If so, all the major newspapers cocked up big-time. I’ve seen prominent editorial obituaries for public figures who were far less prominent than Pilcher and who had also been out of the limelight for decades.
Somewhere in a drawer in the newsroom of The Guardian (and The Times and The Independent and The Telegraph and countless other papers) lies a pre-written 2000-word obituary for Sgt. Pilcher that will sadly never see the light of day…