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THE WEEK 9 April 2022Obituaries
In the postwar years, June
Brown, who has died aged
95, worked in the classical
theatre with the likes of Alec
Guinness and Peggy Ashcroft. She took the title
role in Hedda Gabler at the Birmingham Rep
(Nigel Hawthorne described her as “one of the
most beautiful creatures I’ve seen on stage”),
and played Lady Macbeth opposite Albert
Finney. But her career had rather stalled when,
in 1985, she was offered a part in a recently
launched BBC soap opera. She was booked
for just three months, but viewers took to
the character of Dot Cotton – the gossip-
mongering, chain-smoking, Bible-quoting
manager of Mr Papadopoulos’s laundrette –
and Brown was given a long-term contract.
Over the next 35 years, Dot faced innumerable
dramas, many of them involving her criminal
son Nasty Nick Cotton (“Hello, Ma!”),
and became one of EastEnders’s best-loved
characters. Brown had been 58 when she joined the cast; she
finally quit for good aged 93.A stylish dresser with a cut-glass accent, Brown didn’t have much
in common with Dot, except that they were both Christian, both
smokers, and both had lives touched by tragedy. She was born in
Ipswich in 1927. Her father, who owned an electrical engineering
business, was a drinker who beat his children. Her younger
brother died at 15 days; two years later, her beloved older sister
died of meningitis. “Her death was the defining moment of my
life,” she said. “I’ve spent my life looking for a companion who
could show me the same sort of love. And I’ve never foundanyone to match her.” She said that it was her
attempt to fill this void that led her to have so
many affairs. She won a scholarship to Ipswich
High School, then enlisted in the Women’s
Royal Naval Service. It was during the War that
she started acting, and in 1947, she won a place
at the Old Vic theatre school. She met her first
husband, John Garley, while rehearsing for
Twelfth Night. He suffered from depression,
and took his own life. In 1957, a year later, she
married actor Robert Arnold, with whom she
had six children over seven years. Their second
child, Chloe, died at 16 days. Although there
were numerous infidelities, they remained
together until his death in 2003.It was Leslie Grantham (who had already been
cast as Dirty Den Watts) who recommended
her for EastEnders, having seen her play
working-class characters in various TV shows
including Minder. Dot was a querulous,
narrow-minded woman at the start: in 1985, a critic described
her as “a chorus, a latter-day tricoteuse, sorting socks as heads
and reputations rolled before her”. But over the years, she
mellowed to become Albert Square’s moral compass, said The
Daily Telegraph. Brown starred in a poignant two-hander with
Gretchen Franklin (who played Dot’s lifelong friend Ethel) in
1987, and in 2008, she became the first person to carry an
episode single-handed. Her performance in this Beckett-inspired
monologue won her a Bafta nomination. Having taken a break
for four years in the 1990s, she abruptly left the soap in 2020,
following a disagreement over plotlines. Dot was last heard on
screen, in a voice message saying she’d moved to Ireland.June Brown
1927-2022Elspeth Howe, who has died
aged 90, was so often described
as formidable, or redoubtable,
that it became something of a
joke in her family, said Julia Langdon in The
Guardian. But such adjectives proved irresistible
in describing a woman who was intelligent,
independent-minded and politically powerful.
Known as Heppy, she was married from the age
of 21 to the Tory politician Geoffrey Howe, and
she did much to steer the career of the young
lawyer – while pursuing a separate one of her
own. Committed to public service, she sat on
countless committees, and chaired quite a few
(including the Broadcasting Standards Council).
Known as a champion of women’s rights, she
was described as a “Tory feminist”.Her espousal of radical causes did not endear her to Margaret
Thatcher, said The Daily Telegraph. According to Charles Moore,
Thatcher’s disapproval dated back to 1975, when Howe served
on the Labour government’s Equal Opportunities Commission;
and when Geoffrey Howe was made chancellor in the new Tory
government in 1979, Elspeth came under pressure to resign from
that position: it was felt that she ought to play a more “wifely”
role. Thatcher, she later observed, was “positively not interested”
in women’s rights, and suffered from “Queen Bee Syndrome – ‘I
made it. Others can jolly well do the same.’” Relations between
the two did not improve. Thatcher was furious when, in 1990,
Howe spent a night in a cardboard box to highlight the
homelessness problem. Howe, meanwhile, resented the PM’s
belittling of her husband, and her efforts to undermine him. When
he gave the devastating resignation speech that is said to haveprecipitated the Iron Lady’s downfall in 1990, it
was rumoured that Elspeth had more than a hand
in it, though she denied it.Elspeth Shand was born in 1932, the daughter of
Philip Morton Shand, a historian, and his fourth
wife, Sybil. Her half brother was Bruce Shand,
whose daughter is the Duchess of Cornwall.
Elspeth was educated at Wycombe Abbey, where
she captained the cricket team, and secretarial
college. She met Geoffrey Howe at a party when
she was 20 and he was 25. She recalled that she
was being entertained by an attractive young
man at the piano, but was persuaded to leave
this “Adonis” and join Howe in the kitchen,
where he charmed her with funny stories about
Tory politics. When they married, Elspeth initially
refused to vow to “obey” Geoffrey at the ceremony, but the priest
insisted, so she kept her fingers crossed behind her back.In the years that followed, Geoffrey’s supply of witty stories rather
dried up, said The Daily Telegraph, but Elspeth enjoyed bringing
up their three children, advising him on his career, and pursuing
her own: she chaired the Inner London Juvenile Courts in the
1970s; served on the Parole Board, and was vice-president of the
Pre-School Playgroups Association, among many other things.
In 1979, she enrolled as a mature student at the LSE. Soon after,
her husband borrowed some books for her from the Commons
library. There was consternation when it was reported that the
chancellor was reading The Principles of Elementary Economics.
In 1992, Geoffrey Howe was made a life peer; a decade later,
Elspeth was made a “people’s peer” in her own right, and joined
him in the House of Lords as Lady Howe of Idlicote.Elspeth Howe
1932-2022EastEnders stalwart who trained on the classical stage
Brown: Bafta-nominatedHowe: refused to obeyPolitician’s wife with an impressive career of her own