Mark Coles on:

The writer Tom Sharpe, best known for his comic novels like Wilt and Porterhouse Blue.

The Kew Gardens botanist Nigel Hepper who foresaw the effects of global warming decades before anyone else.

Anne Valery, the co-writer of the hugely successful BBC World War 2 drama, Tenko.

The leading French classical composer, Henri Dutillieux. A man who believed in the magic of music.

And Molly Clutton-Brock, a British missionary who set up ground-breaking clinics to help disadvantaged children in former Rhodesia. Show less