Glenda Jackson

• YOU report that Sir Keir Starmer led tributes to Glenda Jackson following her death a fortnight ago. Unlike him, however, Glenda Jackson didn’t seem to lose her radicalism once she got involved in parliamentary politics.

Among the issues which she was concerned about was the arms trade, no doubt partly informed by her experience of supporting charities and campaigns working on issues of poverty and repression in Africa.

In 1990, while she was the prospective parliamentary candidate for the Hampstead and Highgate constituency, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) was given a slot on the BBC2 Open Space series, where minority groups were allowed to prepare their own half-hour prime-time TV programme, putting over their case using the BBC’s facilities and staff.

Glenda Jackson agreed to donate her time to narrate our programme, Death On Delivery. She was, of course, both charming and intimidating. I was overawed to hear her recording of words I had drafted; and too overawed to dare to say if I thought a phrase might have been put over differently.

I last met her a few years ago at a reception after a memorial event for former MP Frank Dobson. We bumped into one another and I thanked her again for her welcome support for CAAT years earlier.

She said something about how pleased she always was to be able to help causes she supported; then she looked at her empty glass, looked at the distance to the drinks, smiled, and asked me to resupply her – in a tone which I could only interpret as an order.

ALBERT BEALE
Little Russell Street, WC1