Dr June Almeida, virologist, was born on October 5, 1930. She died on December 1, 2007, aged 77

June Almeida, née Hart, was an internationally renowned virologist who pioneered new methods for viral imaging and diagnosis. She achieved the first visualisation of rubella virus using immune-electronmicroscopy and collaborated with others to show common cold viruses. Among her most important discoveries was that there are two distinct components to the hepatitis B virus.

Almeida was brought up in Glasgow and left school at 16 without funding to go to university, becoming a laboratory technician in histopathology at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, later moving to the same position at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.

She married and emigrated to Canada, becoming an electronmicroscopy technician at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto. Despite having no formal qualifications, she contributed to impressive scientific publications. Professor A. P. Waterson, then at St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School, met Almeida during a visit to Toronto and persuaded her to join him in London in 1964. From this point onwards, her career blossomed. Three years later, she moved to the Royal Post Graduate Medical School (RPGMS).

Almeida taught many virologists the technology of negative staining and immune-electronmicroscopy, enabling them to quickly identify virus infections.

She finished her career at the Wellcome Research Laboratory where she worked on developing diagnostic assays and vaccines. She retired to Bexhill in 1985, trained and qualified as a yoga teacher and went on to teach classes. She also trained in china restoration which led to a productive career trading in antiques with her second husband, Phillip Gardner (also a retired virologist). However, true to form, she could not leave electronmicroscopy for ever and in the late 1980s returned to St Thomas’ in an advisory role.

She is survived by her daughter.

Alison Richards, OBE, founder of The Pier and Unicef ambassador, was born in 1953. She died of cancer on December 16, 2007, aged 54

Alison Hazel Richards was the founder of The Pier, an international chain of fifty homeware stores, and a Unicef ambassador.

She spent some of her childhood in the Bahamas, but after failing to become an air stewardess, started her highly successful career in the retail industry with a job at Boots in 1974.

After rising to the position of buyer, Richards moved on to work for Habitat and was responsible for the extraordinary rise in sales of clip frames and woks — now everyday household items. In 1983, aged 29, she became the youngest person on the board when she was made director of buying under Terence Conran. She launched the first Pier store in Richmond in 1989. Overcoming initial funding difficulties, she secured support from Pier 1 in the US, a relationship which lasted until The Pier was bought by Lagerinn in 2006.

Richards soon became known for her intuitive understanding of consumer trends and was referred to by Homes and Gardens magazine as “the mover and shaker in retail”.

She also worked as a non-executive director at Beales and a judge for the Retail Week Awards. She encouraged new business start-ups and was in favour of women taking on influential roles within the industry. Her Book of Ideas is brimming with new concepts and observations.

Richards was passionate about customer service, travel and supporting charities. In 1993 The Pier started selling Unicef’s Christmas cards, and was the first retailer to give 100 per cent of card sales to the charity. Further fundraising initiatives saw her raise more than £1 million to help vulnerable children around the world. In 1998 she was invited to join the board of trustees at Unicef UK and later became vice chair, using her commercial skills to help the charity in a strategic role.

Both prior to and after taking her role with Unicef, Richards travelled to many developing countries, including a life-changing trip to Angola. In 2007 she was appointed OBE for her work for charity.

The Right Rev Sehon Goodridge, Bishop of the Windward Islands, 1994-2005, was born on October 9, 1937. He died on December 28, 2007, aged 70

Sehon Goodridge, a former chaplain to the Queen, played a key role in the evolution of the Anglican Church in the West Indies without losing any of its links and friendships in the wider church and the Anglican Communion.

Goodridge entered training for ordination at Codrington College, Barbados, in 1959. At that time the college still strongly bore the marks of its founder, Christopher Codrington, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and Governor of the Leeward Islands; the principal and much of the staff members of the Mirfield Fathers. When, in 1971, Goodridge came to be the college’s first West Indian principal, he did not discard those traditions but introduced a distinct Caribbean flavour. In the chapel both spirituals and English hymns found their place.

Goodridge’s links with England were strong. In 1966 he was married to Janet Thomas from Croydon and in the same period had studied at King’s College London for his BD. When the Simon of Cyrene Institute for the Study of Black Theology was set up in Wandsworth in 1989, Goodridge was appointed principal. He helped to support the increasing number of black priests serving in English cities as well as encouraging many English priests to learn from the insights of the black theologians from around the world. It was at this time that he was appointed Chaplain to the Queen.

