Names on the buses 343 Eric Jupp

Connections with Brighton and Hove : Born in Brighton in 1922, Eric Jupp achieved fame on the other side of the world. Jupp studied the piano at seven years old. He left school and started his musical career at fourteen, playing in nightclubs. He joined the R.A.F. at the outbreak of the Second World War. When the war ended, he went to London, where he soon became a prominent member of several leading big bands, working as a pianist, composer and arranger for the likes of Stanley Black, Ted Heath and Oscar Rabin. In 1951, Jupp formed his own successful orchestra but his life changed when he visited Australia in 1960 under short-term contract to the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). In 1961 he was invited to join the ABC as musical director of its light entertainment department, based in Sydney. Soon after taking up his new post he formed the Eric Jupp Orchestra and launched his popular and long-running weekly ABC-TV series The Magic of Music, which was seen in 29 countries and ran from 1961 to 1974. Jupp soon made a name for himself as a leading composer for film and TV in Australia. Undoubtedly his best-remembered composition is the theme for the hugely popular 1960s TV series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. In his retirement, Jupp and his family moved to Launceston in Tasmania. He died there in January 2003, aged 80.

343 Alexander Dennis Enviro - carried name since October 2020.