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BEEN AND GONE
By Nick Serpell
BBC Obituary Unit

Our regular column covering the passing of significant – but lesser-reported – people of the past month.

If there was an award for boosting the sales of paper tissues then Erich Segal would surely have been in line to claim it. A Harvard professor of classics, who wrote screenplays in his spare time, his first big film was The Beatles’ animated feature Yellow Submarine, for which he adapted the original book. Another project, about a rich Harvard student meeting a Radcliffe girl from a poor background, failed to generate any interest until a friend suggested he turn it into a book. Love Story became the best selling novel in America in 1970 and the resulting film set the pattern for chick flicks of the future. Cinemas across the world were filled with the sound of sobbing as Jennifer, smitten with a mystery disease, finally succumbed in Oliver’s arms. A follow up, Oliver’s Story, failed to match the success of Love Story and Segal concentrated on his academic work while fighting Parkinson’s disease.

Philippa Scott was one half of a pioneering husband and wife team which did much to raise the profile of the conservation movement long before it became part of the mainstream. Born to British parents in South Africa, the then Philippa Talbot-Ponsonby worked in the code-breaking centre at Bletchley Park during WWII before getting a job as secretary to the wildlife artist and conservationist Peter Scott. The couple married in 1951 by which time Philippa was working at the Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire. Together with her husband she helped turn Slimbridge into a world renowned centre for ducks, geese and swans. She became an accomplished wildlife photographer taking especial pride in her pictures of Antarctica and whales. When Peter died in 1989 Philippa carried on his work and continued to oversee Slimbridge for the rest of her life.

Tony Blair claimed he owed his Christian faith to the influence of a charismatic Australian clergyman, Peter Thomson. The two met at Oxford in 1970 when Blair was a young undergraduate and Thomson, a 36-year-old mature theology student with a reputation for consuming considerable quantities of drink and cigarettes. Blair later described Thomson’s effect on him as "spellbinding" and it persuaded him that Christian teaching had a major part to play in politics. Born in Melbourne, Thomson gained something of a reputation as a parish priest, once being fired for attempting to turn his church into a hair-dressing salon. After studying at Oxford he returned to Australia where he became headmaster of Timbertop School, previously attended by Prince Charles. He came back to Britain to see his protégé win the 1997 election by a landslide. "Tell people that this is for real, that they can trust this bloke."

The mix of classical music, folk and progressive rock which typified the Moody Blues owed much to their producer, Tony Clarke. Often dubbed "the Sixth Moody" Clarke mentored the band, then a straightforward R & B outfit, after their 1966 hit, Go Now, threatened to be their last. The groundbreaking album, Days of Future Past, together with the single, Nights in White Satin, heralded the birth of symphonic rock although, ironically, neither Clarke nor the band had any classical music experience. Clarke steered the Moody Blues through their next six multi-million selling albums including To Our Children’s Children’s Children and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, where achingly beautiful melodies were blended with lush orchestral arrangements. The relationship ended after the 1978 album, Octave, and Clarke went on to work with Clannad and Rick Wakeman.

Music also lost Kate McGarrigle, the Canadian singer who, with her sister Anna, became an influential part of the burgeoning folk scene in New York’s Greenwich Village in the mid 1960s. Their debut album, simply entitled Kate & Anna McGarrigle, was a critical and commercial success but future efforts did not do so well, partly because of Kate’s increasingly stormy relationship with the singer Loudon Wainwright III. Their tempestuous marriage produced some introspective and memorable songs as well as two children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, who went on to become successful recording stars. Following the end of her marriage, Kate avoided publicity although she collaborated with Anna on a 1980 album Entre la Jeunesse et la Sagesse, sung entirely in French. Many critics believed it was their best work. In later years, and despite her terminal illness, Kate delighted in appearing on stage with her children.

Pernell Roberts was the last survivor of Bonanza, one of the most popular TV Westerns of all time. Roberts played Adam, the oldest of the Cartwright brothers, who ran the family ranch under the strict eye of their widowed father, Ben, played by Lorne Greene.

He began acting in New York theatre in the early 1950s before signing a contract with Columbia Pictures. He joined Bonanza when it launched in 1959 but quit six years later, when the series was pulling in huge audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. He referred to it as "junk television" and felt it was ridiculous that his character, a man of 33, should have to defer so much to his father. He was also reported to be at odds with the producers over the way Native American characters were portrayed. After a decade of bit parts he came back into the limelight playing the eponymous role in Trapper John MD, a spin-off from M*A*S*H. Away from the cameras, Roberts was a social activist who was prominent in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Among others who died in January were BBC commentator,Bill McLaren, dubbed "the voice of rugby"; Great Expectations actressJean Simmons, who married Stuart Granger;Miep Giles, who, with others, protected Anne Frank’s family in their Amsterdam hideout and the reclusive author of Catcher In The Rye,JD Salinger.

