Famous or Interesting People

Sir Ian McKellen arrives at the Covent Garden Hotel looking very professorial with lots of papers under one arm and a harried air. It is mid-afternoon, and he wants some food – a bit of soup and …

His manager calls him the best central defender in the world, and unlike many things his manager says this is not a minority view. John Terry is 25, and he has grown up fast. Ten years ago he was …

Such, at least, is Townshend’s recollection of the conversation. He had endured these sorts of dispiriting exchanges with Daltrey before, and decided to press on regardless. One of the first songs …

On Sunday 1 July, John Smeaton woke up at his family home in Erskine, on the outskirts of Glasgow, to find he had not yet become a star. But it was only a matter of hours. He was on his way …

At the beginning of March, even people at the BBC hadn’t heard of Alan Johnston. He was 44 and bald, and his work as a reporter in Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Gaza had earned him a …

On Friday 7 January 1944, Anne Frank confessed her love for a boy she had been smitten with for years. She had first set eyes upon him in school in 1940, and they had been ‘inseparable’ for …