Norman Shelley (16 February 1903 – 21 August 1980) was a British 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 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 Children's Hour included Dr. Watson (opposite Carleton Hobbs as Holmes) in the 1952–1969 Sherlock Holmes radio series; Toad in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows; and the roles of The Magician and Captain Higgins 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. Life and career Shelley was born in Chelsea, London, the son of Frank Shelley, a painter, and his wife, Alice Campbell, née Glover. He originally intended to make a career as an aircraft designer, but took up stage acting on the advice of the actress and teacher Rosina Fillipi. His public debut was at the Old Vic in 1919, and in the early 1920s he toured with the Charles Doran Shakespeare Company, performing such roles as Trebonius in Julius Caesar and Sebastian in Twelfth Night. During the 1920s and early '30s he worked principally in London, and was particularly associated with Peter Godfrey's experimental productions at the Gate Theatre Studio. Shelley's first BBC broadcast was in 1926, having earlier made a reputation in radio in Australia and New Zealand. By the late '30s he established a reputation as a respected and versatile British radio actor. In 1937 he married Monica Daphne, née Brett. During the Second World War he was a member of the BBC's wartime repertory company, but left to serve as a ferry pilot in the Air Transport Auxiliary. In the 1930s and '40s he was a Children's Hour regular, famous as Dennis the Dachshund in Toytown, and as Winnie-the-Pooh, whom he first played in 1939. He played Dr Watson to Carleton Hobbs's Sherlock Holmes from October 1952 to July 1969. In the late 1950s he took part in recorded dramatised versions by Argo Records of Alice in Wonderland