LIVES REMEMBERED

Shimon Peres

Shimon Peres, one of Israel’s leading statesmen, who has died aged 93, had a long and distinguished political career in the course of which he served twice as prime minister and as the nation’s ninth president.

Regarded as the architect of the Oslo Peace Accords with the Palestinians, Peres was awarded, in 1994, the Nobel Peace Prize. He brought fresh ideas to every office he held. But in Israel where, in the 1970s, Israelis liked their leaders rough-cut, Peres, with his foreign accent and lack of military experience, was often regarded as an outsider.

In 1956 Peres, as defence minister, was involved in the negotiations over control of the Suez Canal, particularly with the French, who had to accept his demand to provide Israel with a nuclear reactor in return for Israeli help – an agreement thought to have marked the beginning of the Israeli nuclear weapons programme (though the country has never officially admitted to having such weapons). Born August 2 1923, died September 28 2016

Sue Phipps

Sue Phipps, who has died aged 84, was housekeeper, agent and confidant to her uncle Peter Pears and his partner Benjamin Britten; she was a shrewd observer of their lives, with a razor-sharp memory for people, places and events.

At times she would turn pages for Britten at the piano. On other occasions she was their gobetween, particularly when the composer and the tenor could not agree on which singers to cast in Britten’s operas. She could predict Britten’s views, though Pears was harder to fathom. “I adored Peter,” she said, “but I could never anticipate what he was going to think.”

She travelled with them, but kept out of the limelight. “Peter adored travelling,” she told Joan Bakewell on Classic FM. “He was open to anything – loved new countries, new cultures. Ben in theory did – but actually he hated being away from home.”

She also told of Britten’s stage fright. “Peter frequently was sent nearly crazy by Ben’s nerves,” she recalled. “It took a terrific amount of will-power for Peter to go on through some of those performances, because he had to carry Ben’s nerves as well.”

Living in the Britten-Pears household brought Sue Phipps into the dynamics of their relationship. “Oh Sue, your middles are so good,” Britten would say of her shepherd’s pies, while Pears would compete to match her culinary expertise. Yet things could get tense. “Ben did get jealous of Peter sometimes,” she said. “But I don’t see it as anything more serious than a couple who need a little bit of outside diversion now and then.” Born December 4 1931, died August 30 2016

Arnold Palmer

Arnold Palmer, who has died aged 87, was not only one of the great champions of golf; through the panache and daring of his play he did more than anyone else to turn the game – and in particular the British Open championship – into a spectacle which commanded the attention of millions.

His heyday as a player was short-lived: all his seven victories in major open championships were achieved in the six years between 1958 (when he was already 30) and 1964; and the last of his 62 wins on the US tour came in 1973.

Undeterred, Palmer went on playing into the 1990s, as much from love of the game as from his very natural desire to cash in on the seniors circuit. And the spectators, who had caught his passion in the days of his glory, followed him to the end.

Palmer’s technique, it seemed, was simply to close his enormous hands like a vice on the club, and attack the ball with such brute force that he would recoil backwards at the end of the stroke. He was also a superb putter, though rather less reliable in his chipping and bunker play. Born September 10 1929, died September 25 2016