George Archer-Shee for the play "The Winslow Boy" by Terence Rattigan which has twice been the basis of films. He was the son of Martin Archer-Shee and his second wife Helen Treloar. His father was a banker and grandson of the painter Sir Martin Archer Shee. His half-brother was Martin Archer-Shee. The actor Robert Bathurst is his great nephew. In January 1908 Archer-Shee became a cadet at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. The college, which was part of the estate of the late Queen Victoria, educated and trained 14- to 16-year-olds in their first
Terence Rattigan "Aunt Edna" inspired Joe Orton to create "Edna Welthorpe", a mischievous alter ego stirring up controversy about his own plays. Rattigan was gay, with numerous lovers but no long-term partners, a possible exception being his "congenial companion ... and occasional friend" Michael Franklin. It has been claimed his work is essentially autobiographical, containing coded references to his sexuality, which he kept secret from all but his closest friends. There is some truth in this, but it risks being crudely reductive; for example, the repeated claim that Rattigan originally wrote "The Deep Blue Sea" as a play about male lovers, turned