Willy Russell Willy Russell William Russell (born 23 August 1947) is an English dramatist, lyricist and composer. His best known works are "Educating Rita", "Shirley Valentine", "Blood Brothers" and "Our Day Out". Russell was born in Whiston in Lancashire. On leaving school, aged 15, he became a ladies' hairdresser eventually running his own salon until the age of 20 when he decided to try to go back to college, eventually qualifying as a teacher. During these years Russell also worked as a semi-professional singer, writing and performing his own songs on the then flourishing and vibrant folk scene. At college, he began
George Valentine (poet) George Valentine (poet) George Donald Valentine (1877-1946) was a Scottish sheriff, and writer of romantic-style short stories, plays and verse. He graduated from the University of Glasgow and was considered for Examinerships in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at both Glasgow and St Andrews Universities. G. D. Valentine wrote both under his own name and the pseudonym, George Henderland. Valentine's first published work was "The Heart of Bruce", a long poem, taken up by Alexander Gardner of Paisley in 1912. In the 1920s, two further original works, "Reasons of State" and "Saul: A Dramatic Poem" appearsed under the same imprint. It