Editing Vivian Stanshall (section)

==Early life and education==
Stanshall was born on 21 March 1943 at the Radcliffe Maternity Home<ref>{{cite web |title=Tribute to Vivian Stanshall on MemorialMatters.com |url=http://www.memorialmatters.com/memorials.php?page=Stanshall-Vivian&section=bio |website=Memorialmatters.com |access-date=16 June 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Vivian Stanshall NNDB |url=https://www.nndb.com/people/967/000034865/|website=NNDB.com |access-date=24 March 2025}}</ref> [[Shillingford]], [[Oxfordshire]].<ref name=welch>{{cite news |title=OBITUARY: Vivian Stanshall |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-vivian-stanshall-1610214.html |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |date=7 March 1995 |access-date=12 October 2021}}</ref> His father, Victor George Stanshall (born Vivian), was, at the time of his son's birth an [[Royal Air Force|RAF]] corporal, later a company secretary, then company director ([[Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators#Education|FCIS]]).<ref>''The London Gazette'', issue 39906, 7 July 1953, p. 3753</ref> His mother was Eileen Monica Prudence (née Wadeson).<ref>{{cite ODNB |last=Rooksby |first=Rikky |title=Stanshall, Vivian Anthony &#91;formerly Victor Anthony&#93; (1943–1995), musician |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-57962 |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/57962}}</ref> He was christened Victor Anthony. He lived with his mother while his father served in the RAF during the [[Second World War]]. Stanshall described this early period as the happiest time of his childhood.{{efn|Stanshall later said: "So I went through this horrible period when I went out speaking in an East London accent otherwise I was gonna' get hit, and when I got home it was "Hello Mama" and "Hello Papa". To some extent I forgive him that. What I don't forgive him is his intolerance. At the time the BBC had a commonality of speech, you didn't hear accents or dialects. Although he's been dead for two years I'm still terrified of him now... "<ref name="kitching"/>}}<ref name="kitching">{{cite web|url=http://www.iankitching.me.uk/music/bonzos/early-years.html|title=Vivian Stanshall – The Early Years|website=Iankitching.me.uk|access-date=16 June 2019}}</ref>

When the war ended his father returned, but the young Victor found him difficult and comparatively stern after having been alone with his mother.<ref>''Vivian Stanshall, the early years'', aka ''Crank'', 1991 BBC Two, 1991</ref> His father made him speak with a [[Received Pronunciation|"plummy" accent]] for which he later became known.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – Jollity Farm |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5hosx1Dfe8kC |publisher=Coda Books Ltd |isbn=9781908538604}}</ref> The family moved to the father's hometown of [[Walthamstow]], [[Essex]], where Stanshall's younger brother Mark was born in 1949.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – Jollity Farm |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5hosx1Dfe8kC&pg=PT8 |publisher=Coda Books Ltd |isbn=9781908538604}}</ref> With six years between them, the brothers were never close.<ref name="BBC Radio 4 1994">''Vivian Stanshall: Essex Teenager to Renaissance Man'' (1994), BBC Radio 4</ref> 

[[File:Vivian Stanshall Mews.jpg|thumb|Cul-de-sac named after Stanshall, close to his childhood home in Walthamstow]]

When he was 10, the Stanshall family moved to the Essex coastal town of [[Leigh-on-Sea]]. He attended [[Southend High School for Boys]] until 1959. Stanshall then studied at [[Walthamstow College of Art]], where he met fellow students [[Ian Dury]] and [[Peter Greenaway]].<ref name=ODNB_Dury>{{cite web |title=Dury, Ian Robins (1942–2000) |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=73862&back= |website=ODNB |access-date=15 July 2014}}</ref>

As a young man, Stanshall (known as Vic) earned money doing various odd jobs at the [[Kursaal (amusement park)|Kursaal fun fair]] in nearby [[Southend-on-Sea]]. These included working as a [[Bingo (card game)|bingo]] caller and spending the winter painting the fairground attractions. To set aside enough money to get through [[art school]] (his father having refused to fund this), Stanshall spent a year in the [[Merchant Navy (United Kingdom)|Merchant Navy]]. He said he was a very bad waiter, but became a great teller of tall tales.<ref name="BBC Radio 4 1994"/>

Stanshall enrolled at the [[Central School of Art and Design]] in London. He joined fellow students in forming a band (including [[Rodney Slater (musician)|Rodney Slater]], [[Roger Ruskin Spear]] and [[Neil Innes]], who was studying art at [[Goldsmiths College]]). Innes said of their first meeting: "We first met in a big Irish pub in South London, the New Cross Arms ... he was quite plump in those days, and he was wearing [[Billy Bunter]] check trousers, a Victorian [[frock coat]], black coat tails, horrible little oval, violet-tinted [[pince-nez]] glasses, he had a [[euphonium]] under his arm, and large rubber false ears. And I thought, well, this is an interesting character."<ref>[[Stephen Fry]]'s [[BBC Radio 4]] tribute.</ref> At about this time, Stanshall changed his first name to 'Vivian', the name his father had abandoned. This was not made his legal name until 1977.<ref>"Interview with [[Ki Longfellow]]-Stanshall", ''The Bristolian'', May 1988</ref> Those who knew him from his student days continued to call him 'Vic'. Later friends and collaborators knew him as 'Viv'.