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Sir Harry Donald Secombe, CBE born 8 September 1921 not only was he a Welsh entertainer with a talent for comedy and a noted fine tenor singing voice. In his later years, was a prominent presenter of television shows incorporating hymns and other devotional songs.
He is probably was most best known for playing Neddie Seagoon, a central character in the BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show which lasted from 1951 to 1960.
After leaving school in 1937, Secombe became a pay clerk at Baldwin's store. With war looming decided in 1938 that he would join the Territorial Army. Very short sighted, he got a friend to tell him the sight test, and then learnt it off by heart
Serving as a Lance Bombardier in No.132 Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery and would later refer to the unit in which he served during World War II in the North African Campaign, Sicily, and Italy, as 'The Five-Mile Snipers'. When Secombe visited the Falklands to entertain the troops after the 1982 war in the islands, his old regiment promoted him to the rank of sergeant-37 years after he had been demobbed.
He was knighted in 1981, and jokingly referred to himself as Sir Cumference (in recognition of his rotund
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