Hi Dot,
A week late, but just saying hello and amen to what you say about the newspapers and the 1939 Register.
The 1939 Register solved the problem I had trying to find a friend's grandfather, but not in the way I had planned. I had bought grandmother's birth certificate to get the exact date of birth in order to search for her to find him in the Register. I had bought the candidate's birth certificate. I searched for her: she was listed as a single-person household and 'separated'. Grr. I searched for him, and by a stroke of good luck he was living at the address given on his death certificate and issue of probate. Interestingly, he had put himself down as 'widowed' as had the married sister he was lodging with.
As for newspapers, I came across a report of the death of one of my grandfather's brothers. He gassed himself in 1928. That snippet was never mentioned in the family...you just never know what you are going to find, so everyone, be warned that newspapers find bad and scandalous news just as, or even more, saleable than good news...