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WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website that allows people to publish uncensored information anonymously, has suspended operations owing to financial problems.

Its running costs including staff payments are $600,000 (£377,000), but so far this year it has raised just $130,000 (£81,000).

WikiLeaks has established a reputation for publishing information that traditional media cannot.

The website claims to be non-profit and relies on donations.

A statement on its front page says it is funded by "human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public".

Original documents

WikiLeaks does not accept money from governments or corporations.

A list of names and addresses of people said to belong to the British National Party (BNP) was posted on the site in October 2009.

WikiLeaks also published e-mail exchanges involving US politician Sarah Palin after her account was hacked.

The site claims to have information about corrupt banks, the UN and the Iraq war that it is unable to publish while funds remain low.

While it has won awards for its work from the Economist and Amnesty International, WikiLeaks has also fought more than 100 legal challenges.

"WikiLeaks has established a good name for itself and broken some good stories," Julian Petley, chair of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, told BBC News.

"One of the reasons why WikiLeaks is so useful is that it’s able to put original documents up – unfiltered by comment and editorial."

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Budget airline Ryanair has reported a 10.9m euro ($15.3m; £9.5m) net loss for the October to December quarter.

However, the loss was much smaller than the 101.5m euro deficit it reported for the same period in 2008.

Ryanair said the result had been helped by a 37% fall in fuel costs, which had offset a 12% fall in fares. It had also cut some loss-making routes.

The carrier also raised its full-year profit forecast, saying it now expected net profits of about 275m euros.

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As a poll for the BBC reveals support for assisted suicide for someone who is terminally ill, Kay Gilderdale, acquitted last week of attempted murder, describes her only daughter Lynn’s slow death and her unwavering conviction that she did the right thing.

Kay Gilderdale could not understand why the morphine was not working.

It had been several hours since her daughter Lynn has self-injected three large doses of morphine in the early hours of 3 December, 2008 in an attempt to end her life. Ms Gilderdale believed it should have been a fatal dose but Lynn was still alive.

"Her last words were, she’s frightened – I said why And she said I’m frightened for you and I’m frightened it won’t work"

Kay Gilderdale

In her desperation, Kay Gilderdale turned to the internet and a euthanasia support group for information and counsel.

"I wanted advice, I wanted to know why the morphine, why she didn’t die with the amount that she had," she says of her actions.

"I was really worried that she was suffering in some way because she hadn’t died – she was unconscious".

Kay Gilderdale had cared for Lynn for the 17 years since her daughter had contracted chronic fatigue syndrome, better known as ME. Lynn had been in constant pain since being diagnosed with a severe form of the neurological condition at the age of 14.

It was Kay’s actions in the 30 hours between Lynn taking the morphine and dying that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) felt had crossed the line – from assisted suicide to attempted murder.

They included giving further medication, injecting Lynn with air and searching the internet for advice on overdoses.

The question of how far someone can legally go in assisting another person’s suicide has prompted widespread debate in the UK in recent years. Last September, the director of public prosecutions issued interim guidelines to help clarify the legal position – outlining the factors in a case that might lead to the relative or friend being prosecuted for helping their loved one die.

THE LAW ON ASSISTED SUICIDE

• The 1961 Suicide Act makes it an offence to aid, abet, counsel or procure a suicide or a suicide attempt in England and Wales
• Penalty – up to 14 years in prison
• But the issue of what proportionality – tempering justice with mercy – has come to a head in recent years
• In September 2009, the director of public prosecutions set out a range of factors that influence whether a person would face prosecution or not
• He set out 16 factors that could influence authorities in favour of a prosecution
• These include issues such as financial motive, pressuring the individual into suicide and whether the person wanting to die was under 18 or suffering from a mental illness

But crucially for Ms Gilderdale, that clarification came after the decision to prosecute her.

And while the case has prompted an outpouring of sympathy for the Gilderdale family, many feel the law needs to hold firm on assisted suicide. Peter Saunders, director of Care Not Killing, has said the law acts as a powerful deterrent to protect vulnerable people from exploitation and abuse.

Yet despite the ordeal of watching her daughter slowly die, Ms Gilderdale says she never doubted that she was doing the right thing.

"I was torn apart inside because I wanted Lynn to live and I was fighting with myself to do what I knew she wanted, what she needed – to adhere to her wishes and give her time to die," she says of those hours alone with Lynn in the family’s East Sussex home.

