Commentariat

Telegraph

Coauthor of 100 Things to Do Before You Die.

Medical research scientist whose work on the polio virus was rewarded with a share in a Nobel Prize.

Blues guitarist who cheerfully performed in the shadow of his more celebrated brother.

Former Bevan Boy who spent three days in the cells but later rose to the rank of Chief Constable

Barclays director who forbade his managers in Oxford to lend money to Robert Maxwell.

Chairman and chief executive of IBM UK who introduced the first massmarket desktop personal computer.

Legal authority in Scottish land matters who as an officer during the war had escaped from his German captors in Italy.

Naval officer who landed agents in Holland from his MTB and engaged enemy forces in the English Channel.

Actress who brought a stylish stagecraft to both Broadway and the West End.

Multilingual financier who was for 30 years the guiding light of antiquarian booksellers Bernard Quaritch.

Influential French mathematician who put the theory of analytic functions at the centre of modern mathematics.

Actor whose ‘ust perfect’ Southern drawl earned him his part as one of the Tarleton twins in Gone with the Wind.

Officer who engaged the enemy with highexplosive shells while his driverless tank careered towards a railway cutting.

Wartime intelligence officer who served Britain in his native Sweden and helped to hunt down leading Nazis.

Royal Academician who was not to be put off painting by the tiresome antics of her artist husband John Bratby.

Protégé of Henry Kissinger who became an influential figure in the US Republican foreign policy establishment

Fashion publicist who introduced Yves Saint Laurent to Christian Dior and gave his name to Eau Sauvage.

Rugby League prop forward whose miskick cost his side a Challenge Cup final win.

Hua Guofeng the former Chinese Communist leader who died yesterday aged 87 changed the course of China’s modern history in October 1976 when a few weeks after the death of Chairman Mao he arrested the “Gang of Four” the radicals led by Jiang Qing Mao’s widow who revelled in the turmoil unleashed by the Cultural Revolution and were determined to keep China focused on classstruggle and closed to the outside world.

MP whose occasional eccentricities he delighted in wearing 18thcenturystyle dress on Budget days concealed a dedicated social reformer particularly in the field of family law.

Civil servants’ union leader during the ?Winter of Discontent’ who later lost an epic battle with Margaret Thatcher.

President of Zambia who stood out among African leaders in his condemnation of the regime of Robert Mugabe.

Army pilot who flew Spitfires became a founder member of the Army Air Corps and introduced helicopters to the Service.

Leading publisher of books on contemporary architecture who found his métier after starting his career as a physicist

Merchant Navy officer whose service supplying the Task Force in the Falklands was recognised with a DSO.