Today’s birthdays

Mr John Jackson, company

chairman, is 91; Lord Stevens

of Ludgate, Chairman, United News and Media plc, 1981-99, 84; Mr John Welsby, Chairman, British Railways Board, 199599, 82; Mrs Judith Goodland,

Head Mistress, Wycombe Abbey School, 1989-98, 82; Sir Anthony

Greener, Chairman, Guinness, 1992-97, and Diageo, 1997-2000, 80; Mr Roger Westbrook, former diplomat, 79; Sir Alistair Macduff, a former High Court Judge, 75;

Miss Gill Coleridge, literary agent, 72; Mr Jeremy Corbyn, MP, former Leader of the Labour Party, 71; Dame Anne Mcguire, former Labour MP, 71; Mr Michael Portillo, broadcaster and journalist; former Conservative Government Minister, 67; Mr Alan Hollinghurst, writer, 66; Lord Armstrong, a Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland, 64; Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia, solicitor, 64; Mr Howard Goodall, composer and broadcaster, 62; Prof Roger Goodman, Warden of St Antony’s College, Oxford, 60; Lord Bates, former Conservative Government Minister, 59; Prof Simon Armitage, poet and novelist; Poet Laureate; and Oxford Professor of Poetry, 57; Miss Helena Bonham Carter, actress, 54; Miss Zola Budd, athlete; middle and long distance runner, 54; Miss Susan Gilchrist, Chairman, Southbank Centre, 54; Mr Philip Treacy, milliner, 53; Dr Kwasi Kwarteng,

MP, Minister of State, Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 45; and Mr Paul Collingwood, former England cricketer, 44.

Today is the anniversary of the death of Samuel Pepys, diarist and Chief Secretary to the Admiralty, in 1703. It will also be the anniversary of the birth of Sir Eugene Goossens, composer and conductor, in 1893.