The Lady’s Ladies of 2013

The Duchess of Cambridge

Since giving birth to her son, Prince George, she has enthusiastically carried out her royal and public duties with a focus on the charities closest to her heart. She and Prince William are clearly delighting in their role as parents and are both intent on bringing up their son in as normal a way as possible.

She says: ‘He was such a good boy actually [at the Christening] …we were very lucky, he is not always like that.’

Angelina Jolie

The American actress has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. Along with her partner, Brad Pitt, she has donated millions of dollars to numerous charities. Earlier this year she underwent a double mastectomy to avoid the risk of breast cancer after finding she carried the ‘faulty’ BRCA1 gene.

She says: ‘My doctors estimated that I had an 87 per cent risk of breast cancer and a 50 per cent risk of ovarian cancer… Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimise the risk as much as I could.’

Mishal Husain

The British BBC news presenter began her journalistic career aged 18 while working as a reporter in Islamabad. While working for the BBC she has appeared on the World News and the Weekend News. She also presented HARDtalk and BBC Breakfast. This year she became a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. She is the show’s first Asian Muslim presenter.

She says: ‘Joining the Today programme is the most intense experience of my professional life.’

Dame Stephanie ‘Steve’ Shirley

She arrived in Britain as a penniless five-year-old on the Kindertransport in 1939. She never saw her parents again. In 1962, she founded a software company (at a time when she had to have her husband’s signature to open a bank account) and went on to become one of the UK’s richest women. She has given away almost half of her fortune to date. Her autobiography, Let It Go, was published to critical acclaim.

She says: ‘A determination to justify why I was saved when a million children died – that drives me today.’

Dame Helen Mirren

She began her acting career by playing Cleopatra with the National Youth Theatre. Queens became a theme, with her portrayal of Elizabeth II in Stephen Frears’s film, The Queen, winning her an Oscar and a Bafta. In November, she was named Best Actress in the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards for her performance in The Audience, about the monarch’s weekly meetings with her prime ministers, from Winston Churchill to David Cameron.

She says: ‘Whenever I see the queen, I always think, “Oh, there I am!”’

Camila Batmanghelidjh

She is the founder of two charities, Kids Company and the Place2Be. Her charity work has helped 17,000 vulnerable children and young people in the capital. She has written a number of books including Shattered Lives: Children Who Live With Courage And Dignity and Mind The Child: The Victoria Line, published this year.

She says: ‘When you’re a lifeline to so many children, you’d better show up and get on with it. If they can survive that amount of neglect then we better get on with the fundraising.’

Marilyn Baldwin

After watching her mother Jessica Looke spend the last five years of her life being ‘brainwashed’ by fraudsters in Scotland, Marilyn set up the Think Jessica campaign. Ms Looke, who died aged 83 in 2007, was conned out of £50,000 and targeted more than 30,000 times. Her daughter now helps thousands of elderly and vulnerable people who are targeted by scammers. It is estimated that about £3.5bn is lost to scam mail every year in the UK. Marilyn was named Inspirational Woman Of The Year by ITV in October.

She says: ‘Fraudsters should face the same sentencing as criminals who physically force someone to hand over their money.’

Dame Judi Dench

She was inspired by her mother’s work as a wardrobe mistress and originally trained as a set designer before going to the Central School Of Speech And Drama where she graduated with a first class degree – setting the standard for her future career. She is one of the most decorated actors of her generation, with 10 Baftas, seven Olivier Awards and an Oscar.

She says: ‘I never want to stop [working]. I need to learn every day. I don’t question the curiosity.’

Baroness Thatcher 

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, the ‘Iron Lady’, was the first female British prime minister and the longest
serving PM for more than 150 years. Her father, Alfred Roberts, was a shopkeeper and mayor of Grantham. She was educated at the local grammar school, read chemistry at Oxford and trained as a barrister before entering politics. In 1995 she was appointed as Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter. She died on 8 April 2013, aged 87, at the Ritz Hotel in London, after su‘ffering a stroke. She received a ceremonial funeral including full military honours, with a church service at St Paul’s Cathedral.

She says: ‘If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.’

Dame Vivien Duffield

One of the UK’s most active philanthropists, Dame Du•ffield is thought to have given more than £200m to charity projects. She became Chair of the Clore Foundation after the death of her father, Charles Clore, in 1979. She merged it with her own organisation in 2000 to produce the Clore Du•ffield Foundation. She was awarded a CBE in 1989, followed by a DBE in 2000.

