Memorable Descriptions from Obituaries

This morning I was reading Great Lives: A Century in Obituaries, a book of prominent peoples' obituaries from The Times.

I was greatly pleased by two particular passages, taken from two different obituaries. Can you guess who the obituarist is writing about?

Here's the first: "He remained a teenager even in his eighties-- and a late Victorian one, at that. Boat Race Night of Mafeking Year may be roughly the point at which he came to a standstill." This person died in 1975.

And here's the second, for somebody who died in 1980: "A Billy Bunter who had somehow turned out to be a great artist."

I had a quick look to see if the authors of the obituaries were given anywhere, but they don't seem to be.

(Incidentally, I was going to give this blog post the title "Guess The Stiff". But then I remembered my dislike for this kind of cheap levity which pervades our culture, so that today even bus advertisements routinely make bawdy puns or double-entendres. But it's not just bawdy jokes I'm complaining about here. I regret all the jokey blog post titles I ever posted on this blog. Even museum and gallery displays now use titles that are drawn from famous movies or songs. I don't mind this kind of thing in tabloid newspapers, where it's raised to an art-form and is part of the whole atmosphere. My problem is that it's getting everywhere. I'm trying to be more priggish.)