Mavis Gallant carved out an international reputation as a master short-story author while living in Paris for decades. The bilingual Québécoise started out as a journalist and went on to publish well over 100 s hort stories, many of them in The New Yorker and in collections such as The Other Paris, Across the Bridge and In Transit. As an émigré, she often wrote about foreign cultures.

Joan Williams was one of the linchpins of Winston Churchill's War Cabinet Secretariat, heading part of the small military wing within it that gave him the near-dictatorial powers to act that he saw as vital for Britain's conduct of the Second World War.

In the early 1960s, Duffy Power had the talent to break through as a successful British blues performer, but he was a troubled, unstable individual, which made it difficult for others to have faith in him. He did not record as much as he should have done – but what is available shows that he has been both underrated and overlooked by the British public.

Carlos Gracida was one of the world's finest polo players, and had been at the top of his sport since the 1980s. Dashing and charismatic, and with unrivalled anticipation and ability to read the game, he achieved more tournament wins than any player in the history of the game and was the only player to win polo's Grand Slam – the US Open, British Open and Argentine Open in a calendar year – a feat he accomplished three times, in 1988, 1989 and 1994.

Many footballers have been labelled as goal machines, but few anywhere in the world have justified the tag more comprehensively than the Ulsterman Jimmy Jones. The leading scorer in the history of the Irish League, he scored 517 times for Glenavon, topping their goal charts for 10 successive seasons between 1952-53 and 1961-62, and returned a career tally of 646 for his various clubs.

Paco de Lucia was one of the world's best known flamenco guitarists. He helped broaden the music's appeal beyond its traditional audiences with his mesmerising style and through his collaborations with artists from different genres. "He was a monster of the guitar," his friend, the flamenco singer Jose Merce, said. "[With Camaron de la Isla] he has been the father of flamenco."

Harold Ramis was the bespectacled sidekick to Bill Murray in Ghostbusters whose early grounding in live comedy led to hit films like Groundhog Day, National Lampoon's Animal House and Caddyshack. In front of the camera he played the lovable geek. Behind it he was one of cinema's most potent comic forces of the 1970s and '80s.

"Speak," she would command, turning her chair sideways to the window, putting her feet up on to the radiator and powdering her nose while waiting for you to disgorge your thoughts.

Walter Ehlers accomplished awe-inspiring acts of bravery during D-Day, earning a Medal of Honor for knocking out two German machine-gun nests and saving countless Allied lives. The 23-year-old staff sergeant charged through gunfire to kill seven enemy soldiers, chase away several others, put a halt to mortar fire and carry a wounded comrade to safety, even after he been shot in the back. His passing leaves seven surviving Second World War Medal of Honor recipients.

The exigencies of military supply by air made Thomas Lawrie "Jock" Kennedy a master of the skies who flew across every continent, equipping him also to push forward the use of advanced strategic defence technology at the height of the Cold War. The Berlin airlift of 1948-49 taught him precision flying with full loads at specified altitudes, and landing procedure on pierced-steel makeshift runways.

Alice Herz-Sommer was a musician. But by the end of her long life, she was much more than that: the oldest living Holocaust survivor, she had become a symbol of tolerance and optimism known around the world. As a Jew living in Prague when Hitler swept into Czechoslovakia, she went to hell and back, but she would talk of her experiences with gratitude for the lessons they taught her and which to the end informed her outlook with a quiet radiance.

The world's oldest known Holocaust survivor has died aged 110, her family have said.

Scientist whose distinguished career in chemistry was followed by huge success as Vice-Chancellor at Strathclyde

Artist whose work ranged from magazine pin-ups to a bust of Bardot as Marianne, symbol of the Fifth Republic

Singer and missionary who was immortalised as Louisa in the stage show and film ‘The Sound of Music’