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Last Word

Factual: Life Stories

Radio 4's weekly obituary programme, telling the life stories of those who have died recently

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Last Word: Basil D'Oliveira, Shelagh Delaney, Sir Robin Mountfield, Sir David Jack and Peter Reading

25/11/2011

Basil D'Oliveira, Shelagh Delaney, Sir Robin Mountfield, Sir David Jack and Peter Reading

BBC Radio 4 - Last Word, Basil D'Oliveira, Shelagh Delaney, Sir Robin Mountfield, Sir David Jack and Peter Reading

Matthew Bannister on Basil D'Oliveira, Shelagh Delaney, Sir David Jack, Peter Reading.

Matthew Bannister on cricketer Basil D'Oliveira, playwright Shelagh Delaney, civil servant Sir Robin Mountfield, pharmacologist Sir David Jack and poet Peter Reading.

Matthew Bannister on

The South African cricketer Basil D'Oliveira. His selection to play for England on a tour of his homeland was seen as a turning point in the anti apartheid campaign.

The playwright Shelagh Delaney. Her ground-breaking play "A Taste of Honey" was written when she was a teenager. Jeanette Winterson pays tribute. 

The civil servant Sir Robin Mountfield. Under New Labour, he reviewed the government information service, paving the way for the controversial influx of special advisers.

Sir David Jack was the scientific mind behind the success of the pharmaceutical company Glaxo. The drugs he developed transformed the lives of asthma sufferers and people with stomach ulcers.

And the poet Peter Reading - we have a tribute from his admirer and fellow poet Ian Macmillan.

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