Last week, a jury in Lewes Crown Court acquitted Ms Gilderdale of the attempted murder charge and the judge in the case questioned the public interest in the CPS decision to prosecute.

She had previously pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the suicide and had been given a 12-month conditional discharge on this count.

Of the night her daughter decided to take her own life, after years spent on high levels of morphine, Ms Gilderdale says what she believed would have been a fatal dosage did not kill Lynn right away.

After a few hours she began to worry when Lynn’s breathing became laboured and she appeared to be in distress.

"I thought when she went unconscious, I thought that she would die quite soon… but she started to show some signs of distress and had difficulty breathing.

"I was really worried that she was suffering in some way because she hadn’t died… but I didn’t know what she was feeling or what she wasn’t feeling."

REMEMBERING LYNN
‘She had a way of getting round people and she was very popular," says Kay Gilderdale, recalling how her daughter had been before contracting ME when she was 14.
‘She’d come home from school bursting to tell you everything that was going on and I have very strong pictures of her at school sports day. I see her running because she was a great runner as well and striding out and I just catch all the things in my head of when she was able to do all that, just be out and do the normal things.’

She then crushed up some sleeping tablets and sedatives and gave those to Lynn in an attempt to make sure she was not suffering.

"I didn’t want to cause her any harm, I wanted to ease her passing or her suffering… I was worried that she was suffering and that she wasn’t able to tell me."

"Her last words were, she’s frightened. I thought she meant frightened of the unknown, and I said why are you frightened And she said I’m frightened for you and I’m frightened it won’t work. So she didn’t want to get me in trouble and she wanted her suicide bid to be successful."

"It wasn’t a whim, she had considered it very, very carefully what she was giving up and what she was giving up was a quality of life so poor and as much as she wanted life, she didn’t want the life that she had."

Ms Gilderdale says it was just after 7 in the morning on the 4 December – 30 hours after the initial injection – when Lynn finally died.

"I just knew, I think I knew instantly that she had died," she said. "I just touched her and realised she had gone."

Panorama: I Helped My Daughter Die, BBC One, Monday, 1 February at 2030 GMT

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At least 16 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on pilgrims in north-east Baghdad, police say.

A woman detonated her suicide vest in Boub El Sham district at a refreshment stall as pilgrims walked by.

The targets were Shia pilgrims who are continuing to mark the Arbaeen, the end of 40 days of mourning for the death of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson.

At least 38 other pilgrims were hurt in the attack, which happened as they made a pilgrimage to Karbala.

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By Simon Austin

England boss Fabio Capello is in no rush to decide on John Terry’s future as captain, BBC Sport understands.

Terry’s role has been called into question following allegations of an affair with the former girlfriend of England team-mate Wayne Bridge.

But a senior Football Association source told BBC Sport: "We are not in a hurry. We will meet the squad next month, before the game against Egypt.

"Then we’ll have the chance to observe the players and dynamic between them."

Capello has been monitoring the fall-out from the Terry affair from his holiday home in Switzerland, where he is recovering from knee surgery.

The Italian returns to England on Thursday and will have detailed discussions about Terry with his trusted lieutenant, Franco Baldini.

Capello is then likely to leave Baldini, England’s general manager, to sit down with Terry and get his side of the story.

Journalists will have their first opportunity to grill Capello about Terry’s captaincy at the Euro 2012 draw in Warsaw, Poland, on Sunday, which the England manager will attend as a representative of the FA.

606: DEBATE

"Should sportsmen be role models off the pitch"

oldblueboy53

The England squad then get together on 28 February to prepare for the friendly against African Cup of Nations champions Egypt at Wembley on 3 March.

Manchester City defender Bridge – a former Chelsea team-mate of Terry’s – might not be involved, because he has been out of action with a knee injury.

Meanwhile, sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe says he wants talks with the FA over the suitability of Terry as England captain.

"If these allegations are proven, it calls into question his role as England captain," Sutcliffe said.

Despite ongoing newspaper revelations about Terry’s private life, the 29-year-old has been assured by Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti that he will remain club captain.

However, there are increasing concerns over Terry being skipper of the national team with England little more than four months away from starting their World Cup campaign against the United States on 13 June.

And although the FA has so far declined to comment on the situation, Sutcliffe said he will be meeting with the governing body to request an explanation.

"On the field John Terry is a fantastic player and a good England captain, but to be the captain of England you have got to have wider responsibilities for the country," Sutcliffe insisted.

"I speak to the FA on a regular basis, so I will be asking what their viewpoint is and we will see what comes of it."

Terry is set go to the World Cup in South Africa as captain, while Bridge, who has not played since December because of injury, is also likely to be selected in Capello’s squad as understudy to another former Chelsea team-mate, Ashley Cole.

