Len Beadle

Len Beadle
Beadle, top, with The Raindrops
Background information
Birth name	Leonard Stanley Beadle
Born	(1932-02-13)13 February 1932 Welling, Kent
Died	1 June 2000(2000-06-01) (aged 68)
Occupation(s)	A&R executive, music producer, music publisher, songwriter, musician, arranger
Instruments	Piano, trombone
Labels	ATV Music Bruton Music April Music Laurence Wright Music Co. Ltd. MAM Records CBS Songs
Associated acts	Jackie Lee,Stephanie de Sykes, Adam Faith, Gene Pitney, The Raindrops

Len Beadle (13 February 1932 – 1 June 2000) was an English music publisher, songwriter, music producer and performer, most famous for writing the theme to the hit children's TV show The Adventures of Rupert Bear. He formed the vocal harmony group The Raindrops together with Jackie Lee.

Len Beadle was born in Welling, Kent. After leaving school at the age of 14 he learned to play the trombone, and was already performing in Big Bands of the day in venues around London and the South East with musicians such as Humphrey Lyttelton and Chris Barber at the age of 15. His music career was briefly interrupted by two years national service from 1950 until 1952. During these years he played the trombone in the RAF Orchestra while stationed at RAF Hornchurch, RAF Padgate and RAF Henlow. After rejoining civviestreet, Beadle played in several travelling jazz and Big bands of the day including Joe Daniels and his Hot Shots and the Teddy Foster Orchestra.

From 1959 to 1964, Beadle was arranger, song-writer and singer of the vocal harmony group The Raindrops (later renamed Jackie and the Raindrops – and not to be confused with the US group by the same name). Other group members included Jackie Lee, Vince Hill, and Johnny Worth/Les Vandyke. The Raindrops recorded many songs, made numerous TV performances on Drumbeat,The Benny Hill Show, the Tommy Steele Show and others, and produced one of the first music videos when they covered "Locomotion" in the 1966 film, Disk-O-Tek Holiday (UK title: Just for You).