This British actress is best known for playing Joy Adamson in the true-life film Born Free alongside her real-life husband, Bill Travers (1957 – 1994). She’s also starred in the Ring of Bright Water, The Camomile Lawn and Swallows and Amazons but it is for her work as a wildlife campaigner that McKenna is best known. She co-founded the Born Free Foundation in 1991 with her husband and along with Ace Bourke and John Rendall helped release Christian, a lion who lived at World’s End in Chelsea, into the wild in Africa. His story has since become one of YouTube’s biggest hits.
Tag: divorce
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Virginia McKenna OBE
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Singing for a Diamond
Music fit for The Queen
In recent days, Gary Barlow’s albumn Sing has topped the UK album charts with sales of 40,000 copies.
Two hundred and ten musicians, including the African Children’s Choir and the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force Band, helped record this special tribute to The Queen. Produced by Barlow with the assistance of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Gareth Malone, Sing also features Prince Harry on the tambourine, Hayley Westenra, Alfie Boe and the Military Wives choir. Sing will be performed this evening at a special concert at Buckingham Palace in the presence of Her Majesty.
Another tribute I was alerted to came from a singer named Anton Lorien who contacted me via Twitter. He was approached in 2011 by the British Monarchist League who asked him to produce a song for a lady he describes as having: “Given her life selflessly to the people of Britain and the Commonwealth.”
Mr Lorien’s song, Like A Diamond, is available to download on iTunes but I wholeheartedly recommend that you watch the video clip available above. It contains some wonderful footage of The Queen and the clip at 3:33 where our Monarch runs to watch her racehorse is especially worth seeing.
Gary Barlow pictured with Prince Harry on the tambourine working on Sing Both Sing and Like A Diamond capture the feelings of our nation brilliantly. Be sure to sing along tonight.
For more information about Anton Lorien’s Like A Diamond, go to: http://www.antonlorien.com
For more information on Gary Barlow & The Commonwealth Band’s Sing, got to: http://www.jubileesing.com
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Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of the Commonwealth Realms
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II governed as constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states and headed the 54-member Commonwealth of Nations. Supported by her gaffe prone husband, “Brenda,” as Private Eye nicknamed her, served steadfast through good times and bad. She liked to drive a little quickly when given control of the wheel of a Range Rover and also found washing up relaxing. This monarch like no other will never be forgotten. -
Helen Worth (born Cathryn Helen Wigglesworth and also known as "Gail Platt")
Raised in Morecambe, Lancashire at a seafront hotel, Worth has played Coronation Street’s Gail Platt since 1974. This former wife of the voice of Thomas the Tank Engine, Michael Angelis, lives between Cheshire and Chelsea and when not acting she’s often to be found campaigning for the Born Free Foundation. -
William Roache MBE (better known as Ken Barlow)
“Cock Roache” as he’s known (he’s supposedly bedded over 1,000 women) has been in Coronation Street since December 1960. He’s the world’s longest serving television actor and is also on the board of directors of Owen Oyston’s Oystons Estate Agency. -
Shireen Ritchie, The Rt. Hon. The Baroness Ritchie (1945 – 2012)
The stepmother of Guy Ritchie was the “grande dame” of the Kensington & Chelsea Conservative Association. This tireless campaigner encouraged diversity within the Tory party and successfully thwarted Lady Meyer’s attempts to become the candidate for the constituency. For that alone she deserved her knighthood. May she rest in peace. -
Alexandra Naylor
Sociable and serious, Naylor is a hostess par excellence. She worked as an oil analyst for Sheikh Yamani at the Saudi Arabian Oil Ministry and is now involved in Latin American politics in the UK. She also does a little translating work and dabbles in property. Charm personified, Naylor is a lady who it is joy to spend time with. -
The Rt. Hon. Gregory Barker (AKA “Greg Barker”)
Gregory Barker worked for Roman Abramovich at the Sibneft Oil Group and as Energy Minister, took his daschund, Otto, to work at the Houses of Parliament. A Conservative Member of Parliament between 2001 and 2015, Barker lives between Notting Hill and Sussex and is widely cited as the architect of David Cameron’s “green conservatism”. -
Dmitry Rybolovlev
This billionaire businessman started out in medicine but soon moved into commerce realising that enterprise would better provide for his family. He was imprisoned on falsified charges of contract murder for 11 months in 1996. Subsequently cleared, Rybolovlev then went on to make his fortune in potassium and banking. This divorced father of two has used his fortune to fund the restoration of many of Russia’s churches and also bought Donald Trump’s former residence, The Masion de L’Amitie in Palm Beach, Florida, for $95 million in 2008. This risk taker also parted with another $88 million in December 2011 to purchase New York’s most expensive apartment for his 22-year old daughter. Rybololev’s passions are surfing and 19th and 20th century art. -
Anouska Hempel (Lady Weinberg)
The founder of the world’s first boutique hotel moved to London in 1962 with just £10 to her name. She’s acted with Anton Rodgers in Zodiac and was in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but it as a designer of global repute that she is best known. Married to Sir Mark Weinberg, the founder of St. James’s Place Wealth Management, Hempel was born on a boat sailing from Papua New Guinea to New Zealand. This society figure’s first hotel, Blakes, created in 1978, is the favourite of personalities such as Sharon Stone and Seal and still sets the barometer for style today.
