Edward Downes Edward Downes Sir Edward Thomas ("Ted") Downes, CBE (17 June 1924 – 10 July 2009) was an English conductor, specialising in opera. He was associated with the Royal Opera House from 1952, and with Opera Australia from 1970. He was also well known for his long working relationship with the BBC Philharmonic and for working with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra. Within the field of opera, he was particularly known as a conductor of Verdi. He and his wife, Lady (Joan) Downes, committed assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland on 10 July 2009, an event that received significant media
Mollie Panter-Downes Mollie Panter-Downes Mary Patricia "Mollie" Panter-Downes (25 August 1906 – 22 January 1997) was a British novelist and columnist for "The New Yorker". Aged sixteen, she wrote "The Shoreless Sea" which became a bestseller; eight editions were published in 1923 and 1924, and the book was serialised in The Daily Mirror. Her second novel "The Chase" was published in 1925. She was born to Major Edward Martin Panter-Downes (died 1914 at Mons) and Marie Kathleen Cowley who was of Irish origin. After her marriage to Clare Robinson in 1927, the couple moved to Surrey, and in 1938 Panter-Downes began writing