DEAR GRAHAM .... AGONY UNCLE WHO LEARNED FROM THE BEST

MARJORIE PROOPS: Marjorie’s editor once described her as “the first British journalist to attain the Instant Recognition status previously enjoyed by film stars”. She lunched with Cary Grant, cuddled with the Archbishop of Canterbury and took tea with Sophia Loren. But it was her long-running problem page — which ran for over 40 years in the Daily Mirror — which endeared her to the masses. Her letters reflected a rapidly shifting British society and topics covered included the Pill, drug addiction and abortion law. Showing just how far ahead of her time she was, she also waged a campaign to raise awareness for male sexual assault victims in the 1970s.

FRANKIE BYRNE: From 1963 to 1985, a generation grew up listening to Frankie on her radio show, giving out to no good boyfriends and lazy husbands in between easy listening records and ads for Jacob’s biscuits. “It may not be your problem today, but it could be someday,” Frankie, intoned as she set out to solve the romantic problems of the nation. A number of years after her 1993 death it was revealed that she and television star Frank Hall conducted a 30-year affair.

CLAIRE RAYNER: The cultural importance of Claire Rayner is perhaps indicated by the fact that during her reign as Britain’s premier agony aunt she was parodied both by Ronnie Barker in the television series The Two Ronnies and by the Spitting Image writers, and by the fact that her name became a type of cockney slang (Claire Rayner = trainers). At one point The Sun received 18,000 letters a week addressed to her as she took on subjects as taboo as post natal depression and premature ejaculation. She died in 2010.

ANGELA MacNAMARA: Retired youth counsellor Angela MacNamara (86) became Ireland’s first newspaper agony aunt in 1963 and, like her British counterparts, handled a host of unmentionable subjects for the readers of the old Sunday Press.