Yesterday came the deeply sad news that Pauline Collins had died at the age of 85. Along with her went Sarah, went Dawn, went Shirley: just three of the iconic female characters she played on screen in Upstairs Downstairs, The Liver Birds, and Shirley Valentine, respectively.
And as I re-watched Shirley chirp, “Hello, Wall!” after the news came, my heart didn’t just break at the loss of one of our finest actors, but at the realisation of what else we’ve lost. The descendants of the characters she played, the working-class women on cinema and television screens who are warm, sharp, poignant and funny (and I mean funny, choose just one of Shirley’s metaphors: supermarkets and sex, the clitoris and a Ford Escort).
