Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

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Image captionKnown as "mama" or "mother of the nation", controversy befell her in later life

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela became a potent symbol of South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle when she was banished and jailed for campaigning for the rights of black South Africans and her husband's release.

For decades she and her then-husband, the iconic Nelson Mandela, were the country's most famous political couple - but Mr Mandela divorced her in 1996.

After their separation she kept his surname and they maintained ties, leading to critics accusing her of attempting to use his name for political mileage.

In later life her reputation later became tainted by a fraud conviction and murder accusations, which she denied.

Born in Bizana in the Transkei in 1936, she met Mr Mandela in 1957. He was married at the time to Evelyn Mase but the marriage was breaking up.

The next year they married - she was a young bride, 16 years his junior, glamorous and strong-willed.

However, they were destined to have little time together as political activism and a period in hiding kept Mr Mandela apart from her.

He was jailed for life in 1964 and only released in 1990.

While he was in prison, she took on an increasingly political role, partly because of constant harassment by the South African security police.

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Image captionThe couple had two daughters before Nelson was imprisoned, Zenani and Zindzi

She became an international symbol of resistance to apartheid and a rallying point for poor, black township residents who demanded their freedom.

'Mother of the Nation'

Her resistance to harassment and championing of the anti-apartheid cause led to periods of imprisonment from 1969, much of it spent in solitary confinement.

In 1976, the year of the Soweto riots, she was banished from the township to a remote rural area. At one stage her house was burned down, with suspicion falling on the South African security forces.

This led to her being dubbed the "Mother of the Nation".

By the mid-1980s and the start of a long period of township militancy against the white government of President P W Botha, she was back in Soweto and at the heart of the struggle.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

1936: Born in Transkei

1958: Married Nelson Mandela

1969: Jailed for 18 months for anti-apartheid activities

1976: Banished to rural area by apartheid authorities

1991: Convicted of kidnapping

1996: Divorced from Nelson Mandela

2003: Convicted of fraud

Her image and activism drew to her many anti-apartheid activists, including a group of young men who became her personal bodyguards.

They became known as the Mandela United Football Club.

Her prominence led to great influence over young, radical township activists but also growing controversy.

As activists turned on suspected police informers or collaborators, the use of rubber tyres filled with petrol as brutal murder weapons, known as "necklaces", became widespread. At one rally she controversially seemed to endorse their use.

Even greater controversy came when she was accused by senior anti-apartheid activists of involvement in the killing of a 14-year-old township militant, Stompie Seipei.

Disgrace and divorce

Stompie had been seized by Ms Madikizela-Mandela's bodyguards in 1989 and was later found dead.

Members of the ANC leadership accused her of being behind the killing and of conducting a virtual reign of terror in parts of Soweto.

Image copyrightREUTERS

Image captionThe former first lady remained largely unmoved during testimony against her at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997

From prison, Mr Mandela continued to support his wife.

In 1991, after his release, she was charged with the assault and kidnapping of Stompie and one of her bodyguards was charged with his murder.

She denied the allegations but was found guilty of kidnapping and sentenced to six years imprisonment.

This was reduced to a fine by an appeal court.

Her marriage to Mr Mandela broke down in the years after his release and they were divorced in 1996.

President Mandela accused her of adultery, and in the same year, dismissed her as deputy minister of arts and culture - the only post she has held in government since white minority rule ended.

Her split from Mr Mandela did little to harm her political standing among poor, black South Africans who saw her as their voice at a time when the ANC had adopted pro-business policies.

But at the same time she became known for an increasingly lavish lifestyle, arriving to testify at Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in a white Mercedes limousine surrounded by bodyguards.

In 2003, Ms Madikizela-Mandela suffered another blow when a court convicted her of fraud and theft in connection with a bank loan scandal.

Image copyrightAFP

The sentencing magistrate compared her to a modern-day Robin Hood, fraudulently acquiring loans for people who were desperately short of money, but he said that as a prominent public figure she should have known better.

An appeal judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three-year-and-six-month suspended sentence.

This dented her career, but she remained respected in the ANC, and was an MP until her death.

At the ANC conference in 2007, she was elected to the party's top decision-making body, the National Executive Committee, and in the 2009 general election, she was placed fifth on the list of ANC MPs nominated for parliament, in a clear sign that then-President Jacob Zuma saw her as an electoral asset.

She would later clash with him and become political patron of the youth leader Julius Malema.

Final years

Ms Madikizela-Mandela described being there for the final moments of her ex-husband's life in 2013, and appeared in a prominent position at memorial services in his honour.

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Image captionShe and widow Graca Machel were pictured wiping away tears together while mourning

After his death, she became embroiled in a legal battle over his village home, which she wanted for their two daughters, Zinzi and Zenani. The Supreme Court affirmed a decision that she held no claim to it in January 2018.

