Norman Shelley

Who was Norman Shelley?

Norman Shelley was an English actor, best known for his work in radio, in particular for the BBC's Children's Hour. He also had a recurring role as Colonel Danby in the long-running radio soap opera The Archers.

Perhaps Shelley's single best-known role was as Winnie-the-Pooh in The Children's Hour adaptations of A.A. Milne's stories; for many British people of the mid-20th century, his is the definitive voice of Pooh. Other roles for The Children's Hour included Dr. Watson in a series of adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories; Toad in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows; and the role of Dennis the Dachshund in the specially written Toytown series. Shelley also played the parts of Gandalf and Tom Bombadil in the 1955-6 radio adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In the 1973 BBC television series Jack the Ripper Shelley played Detective Constable Walter Dew.