Last Word

Pictured: Andrea Camilleri

Matthew Bannister on

Andrea Camilleri, the Sicilian writer who created the Inspector Montalbano novels. His literary success began in his late sixties.

Johnny Clegg, the whit…

Pictured: Audrey Eyton

Matthew Bannister on

Arthur Ryan, the Irish retailer who created Primark - known for selling fast fashion at low prices.

Audrey Eyton, who devised the F-Plan diet, which encourage…

Pictured: Eva Kor

Matthew Bannister on

Eva Kor who, with her twin sister, was the subject of experiments by the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in Auschwitz. She later publicly forgave her tormentors.

Christo…

Pictured: Brenda Maddox

Matthew Bannister on

Ivan Cooper, the human rights campaigner and politician from Northern Ireland who played a key role in the protests on Bloody Sunday.

Min Hogg, the colourful…

Pictured: Judith Krantz

Matthew Bannister on

Dr. Henry Lynch whose painstaking medical research revealed the causes of hereditary cancers.

Judith Krantz, the American author who made a huge commercial s…

Pictured: Franco Zeffirelli

Matthew Bannister on

Franco Zeffirelli, the stage and film director known for his opulent designs and flamboyant personality.

Gloria Vanderbilt, the heiress who overcame pers…

Pictured: John Tidmarsh

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John Tidmarsh, who presented Outlook on the BBC World Service for thirty years and brought comfort to the Beirut hostages. John McCarthy pays tribute.

Sylvia…

Pictured: Edward Seaga

Julian Worricker on:

The Jamaican politician, Edward Seaga, who led his country as prime minister throughout the 1980s

Binyavanga Wainaina, one of Kenya's most prominent writers a…

Pictured: Nan Winton

Matthew Bannister on

Murray Gell-Mann, the American physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He coined the name "quarks" for the fundam…

Pictured: Judith Kerr

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Niki Lauda, the fearless racing driver who survived a terrible crash to make a dramatic comeback on the track.

Judith Kerr, the author of much-loved children…

Pictured: Doris Day

Julian Worricker on:

One of Hollywood's top box-office stars of the 50s and 60s, actress and singer Doris Day.

The Labour MP who became one of television's most exhaustive political …

Pictured: John Singleton

Andrea Catherwood on:

British Athlete Winnie Jordan who won a silver medal in the Empire Games in 1938 and became a celebrated British Champion after the war.

American psychiatr…

Pictured: Peter Mayhew

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Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, who served with the Irish Guards during the war, liberated his own country and then presided over its prosperity.

Terry Rawlin…

Pictured: Lyra McKee

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Lyra McKee, the 29 year old Northern Irish journalist who was shot dead by the New IRA.

Una-Mary Parker who was the social editor of Tatler, a commentator on t…

Pictured: Nadja Poderegin

Julian Worricker on:

David Thouless, whose work in the world of quantum mechanics earned him a share of the Nobel Prize for Physics.

The Serbian actress, Nadja Poderegin, who w…

Pictured: Sydney Brenner

Matthew Bannister on

Sydney Brenner, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist who worked with Francis Crick to map DNA.

Dan Robbins, the artist who invented painting by numbers.

Edda T…

Pictured: Agnès Varda

Matthew Bannister on

Michel Bacos, the pilot of the Air France jet that was hi-jacked to Entebbe in 1976. He was offered the chance to leave, but chose to stay with the hostages u…

Pictured: Baroness Warnock

Matthew Bannister on

Baroness Warnock, the philosopher who set down the principles which govern human fertilisation treatment and embryo research.

William Hucklesby, the Poli…

Pictured: Dick Dale

Matthew Bannister on

Gillian Freeman, the novelist and screenwriter whose books include The Leather Boys, a story of a gay love affair between two working class men in the 1960s.

Sir…

Pictured: Jacques Loussier

Matthew Bannister on

Mike Oliver, who was paralysed from the neck down after diving into a swimming pool as a teenager. He became the UK's first Professor of Disability Studi…