Dame Vera Lynn among Sussex people who ‘left their mark’ on the UK

Several people from Sussex who "left their mark on the UK”, including Dame Vera Lynn, have been added to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).

They are among the 276 people who died in 2020 who are being added.

Dame Vera lived in Ditchling from 1963 until her death. Born in 1917, she was a child star, graduating from East End working men’s clubs and Madame Harris’s Kracker Kabaret Kids to appearing with Bert Ambrose’s popular dance band.

The war transformed her career and made her into a national hero, dubbed “the Forces’ Sweetheart”, with such songs as We’ll Meet Again and White Cliffs Of Dover.

Others to be included are the actress Honor Blackman, who was a Bond Girl. She lived in Lewes in the years before her death. She made her West End debut in at 21-year-old in 1946 and her last television appearance in You, Me and Them in 2015.

Honor Blackman starred as Pussy Galore

Ms Blackman was best known for her roles as Patrick Macnee’s assistant Cathy Gale in The Avengers (1962-4) and Pussy Galore in the Bond film Goldfinger (1964), starring Sean Connery.

Honor Blackman as a Bond Girl

Helen Taylor Thompson who lived in Nutley, near Uckfield, served in London with the special operations executive during the Second World War, sending messages and arranging airdrops.

Born in 1924, Ms Thompson was a successful businesswoman before devoting herself to charitable causes. In 1982 she led the campaign to re-open Mildmay Mission Hospital, which became Europe's first Aids hospice.

Tim Renton was a veteran MP in Sussex

Timothy Renton, Baron Renton of Mount Harry (1932–2020), was Conservative MP for Mid-Sussex from 1974 to 1997, a junior minister and then chief whip under Margaret Thatcher. He played a key and controversial role in her downfall.

By contrast, Stuart Christie, born in 1946, was a Scottish anarchist who rose to notoriety in 1964 when he was arrested in Spain while carrying explosives with which to assassinate General Franco. Released after four years, back in the UK he was a leading figure in the anarchist movement as an author, editor, and publisher. At one point he lived in Hastings, and edited a radical magazine, The Hastings Trawler.

Prof Julian Perry Robinson dedicated his life to preventing chemical and biological warfare

Julian Perry Robinson (1941–2020), who lived for many years in Sussex Square, Brighton, was a chemist and peace researcher who was a leading expert on chemical and biological weapons, tracking their proliferation and arguing for limitations through international agreements. Towards the end of his life he produced reports on the use of chemical weapons in Syria and the Novichok group of chemical weapons agents.

Others included are:

• Sir Ronald Harwood, author and playwright, lived in Singleton, near Chichester

• Kenneth Alwyn, conductor, composer and writer, lived in West Chiltington, near Storrington

• William Frankland, immunologist, born in Bexhill

• Philip Horniblow, doctor who worked in the middle east, born in Eastbourne

• Derwent May, ornithologist, born in Eastbourne

• Selma Barkham, historian and geographer, lived in Chichester

• Valerie Curtis, scientist, lived in Linfield

• Michael Francis Land, biologist, lived in Lewes

• John Barrow, astrophysicist at University of Sussex

• David Coleridge, underwriter, lived near Midhurst