Mrs Butler's Blog 16

Mary Wimbush died this week. She was a radio and TV actor. All the obituaries – including E J Thribb’s in Private Eye – mentioned her three characters in The Archers.
I didn’t see any which described her early work on radio.

She had a strange influence on my life. In the sixties I went to a bleak boarding school and I would listen after lights-out to Book at Bedtime (little transistor radio under the blankets). I guess this is the equivalent of watching late-night movies in your bedroom these days. One reader had the most wonderful deep voice. It was Mary Wimbush. I remember her reading The Moonstone and The Woman in White in particular. She made them seem so exciting, so easy to read that as soon as I was allowed out of school I bought copies of the books in Penguin. Do you suppose this started my career as a Librarian?

I notice that The Archers is doing her the great honour of killing off her character, Julia Pargeter, immediately. Her funeral will be held next week, which must be unusual because they record all the episodes three months in advance.

She did loads of radio plays too. I remember Caramels for Carlotta about the woman who was for a very short time the Empress of Mexico. I wrote recently about a radio play I’d listened to in the car. One of the two batty ‘librarians’ was played by Mary Wimbush, of course. I wish I’d written to her.