Mel Taylor was a pioneer rock 'n' roll drummer, and a vital member of the Ven- tures throughout most of their career as America's foremost instrumental rock group. Although Taylor was not a founder member of the Ventures, he played on many of their greatest hits, including the 1964 re-make of "Walk Don't Run" and their version of "Hawaii Five-O", the television theme-tune notable for its dramatic drum introduction. The art of pop drumming was liberated and given a great boost by the advent of Surf music during the early Sixties. Gray's decisive intellect told him what had to be done and it was his faith that gave him courage to complete the task in the only way he could.Christopher John Gray, priest: born Portsmouth 2 January 1964; ordained deacon 1992, priest 1993; Priest-in-Charge, St Margaret's, Anfield 1995- 96; died Liverpool 13 August 1996.. When I met him in 1992 he was already a fluent speaker of French, German and Polish, and at each later meeting he had acquired other Slavic languages. His knowledge of Romanian, Czech, Slovak and Lithuanian contributed to his being able to be an ambassador for Anglicanism to the Christian churches of these recently liberated countries.In 1992, after training for the priesthood at Mirfield in Yorkshire, he became a curate at St Jude's Church, Cantril Farm, in Liverpool.

And, only two weeks ago, the Community of the Countries of Portuguese Language, comprising all the former five African colonies as well as Brazil, was finally formalised at a Pan-Portuguese summit in Lisbon. Antnio Sebastiao Ribeiro de Spnola, soldier: born Estremoz, Portugal 11 April 1910; Commander, 345th Cavalry Group, Angola 1961-64; Provost Marshal 1964-65; Cavalry Inspector 1966-67; Deputy Commander, National Republican Guard 1967-68; Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Portuguese Guinea 1968-73; Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces 1973-74; Head, Junta Nacional de Salvacao 1974; President of Portugal, 1974; married 1932 Maria Monteiro de Barros; died Lisbon 13 August 1996.. Christopher Gray had not long been a Vicar of St Margaret's, Anfield, in Liverpool, when he was murdered in front of his own vicarage. Even though he was only 32 and a priest for only three years, Gray was beginning to have a major impact on the Anglican Church's thinking on the priestly ministry. He was Head Boy at Winchester, and then went on to Wadham College, Oxford, where he achieved a Double First "with congratulations" in Ancient History and won most of the major classical prizes. He possessed a brilliant mind and spoke with great clarity of thought. At the same time he was a quiet person, who listened carefully and was liked by his teachers and contemporaries for his humanity and warmth. After Oxford he spent a year looking after handicapped people at the L'Arche community in France, where he discovered his flair for learning living languages in addition to Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

He lived to witness the Portuguese eventually become richer than they had ever been while they had clung to the empire, through the vagaries of history and the benefits of Portugal's return to its European condition.Democratic, capitalist- orientated Portugal is now one of the main investors in the war-ravaged but potentially rich former colonies of Angola and Mozambique. He became a mere spectator to Portugal's accelerated development upon integration into the EEC in the 1980s under a centre-right government more to his liking. The perceived Communist threat was eventually thwarted when a new balance of forces within the regime succeeded in re- establishing a country of law and order.After returning to Portugal in 1976 Spnola opted for retirement in his farmhouse near Lisbon. During his five-month tenure of the presidency he tried to find solutions for successive crises and the prospect of the disintegration of the old empire, with meetings with other improbable heads of state, including President Mobutu of Zaire and President Nixon of the United States, then already facing impeachment, whom he met in mid-Atlantic in the Azores.After he was elbowed out of power in September 1974 and replaced by his left-wing rival General Costa Gomes, likewise a prominent colonial commander, the widespread fear of a Communist takeover led him to seek exile in Brazil, from where he travelled to gather support for what would be tantamount to a counter-revolution.

However, subsequent events were to show that, having opened the door to liberalisation, he was soon overtaken by the revolutionary crowd that rushed through it. It was then that Spnola played a crucial and truly heroic role.Since the initiative for the dramatic political impasse could only come from within the ranks of the regime, he wrote a book in which, after acknowledging that the colonial impasse could only be resolved by political, rather than military means, he put forward a plan for a Pan- Portuguese multi-racial federation or community, similar to the British Commonwealth and its French equivalent, as a way out.In the event the book, Portugal and the Future, published in February 1974, was like the key that opened the door for the military pronunciamento cum popular and festive revolution that was to follow the arrests and deportation to Madeira first of the token President Americo Thomas and Prime Minister Caetano.As for Spnola, he was chosen to become President of the restored Democratic Republic, almost as a reward. As so often happens with prolonged personal dictatorship the long experience of enforced stability degenerated into mutual fear and paralysis within the ranks of the regime, and the inability of the democratic opposition to organise a convincing alternative. For much of his active life he divided his time between the two countries, and considered himself "a New Zealander through and through".He had been elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1934, and in 1950 was elected Member of the German Bookbinders Guild (MDE).From 1948 to 1964, he taught design and colour at the London School of Printing.