Henry Dawe has added a tribute to actor and comic Stanley Baxter, whose 100th birthday would have fallen on Sunday, May 24.

The Uppingham writer has spent much of the year marking the lives of familiar names from British public life, and Baxter now joins that list. Earlier this year, Dawe celebrated the lives of David Attenborough and Queen Elizabeth II, and also paid tribute to Kenneth Williams and Eric Morcambe.

Dawe is no stranger to writing for a cause. He previously wrote poetry to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee and a song paying tribute to The Duke of Edinburgh, raising money for The Silver Line charity for older people through those tributes. His work has also extended beyond verse: he wrote a radio play called The Autumn of My Years, which was shared at an event in All Saints’ Church, Oakham.

The new Baxter tribute comes as Dawe continues to place well-known centenarians side by side in his work, giving their anniversaries a common thread rather than treating them as isolated milestones. That approach has kept his writing tied to remembrance and public life at the same time, with a local voice carrying names that still resonate nationally.

The timing matters because Baxter’s centenary has now passed, and Dawe has again used the moment to turn a birthday into a public tribute. With Kenny! - The Kenneth Williams Centenary Musical performed at Uppingham Theatre on May 16, Dawe’s series of centenary works now sits alongside other efforts to revisit the generation of entertainers and public figures born 100 years ago.

For Dawe, the answer to what comes next is already in the pattern of his work: more tributes, more centenary markers, and the same clear intention to keep older public figures in view. Baxter is not being remembered alone. He is being added to a growing body of work that treats those anniversaries as something worth writing, sharing and, in some cases, turning into support for older people too.