The same month she was honoured with an honorary degree from Makerere University in Uganda for her anti-apartheid campaigning.

Although she remained in the political limelight, she was granted leave from parliament in March 2018 due to ill health.

A family spokesman confirmed her death on 2 April, aged 81.

Her family said she had suffered from a "long illness" and had been in and out of hospital in the last months of her life.

"She succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones," spokesman Victor Dlamini said in a statement.

Bill Maynard

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Bill Maynard, who has died at the age of 89, was best known as the loveable rogue Claude Jeremiah Greengrass, in the police drama Heartbeat.

But he had a long and sometimes difficult career that took him from variety shows to cinema and network television

In real life Maynard shared many similarities with his best known character, a predilection for racehorses, greyhounds and booze.

At one stage he was the best paid TV comic in Britain but he squandered his earnings. Maynard then embarked on a career as a stage actor, before returning to the screen in a number of successful television series.

Unpaid taxes

He was born Walter Frederick George Williams on 8 October 1928 in the village of Heath End in Surrey.

At the age of eight he was performing in Working Men's Clubs, doing George Formby impressions.

He later dabbled with the idea of becoming a professional footballer, apprenticed aged 15 to Leicester City and Notts County, but was eventually forced back to the stage by a knee injury.

He returned to show business as a band singer, struggling to get a break at the Windmill Theatre. His luck changed after encountering another stand-up comic, Terry Scott.

By this time he had changed his stage name to Maynard - a name, as he later revealed in a BBC interview, that he saw a on poster for Maynard's wine gums.

Image captionGreat Scott! It's Maynard

He and Scott became TV stars in the 1950s with their own show, Great Scott, It's Maynard. The partnership ended when Maynard decided to embark on a career as a serious actor.

But he was not paying enough attention to his finances and the Inland Revenue took his money, his home and his cars for unpaid taxes.

Maynard spent several years in obscurity, forced to take bit-parts in repertory companies, and making small appearances in programmes like Coronation Street.

Heartbeat

He slowly rebuilt his career His role in the TV adaptation of Dennis Potter's play, Paper Roses, won him critical acclaim.

He subsequently went on to enjoy success with such comedy shows as Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt and The Gaffer.

Image captionA role in Dalziel & Pascoe in 2002

In the 1970s he recorded a song in tribute to the sport of Stock Car racing released, to very little acclaim, on the appropriately named Crash Records.

He also appeared in a number of Carry On films, although he professed to be baffled by their popularity.

In 1984, he stood as an Independent Labour candidate against Tony Benn in Chesterfield. He said he had only done it to try and keep Benn out of Parliament and it was his only venture into politics.

He subsequently went on to take his most popular role, that of Greengrass, in the TV series Heartbeat.

It was a part that seemed to have been specifically created for him and Maynard worked with the scriptwriters to develop the character's idiosyncrasies.

At its peak in 1997, Heartbeat attracted more than 60% of the Sunday night audience, earning Maynard a reputed £600,000 a year.

His character was written out in 2000 after he had suffered several strokes, but returned in 2003 in a spin-off series set in a hospital entitled, The Royal.

Away from acting he ran his own video production company and was a long serving presenter on BBC Radio Leicester

His first wife Muriel died from cancer just as he was tasting his second round of success, leaving Maynard to care for their two young children.

He went on to marry speed ace Donald Campbell's widow Tonia.

Sir Roger Moore

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Image captionSir Roger Moore has died at the age of 89 following "a short but brave battle with cancer"

Sir Roger Moore, who has died aged 89, brought a lighter touch to the role of James Bond, the role for which he was most famous.

Out went the harder, crueller edge of Sean Connery's 007 to be succeeded by sardonic humour and the inevitable raised eyebrow.

He eventually became the longest-serving actor in the role, his seven Bond films becoming the most commercially successful of the franchise.

His tenure in the role also showcased an array of implausible gadgets and a host of new characters, designed to flesh out Ian Fleming's original plots.

Roger George Moore was born in Stockwell, south London on 14 October 1927, the son of a policeman.

At 15, he entered art college, and later became an apprentice at an animation studio, where it seems much fun was had at his expense.

"I was probably the lowliest in the entire building," he said. "They sent me on errands for things like tins of sprocket holes, and the guy in stores would say he didn't have any - and would rainbow paint do instead?"

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Image captionThe actor made something of a name as a male model in the 1950s

Sir Roger was sacked for incompetence, but soon had a stroke of luck. His father, by now a detective sergeant, was called to investigate a robbery at the home of the film director, Brian Desmond Hurst.

DS Moore managed to effect an introduction that led to his son being hired as an extra for the epic, Caesar and Cleopatra.

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Hurst paid for Sir Roger to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, before a spell of National Service with the Army where he rose to the rank of captain.

