Editing Ian Carmichael (section)

===Early life===
[[File:Bromsgrove School.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=Large red-brick Georgian building|[[Bromsgrove School]]]]
Ian Gillett Carmichael was born on 18 June 1920 in [[Kingston upon Hull]], in the [[East Riding of Yorkshire]]. He was the eldest child of Kate ({{nee}} Gillett) and her husband Arthur Denholm Carmichael, an optician on the premises of his family's firm of jewellers.{{sfn|Hubbard|O'Donnell|Steen|1989|p=63}}{{sfn|Jennings|2014}} Carmichael had two younger sisters, the twins Mary and Margaret, who were born in December 1923.{{sfn|Fairclough|2011|p=11}} Robert Fairclough, his biographer, describes Carmichael's upbringing as a "privileged, pampered existence"; his parents employed maids and a cook.{{sfn|Fairclough|2011|pp=5, 11}} His infant education included one term at the local Froebel House School when he was four, but this was curtailed after his parents were shocked at the "alarmingly foul language he began bringing home", according to Alex Jennings, Carmichael's biographer in the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]''.{{sfn|Jennings|2014}}{{sfn|Carmichael|1979|p=29}}

In 1928 Carmichael was sent to [[Scarborough College]], a [[Preparatory school (United Kingdom)|prep school]] in [[North Yorkshire]], which he attended between the ages of seven and thirteen.{{sfn|Fairclough|2011|pp=13–15}} He did not like the [[wikt:spartan#Adjective|spartan]] and authoritarian regime at the school. He described the discipline as "[[wikt:Dickensian#Adjective|Dickensian]]", with [[corporal punishment]] used for even minor infringements of the rules; ablutions in the morning and evening were conducted with cold water—which often had a film of ice on the top during winter.{{sfn|Carmichael|1979|pp=32–33}}

In 1933 Carmichael left [[Scarborough College]] and entered [[Bromsgrove School]], a [[Public school (United Kingdom)|public school]] in [[Worcestershire]].{{sfn|Jennings|2014}}{{efn|A [[Public school (United Kingdom)|public school]] in the UK is a fee-paying institution, associated with the [[ruling class]] and upper echelons of banking, business and industry.{{sfn|Sampson|1982|p=124}}}} He soon concluded that "the new curriculum was not arduous",{{sfn|Carmichael|1979|p=48}} which gave him the opportunity for focus on matters that were of more interest for him: acting, popular music and cricket.{{sfn|Jennings|2014}}{{sfn|Carmichael|1979|pp=48, 55–59}} In the late 1930s Carmichael decided to go to the [[Royal Academy of Dramatic Art]] (RADA) in London. His parents would have preferred he went into the family jewellery business, but accepted their son's decision and supported him financially when he left Yorkshire for London in January 1939.{{sfn|Fairclough|2011|pp=22–23}}{{sfn|Carmichael|1979|p=69}}