Terry won a gagging order last week preventing the public learning about an alleged affair, but the injunction was lifted by the High Court on Friday.

National newspapers named the father-of-two, who is married to Toni Poole, in their Saturday editions as having a relationship with Vanessa Perroncel.

And there were further revelations about the alleged affair in Sunday’s national newspapers.

Meanwhile, publicist Max Clifford revealed on Monday that Perroncel had consulted him and that the model would decide whether to take further action within the next few days.

"She basically said, ‘What do I do" Clifford said on GMTV television. "’Journalists are knocking down my door, I’ve got people running round taking photos everywhere I go, I never sought this, I never asked for this, and I’ve never spoken to anybody.’"

Manchester City players Carlos Tevez, Nigel de Jong and Stephen Ireland wore T-shirts with the words "Team Bridge" in support of their team-mate during their 2-0 win over Portsmouth on Sunday.

Former England captain Alan Shearer described Terry as a "fantastic leader" and said: "We do not know all the facts, so it would be wrong to suggest anything. What I do know is that John Terry is a fantastic leader and a very good footballer.

"I do not know him as a person – I have just played against him. Only John Terry and Fabio Capello will be able to tell in the coming weeks if it (the allegations) affects the captaincy."

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The US military must shift its focus to fighting a wide range of threats – from cyber attacks to terrorism – the Pentagon’s 2010 draft strategy says.

The quadrennial defence review – set to be unveiled in Washington – revises the previous objective of being equipped to fight two major conflicts at any time.

The strategy accounts for threats such as cyber attacks, global warming and "hybrid" guerrilla-style insurgencies.

It comes on the same day that the US defence secretary unveils his budget.

Robert Gates’ proposed 2011 spending plan comes to more than $700bn (£440bn), a modest 2% increase, the draft documents show.

But it avoids the sweeping cuts to major weapons programmes seen in last year’s budget.

New threats

The Pentagon is mandated by Congress to review America’s defence priorities every four years.

ANALYSIS
Jonathan Beale, BBC News

The 2010 Quadrennial Defence Review will show the continuing evolution of military thinking – away from conventional warfare to the increased threat from non-state actors, like al-Qaeda.

China is still seen as a problem – but the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have forced the US military to focus on the actual enemy, more than potential threats. That will be reflected in defence spending.

More money will be spent on special forces helicopters and drones or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) – the equipment the army needs now, rather than what it might need in 20 years time.

Robert Gates is lucky – while President Barack Obama is putting the squeeze on public spending, defence will be one of the few areas of government that will receive more money.

According to the draft 2010 quadrennial defence review: "It is no longer appropriate to speak of ‘major regional conflicts’ as the sole or even the primary template for sizing, shaping and evaluating US forces."

It highlights "a multiplicity of threats", including satellite and cyber attacks, as well as terrorist groups and the prospect of more nuclear-armed nations.

But it says the military’s top priority is to "prevail in today’s wars", citing the need to "dismantle terrorist networks" in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The plan allocates new funding for helicopters, unmanned planes and special operations units, which have played a key role in both conflicts.

It outlines a joint Air Force-Navy battle plan to counter the threats from nations such as China, Iran and North Korea, citing their increasingly sophisticated aerial defence and strike systems.

The report says Mr Gates will also seek to overhaul the military’s acquisitions system so the US can get key supplies quickly to its own bases and those of its partners around the world.

The review for the first time identifies global warming as a potential trigger of instability or conflict around the world.

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Climate deadline passes – but does it really matter?

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Israel has revealed it has disciplined two senior officers in its defence forces for using white phosphorus shells during an offensive in Gaza.

The admission is contained in the Israeli response to the Goldstone report, which concluded both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes.

The identities of the officers and their punishment is not yet clear.

During the 22-day conflict last year media pictures showed incendiary shells raining down on a UN compound.

The officers ranks have been confirmed as a brigadier-general and a colonel.

"Several artillery shells were fired in violation of the rules of engagement prohibiting use of such artillery near populated areas," the report says.

The BBC’s Paul Wood in Jerusalem says it is the first time Israel has revealed it disciplined any officer for their actions during the offensive, named by the Israeli military as Operation Cast Lead.

Our correspondent says the admission was buried in the document handed to the United Nations on Friday.

The UN General Assembly has demanded that both Israel and Hamas launch independent investigations into their conduct during the Israeli operation which began in December 2008.

An Israeli official said the submission to the UN was not intended to respond in detail to the allegations and incidents outlined in the Goldstone report, but to explain why the Israeli justice system was "reliable" and "independent".

The Islamist movement Hamas has denied that its forces deliberately targeted civilians with rockets.

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