David Russell
BARBARA BUSH, who has died at 92, was First Lady to the 41st president of the United States and mother to the 43rd.
But she was also a political force in her own right, campaigning over many years for social justice, speaking out against racial segregation and throwing her weight behind the campaign to eradicate illiteracy in America.
In many ways more liberal and outspoken than her husband, George HW Bush, she had to tone down some of her views so as not to clash with his Republican allies.
This was never more apparent than on gun control, which she supported, and in the abortion debate, in which her natural instinct for a mother’s right to decide threatened the party’s stability.
Former Democratic president Jimmy Carter acknowledged her contribution, noting that through her “work to promote literacy as a value in every American home, countless families now have the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in all aspects of their lives”.
The Bushes, who wed on January 6, 1945, had the longest marriage of any American presidential couple, and Mrs Bush was one of only two First Ladies to have had a child who was elected president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams – though she did not live to see her son take office.
The Bushes raised five children: George W, Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy. A daughter, Robin, died aged three from leukaemia in 1953, inspiring Mrs Bush to campaign on behalf of cancer charities.
She was born Barbara Pierce in Rye, New York. Her father was the publisher of and magazines. After attending Smith College for two years, she married the young naval aviator George Herbert Walker Bush. She was 19, and spent 18 months as a navy wife before her husband was discharged.
After the Second World War, the Bushes moved to the Texas oil patch to seek their fortune and raise a family. It was there that Mr Bush began his political career, representing Houston for two terms in Congress in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In 1970, after he failed for a second time to reach the Senate, President Nixon appointed him US ambassador to the United Nations, and Barbara relished the opportunity to make new contacts among the international community. She was able to widen that circle when her husband was posted to Beijing by Nixon’s successor Gerald Ford.
In the mid 1970s, George Bush was appointed director of the CIA. It was a period in which Barbara fell into a deep depression, recalling in her autobiography: “Night after night, George held me weeping in his arms while I tried to explain my feelings. I almost wonder why he didn’t leave me. I knew it was wrong, but couldn’t seem to pull out of it.”
She never sought medical help for her feelings, which she put down to a combination of the menopause and the stress of her husband’s job. The despair vanished after about six months.
The Bushes made more than two dozen moves that circled half the globe before landing at the White House in 1989. During the next four years, her approval ratings in the opinion polls often exceeded his.
The couple’s final move, after Mr Bush lost the 1992 election to Bill Clinton, was to Houston, where they built what she called their “dream house”, in an affluent neighbourhood.
After retiring to Houston, the Bushes helped raise funds for charities. But at the age of 90, and despite having joked that the country had probably “had enough Bushes”, she found herself back on the campaign trail in support of her son Jeb’s ill-fated presidential run.
In the mid-1990s and early 2000s he was a household name, familiar from a clutch of quizzes and the weekly National Lottery draw, but more recently he had kept a lower profile.
Winton was born in Marylebone, London, on May 22 1955 to Gary Winner, a furniture salesman, and Sheree Winton, an actress. They had met when she was 17 and he was in his 40s, according to Winton’s 2002 autobiography.
They married months later and Sheree converted to Judaism and gave birth at 19 to her son.
In his book, Winton said his forename had been chosen because his mother enjoyed the cowboy series
which starred Dale Robertson.
His parents divorced when he was 10 and his father, with whom he shared a difficult relationship, died three years later.
A few days after he turned 21, Winton discovered that his mother, whom he adored, had taken an overdose and died. He would say she had suffered from depression, a condition that would return to haunt him.
His career in showbusiness began as a DJ on the London club scene, but he soon moved into radio and television.
He joined BBC Bristol in 1986, but it was with
that he made his national breakthrough. The series saw contestants racing around a supermarket, collecting items in a trolley in the hope of winning a cash prize.
Famed for his tanned appearance, Winton hosted the show from 1993 to 2001 and was involved in a 2007 relaunch.
The show was screened on weekday mornings but such was its success that he soon moved into primetime, and went onto host his own Christmas specials and a raft of celebrity guest shows.
In 2001, he was the subject of
His other shows included 2003’s on ITV and 2008’s
the BBC Saturday-night entertainment programme.
But in recent years he was seen only sporadically, and in an interview earlier this year said he had been keeping a low profile after several rounds of surgery.
In 2015 there had been concern for him when he failed to attend the funeral of Cilla Black, one of his closest friends. A year later, he appeared on ITV’s
and said he had been fighting depression after a difficult break-up. He had “come out” as gay in his autobiography.
He said of his depression: “I always thought, ‘get over yourself ’. But my mum died of it. It exists and anybody out there who has had it knows it exists.
“I didn’t want to put one foot in front of the other but for a couple of really good friends.”
Earlier this year he was back on TV, hosting Dale Winton’s
on Channel 5. One episode aired in February and the others are due to be shown in June.