She says: ‘Shrouds don’t have pockets.’

Mary Berry

She is the face of British baking. Trained as a cordon bleu chef, her first cookbook was published in 1966 and she has since published a further 70. Since 2010, Mary has co-presented The Great British Bake O‘ff and encouraged the nation to raise their families on home-cooked meals. She is the patron of Child Bereavement UK, a position close to her heart after her youngest son died in a car crash at just 19.

She says: ‘Cakes are healthy too, you just eat a thin slice. There’s a lot of cheer in a cake.’

Dame Maggie Smith 

The actress has had a hugely successful career in stage, film and television since her stage debut in 1952. She has become one of Britain’s most recognised, and loved, stars and is currently starring as the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey. She has won many awards for her performances, including two Oscars, and most recently won the Evening Standard’s Theatre Icon Award.

She says: ‘I would love to do more work on the stage – especially after winning this award.’

Esther Rantzen

She rose to fame as presenter of the BBC television series, That’s Life!, which ran for 21 years. In 1986 she set up the child protection charity, ChildLine, which has continued to transform the lives of vulnerable children. In November this year she established a helpline called The Silver Line, with 3,000 volunteers manning phones in a bid to combat isolation among the older population.

She says: ‘Something must be done to assure our older population that they are valued, that they are a resource.’

Miranda Hart

She is a comedy writer and actress, whose BBC sitcom Miranda has earned her four Bafta nominations, three RTS Awards and three British Comedy Awards. She started off‘ as an o•ffice assistant and built her career as a comedian from her stand-up and sketch shows at the Edinburgh Festival and on the London circuit. This year she launched a  fitness video for those who don’t really do fitness.

She says: ‘One size does not fit all!’

5 Dame Vivien Duffield 6 Mary Berry 7 Dame Maggie Smith 8 Esther Rantzen 9 Miranda Hart

Stella McCartney 

Born and raised in London and the countryside, Stella McCartney graduated from Central St Martins and went on to establish her eponymous design brand of sharp tailoring and understated femininity. She has designed a headscarf to be given away free to 2,500 women who have received chemotherapy at King’s College Hospital, London. Her mother, Linda, died of the disease.

She says: ‘Everyone can do simple things to make a difference, and every little bit really does count.’

Joanna Lumley

She is a successful actress and committed human rights activist whose Gurkha Justice Campaign has earned her universal adoration and respect. This year she won the Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards and, after 15 years of campaigning, she has secured government funding and approval for a ‘garden bridge’ across the Thames.

She says: ‘I don’t think we’re taught enough that we are in sole control of ourselves, it isn’t anybody else’s job to look after us, it’s our job.’

PD James

Baroness James of Holland Park was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health Service, then in the Home O‰ffice, Šfirst in the Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department. All that experience has been used in her bestselling crime novels. Her latest, Death Comes To Pemberley, will be broadcast on Christmas Day. In October she announced she had solved the real-life murder of Julia Wallace in Liverpool, which has ba”ffled experts since 1931.

She says: ‘A solution to the mystery came into my mind with the strength of an absolute conviction.’

Malala Yousafzai 

From the age of 11 she was blogging for the BBC about life under the Taliban and as a result she was shot in the head by gunmen while returning home from school. She was –flown to England for life-saving surgery and continued to Šfight for the right of all children to receive an education. She was the winner of Pakistan’s Šfirst National Youth Peace Prize and was nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

She says: ‘We realise the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.’

Lynda Bellingham

She found fame as the Oxo mum in the iconic 1980s adverts. She went on to make several TV programmes, including All Creatures Great And Small. Her new book, Tell Me Tomorrow, was published in August. In July she announced she has been diagnosed with cancer.

She says: ‘You have to do things even if you feel pretty ill as I have sometimes. You can’t just sit down and give in.’

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, campaigns for reforms to the police service. She founded the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust and in 2003 was awarded an OBE for her services to community relations. She was made a life peer in 2013. She has said that while no one has called her baroness yet, it is something she could not have imagined.

She says: ‘From where I started in life, coming here from Jamaica as a child, being in the House of Lords was not something that ever entered my head.’

OUR MAN OF THE YEAR

It was a long wait, but for the Šfirst time since Fred Perry in 1936, a Brit won the Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Singles and we all went wild. Well done, Andy Murray!

He says: ‘I really don’t know what happened!’