US Edition
Anne Harper, wife of Arthur Scargill and galvanising force in Women Against Pit Closures
At first many miners disapproved of their wives becoming involved but her high-profile arrest convinced the NUM that women could be an asset
Advertisement
-
Lord Kalms, retailer who built his family firm Dixons into a pillar of British business
Having been an ardent Thatcherite, he became one of her critics – and later fell out with the Tories spectacularly over Europe, voting Ukip
-
David Williams, union leader who took on the Conservative government over nurses’ pay
In the early 1980s he led widespread industrial action in the NHS, saying: ‘There comes a time when you have to stop pussyfooting around’
-
Sir Julian Seymour, skilled head of Margaret Thatcher’s private office after she left Downing Street
He had a big personality, a gift for organisation and deep respect for ‘Mrs T’ (never ‘Margaret’), helping her out for the rest of her life
-
Clint Hill, US bodyguard who tried to shield the Kennedys from the assassin’s bullets in Dallas
For many years he blamed himself for JFK’s death, believing that he should have acted more quickly
-
Gyalo Thondup, brother of the Dalai Lama who acted as Tibet’s go-between with the great powers
He petitioned Nehru to grant his brother asylum in India, liaised with the CIA in the 1950s and led talks with Deng Xiaoping in the 1979
-
Joe Haines, controversial press secretary to Harold Wilson and later Robert Maxwell’s loyal aide
Aged 96 he broke the news that Wilson, long suspected of an affair with his secretary Marcia Williams, had had another lover in No 10
-
The Earl of Sandwich, dedicated crossbencher who kept the Foreign Office and DfID on their toes
He was president of his son’s Earl of Sandwich chain, which claims ‘the world’s greatest hot sandwich’ offering including ‘The Full Montagu’
-
Sam Nujoma, independence leader who became Namibia’s founding president
He stressed the need for national reconciliation and urged the country’s white population to stay in the country
-
Horst Köhler, IMF head later hounded out of the German presidency for ‘gunboat diplomacy’
There was uproar when he claimed German military deployments could be necessary ‘to defend our interests, for example, free trade routes’
-
Lord Elis-Thomas, energetic Welsh nationalist who took a pragmatic approach to devolution
He had no time for Welsh-language extremists, and urged Mrs Thatcher to give the police the tools to tackle holiday-home arsonists
-
Mary Cameron, mother of PM David who gave decades of public service and was a model of discretion
After she signed a petition against Tory plans to close children’s centres in Oxfordshire, a Labour MP bellowed at David Cameron at PMQs
Advertisement
-
Costas Simitis, Greek leader who stabilised the economy and paved the way for the 2004 Olympics
He also steered Greece into the eurozone but the country was later found to have falsified its finances to meet the required debt thresholds
-
Niel Barnard, apartheid South Africa’s spy chief who later fell under Mandela’s spell
‘With a gallantry that one hardly expected from someone who had been sitting in jail for 24 years, Mandela extended his hand,’ he recalled
-
Terry Davis, increasingly rebellious Labour MP who found his calling at the Council of Europe
Generally on the Right of Labour, in four years under Blair and Smith he voted against the party line on 36 occasions
-
Anita Bryant, beauty queen and singer who became better known for her battle against gay rights
‘As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children, therefore they must recruit our children,’ she declared
-
Baroness Randerson, the first Welsh Liberal to hold ministerial office since Gwilym Lloyd George
She promised to fight for her adopted country in the House of Lords, saying: ‘Wales needs every voice it can muster in London’
-
Jean-Marie Le Pen, hard-Right provocateur of French politics who won millions of votes
Virulently anti-immigrant, Le Pen appealed to voters who felt that the political establishment was failing to engage with their concerns
-
Paddy Hill, one of the ‘Birmingham Six’ wrongly convicted for pub bombings which killed 21 people
He always protested his innocence, and following his release after 16 years in jail became a campaigner on miscarriages of justice
-
Helmut Schlesinger, Bundesbank chief who helped spark Britain’s ‘Black Wednesday’ exit from the ERM
Schlesinger was seen as a high guardian of Bundesbank doctrines and the most ‘Prussian’ of its officers, even though he was a Bavarian
