England. The theatre complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre , offices and backstage facilities...

 and Liverpool Playhouse

Liverpool Playhouse

The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of which went on to achieve...

. He served in the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 during and immediately after the Second World War, from 1944 to 1947. He joined RADA

Rada

Rada is the term for "council" or "assembly"borrowed by Polish from the Low Franconian "Rad" and later passed into the Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages....

 after the Navy, and worked in repertory

Repertory

Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...

. Tall and blond, he delivered the line "Who's for tennis?" in Julian Slade

Julian Slade

Julian Penkivil Slade was an English writer of musical theatre best known for the show Salad Days, which he wrote in six weeks in 1954 and became the UK's longest-running show of the 1950s with over 2,288 performances....

's musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 Salad Days at the Vaudeville Theatre

Vaudeville Theatre

The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on The Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each new building retained elements of the previous...

.

He left acting to write comedy scripts for television and radio. With composer Ted Dicks, he wrote songs and sketches for West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 revue shows, including And Another Thing, which had a long run at the Fortune Theatre

Fortune Theatre

The Fortune Theatre is a 432 seat West End theatre in Russell Street, near Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, built in 1922-4 by Ernest Schaufelberg for impresario Laurence Cowen. The façade is principally bush hammered concrete, with brick piers supporting the roof...

 in 1960, featuring Bernard Cribbins, Anna Quayle

Anna Quayle

Anna Quayle is an English actress. Her father was the stage actor Douglas Quayle.She has appeared on film, on stage, and on television...

, and Lionel Blair

Lionel Blair

Lionel Blair is a British actor, choreographer, tap dancer and television presenter. He is the son of Myer Ogus and Deborah Greenbaum...

 and Joyce Blair

Joyce Blair

Joyce Blair was an English actress and dancer. She was the sister of Lionel Blair, with whom she often performed...

. One of the show's songs, "Folk Song", became a hit for Cribbins, produced by George Martin, and led to them collaborating on the top 10 hits "Hole in the Ground" and "Right Said Fred". Noël Coward

Noël Coward

Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

 chose "Hole in the Ground" as one of his records on Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...

, saying he would pass the time on his desert island

Desert island

A desert island or uninhabited island is an island that has yet to be populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often used in movies or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereotypes for the idea of "paradise". Some uninhabited islands are protected as nature reserves and...

 by translating it into French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

. Richard

Richard Fairbrass

Richard Peter John Fairbrass is an English singer and television presenter.-Biography:Fairbrass was born on September 22, 1953 in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, in England, and raised in East Grinstead, West Sussex. He is the lead vocalist of the band Right Said Fred which he formed with his...

 and Fred Fairbrass adopted "Right Said Fred" as the name of their pop group

Right Said Fred

Right Said Fred is an English pop band, formed in 1989 by brothers Richard Fairbrass and Fred Fairbrass, later joined by their friend Rob Manzoli. The group is named after a song of the same name which was a hit for Bernard Cribbins in 1962...

.

Rudge and Dicks also wrote the theme song for the 1966 film Carry On Screaming

Carry On Screaming

Carry On Screaming! is the twelfth Carry On film and was released in 1966. It was the last of the series to be distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated before the series moved to The Rank Organisation. It was originally rated in the UK as an 'A' , it is currently rated 'PG'...

, and worked with Kenneth Williams

Kenneth Williams

Kenneth Charles Williams was an English comic actor and comedian. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the Carry On films, and appeared in numerous British television shows, and radio comedies with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne.-Life and career:Kenneth Charles Williams was born on 22 February...

 on an album, On Pleasure Bent, in 1967. Other songs written by Rudge were recorded by Topol

Chaim Topol

Chaim Topol , often billed simply as Topol, is an Israeli theatrical and film performer, actor, writer and producer. He has been nominated for an Oscar and Tony Award, and has won two Golden Globes.-Early life:...

, Val Doonican

Val Doonican

Val Doonican is an Irish singer. From 1965 to 1986 he was a regular fixture on the BBC Television's schedule with The Val Doonican Show, which featured his own singing performances and a variety of guest artists...

, Matt Monro

Matt Monro

Matt Monro was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s...

, Joan Sims

Joan Sims

Joan Sims was an English actress best remembered for her roles in the Carry On films, and latterly for playing Madge Hardcastle in As Time Goes By.-Early life:...

, Jim Dale

Jim Dale

Jim Dale, MBE is an English actor, voice artist, singer and songwriter. He is best known in the United Kingdom for his many appearances in the Carry On series of films and in the US for narrating the Harry Potter audiobook series, for which he received two Grammy Awards, and the ABC series Pushing...

 and Petula Clark

Petula Clark

Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...

.

Rudge wrote several scripts for BBC television in the 1960s, including scripts for the comedy On the Buses

On The Buses

On the Buses was a British situation comedy created by Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney which was broadcast in the UK from 1969 to 1973. The writers' previous successes with The Rag Trade and Meet the Wife were for the BBC, but the Corporation rejected On the Buses, not seeing much comedy potential...

and the soap opera

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 Compact. He also wrote two series of Stop Messing About

Stop Messing About

Stop Messing About was a BBC radio series broadcast in 1969 and 1970. Forced by circumstance into being a follow-up to Round the Horne, a number of key talents from the previous show were retained and recast, with Kenneth Williams as the new show's main star.It was rewritten for the stage in...

in 1969, a follow-on radio comedy to Round the Horne

Round the Horne

Round the Horne was a BBC Radio comedy programme, transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. The series was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman - with others contributing to later series after Feldman returned to performing — and starred Kenneth Horne, with Kenneth...

, and in 1960-62 (with Ronnie Wolfe) three series of 'Something to Shout About', a sit-com for BBC radio set in an Advertising agency. With Vince Powell

Vince Powell

Vince Powell was a British television writer.Powell was born as Vincent Smith to Roman Catholic parents in Miles Platting, Manchester. When he was five, his mother died; two years later, his father remarried...

, he co-wrote a religious sitcom Father Charlie in 1982, starring Lionel Jeffries

Lionel Jeffries

Lionel Charles Jeffries was an English actor, screenwriter and film director.-Early life and career:Jeffries attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. In 1945, he received a commission in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry...

 and Anna Quayle

Anna Quayle

Anna Quayle is an English actress. Her father was the stage actor Douglas Quayle.She has appeared on film, on stage, and on television...

. He also wrote pantomime

Pantomime

Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...

 scripts, particularly for the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. He was a volunteer for the Samaritans.

He is survived by his civil partner Stephen Murray.