On his return to the theatre, he found acting roles hard to come by but his well-toned physique meant he was in demand as a model. One of his engagements was playing the doctor in Woman's Own medical features.

Dashing hero

He also appeared, suitably attired in a sweater, on a number of knitting patterns, prompting at least one wag to christen him the Big Knit.

And in 1953, his looks and his minor roles in theatre and television plays impressed an MGM talent scout and Sir Roger set off for America.

Married at 17 to a fellow Rada student, Doorn Van Steyn, he was by now living with the singer Dorothy Squires, 12 years his senior, who soon became his second wife at a ceremony in New Jersey.

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Image captionIvanhoe brought Sir Roger to a wider audience

While Squires was popular in Britain, Sir Roger was rubbing shoulders with stars in the States, making his film debut with Elizabeth Taylor in The Last Time I Saw Paris and playing Lana Turner's leading man in Diane.

But it was through television that he first made his mark, as the dashing hero Ivanhoe in a 1950s series that had only a tentative connection with Sir Walter Scott's original novel.

He followed that with the lead role in an American TV series The Alaskans. It was not a great success. Despite being set in Alaska, it was filmed on a hot Hollywood set with the cast dressed up in furs. Moore found the filming difficult and an affair with actress Dorothy Provine did nothing to relieve the pressure.

Wise-cracking

He also appeared in the successful Western series Maverick, where he had the role of Beau Maverick, supposedly the English cousin of the lead character Brett, played by James Garner.

Ironically Sir Sean Connery had also tested for the part but turned it down.

Sir Roger's big breakthrough came in 1962 when the impresario Lew Grade cast him as the dashing Simon Templar aka The Saint, in a television adaptation of the Leslie Charteris stories.

The series, which ran for seven years, made Sir Roger a star on both sides of the Atlantic. Many of the Saint's characteristics, the easygoing manner, mocking eyebrow and ability to successfully charm every passing female, would later be incorporated into his role as James Bond.

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Image captionSir Roger's suave character in The Persuaders contrasted with Tony Curtis's rough diamond

In 1971 he teamed up with Tony Curtis in the TV series The Persuaders, as one of two wise-cracking millionaire playboys who floated around the fleshpots of the globe as a pair of freelance secret agents.

The success of the series owed a lot to the contrast of the rough-hewn New Yorker Danny Wilde, played by Curtis, and Sir Roger's suave Lord Brett Sinclair.

Sir Roger always denied that he had been considered as James Bond when the franchise launched in 1962 and was only aware of interest in him when Sir Sean announced, in 1966, that he would no longer play the role.

There was a long wait. George Lazenby was cast in the 1969 film On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Sir Sean was tempted back with an offer of £1.5m, a huge sum in those days, to make Diamonds Are Forever.

Headlines

It really was the last appearance for Sir Sean and Sir Roger finally picked up the Walther PPK in 1973 for Live and Let Die.

He went on to make six more films, including The Spy Who Loved Me and Octopussy, before bowing out of the role at the age of 57 with A View to a Kill. It was his last film appearance for five years.

Sir Roger had some success in films such as Shout at the Devil, The Wild Geese and North Sea Hijack, but many of the newspaper headlines after he retired as Bond were about his life off screen.

Image copyrightRONALD GRANT

Image captionHe brought a lighter touch to the role of James Bond

In 1963, he became a father, when his partner, Luisa Mattioli, had a daughter, but it was to be another five years before Dorothy Squires agreed to give Sir Roger a divorce.

He married Luisa and they had two sons, but after 38 years, Sir Roger left her and they were divorced. He married his fourth wife, Kiki Tholstrup, in March 2002.

Sir Roger recovered from an operation for prostate cancer in 1993 and said he had led "an extraordinarily lucky, charmed life".

Achievements

He had homes in Switzerland and Monte Carlo, but devoted much of his time to travelling the globe as a roving ambassador for the United Nations children's organisation Unicef, a role prompted by the scenes of child poverty he had witnessed in India while filming Octopussy.

He took up the position at the request of his friend and predecessor, Audrey Hepburn. His work was recognised by a CBE in 1998 and he was knighted in 2003.

Throughout his life Sir Roger cut a suave figure, always immaculately dressed. In 2015 he was awarded the accolade of one of GQ magazine's best-dressed men.

Image copyrightPA

Image captionHe would also remain associated with James Bond

He was a lifelong supporter of the Conservative Party, giving his backing to David Cameron in 2011 when the prime minister faced criticism over his policy on the EU.

Despite his other work and achievements, Roger Moore never managed to quite shrug off the mantle of 007.

"Of course I do not regret the Bond days," he once remarked. "I regret that sadly heroes in general are depicted with guns in their hands, and to tell the truth I have always hated guns and what they represent."