January 4th 1986; Phil Lynott, the former lead singer of the rock band Thin Lizzy, died from heart failure and pneumonia after an 11-day fight for his life. The 36-year-old rock star had been admitted to Salisbury Hospital in Wiltshire with a serious kidney and liver infection on Christmas Day, after he collapsed from a drink and drug binge at his home in Surrey.

His estranged wife, Caroline, the daughter of TV celebrity Leslie Crowther, had rushed to help him, driving 100 miles (160km) from her house in Bath to his mansion in Kew. She drove him first to a specialist drugs clinic in Wiltshire, where doctors recommended that he should be admitted to Salisbury's intensive care unit. Ms Crowther and her father had kept an all-night vigil by the singer's hospital bed before he died.