Five years later he was recalled to the West Indies as Bishop of the Windward Islands, running a vigorous and creative ministry in St Lucia, back where he had started. Goodridge’s health deteriorated and in 2005, with a leg amputated and his sight much impaired, he retired reluctantly. He is survived by his wife, Janet, and their three children.

Akram Sayeed, OBE, general practitioner, was born on November 23, 1935. He died on January 18, 2008, aged 72

Akram Sayeed was a highly respected GP who worked tirelessly to improve community relations.

Born and brought up in what is now Bangladesh, he graduated from Dhaka Medical College in 1958, undertaking further medical training in the US. He settled in the UK in 1961, initially working in the ophthalmology department of Leicester Royal Infirmary. During this time he became attracted to general practice and in 1963 he became one of the first Asian GPs in Leicester. The following year he established his own general practice, where he continued to work until retirement.

Sayeed served as a member of the Community Relations Commission, 1968-1977, and from 1983-88 he served as an adviser to the Home Secretary on community and race relations. He was also a founding member of the Overseas Doctors’ Association (now known as the British International Doctors’ Association), serving as its national chairman from 1993 until 1996, and helped to establish the Standing Conference of Asian Organisations in 1970.

Sayeed maintained strong professional links with his country of birth, and acted as an honorary adviser to the Bangladeshi Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. From 1980 onwards, he was instrumental in helping medical colleges in Bangladesh secure recognition by the General Medical Council.

Sayeed raised funds to help victims of natural disasters in Bangladesh, including in the aftermath of the 2001 and 2007 cyclones. He served on numerous local and national medical committees. He was president of the Leicester Division of the British Medical Association, 1994-1995, and president of the Leicester Medical Society, 2001-2002. The British Medical Association honoured him with fellowship in 1995. He served on the General Optical Council, 1994-1998, and he was elected to the General Medical Council, 1999-2003.

In his retirement, Sayeed resumed a past interest in writing and journalism. He published three volumes of essays: Letters from Leicester, Volumes 1-3 (2004-2007); two Bengali novels: Shesher Adhaya (2005) and Rahu Grash (2006); and his memoir In the Shadow of My Taqdir (2006). He was appointed OBE in recognition of his services to community relations. Sayeed is survived by his wife, Hosneara, and their three children.

Paul Odgers, CB, MBE, TD, Deputy Secretary, Department of Education and Science, 1971-75, was born on July 30, 1915. He died on December 24, 2007, aged 92

Paul Odgers was the last surviving member of Montgomery’s Tactical Headquarters to be present at the surrender of the Germans at Lüneburg Heath on May 4, 1945.

A civil servant at the outbreak of war in 1939 but already in the Territorial Army, he joined The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, and was posted in 1943 to Malta, where he was involved in the administration of Fortress HQ. He was then picked by Montgomery to join his 8th Army HQ for the invasion of Italy. A year later he joined him again with 21st Army Group for the invasion of France. He was responsible for selecting the locations and the setting up of the tactical HQs. There were 27 of these, covering the 1,100 miles between the beach at Courseulles in Normandy to Lüneburg Heath. He was appointed MBE (military) and mentioned in dispatches three times.

After the war Odgers returned to the Civil Service as assistant secretary at the Ministry of Education, where he remained throughout his career, apart from a stint at the Cabinet Office and a period in 1968 with the Lord President of the Council, Richard Crossman — who had been his tutor at Oxford. He was appointed CB in 1970 and rose to the rank of Deputy Secretary. He had been awarded the Territorial Decoration in 1949.

In retirement he was a member of the council of the Girls’ Public Day School Trust, 1976-89. He also became treasurer and later vice-president of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.

Jeanne Carmen, actress and glamour model, was born on August 4, 1930. She died of lymphoma on December 20, 2007, aged 77

Jeanne Carmen was a pin-up girl who appeared in such evocatively titled magazines as Frolic and Sensation in the late 1940s and early 1950s and subsequently enjoyed a brief career in movies. She claimed to have had an affair with Frank Sinatra, to know the Kennedys and to have been Marilyn Monroe’s best friend, though at least one Monroe biographer dismissed her as a fantasist. Whether or not her stories were all entirely true, she managed to sustain a colourful presence on the Hollywood scene and was herself the principal subject of an American TV documentary in 1998, Jeanne Carmen: Queen of the B-Movies.

According to her own account of her life, she was a “hillbilly cotton-picker” from Arkansas, who ran away from home at 13 to seek her fortune. By the mid-1950s she was working in Hollywood, where she appeared in the westerns The Three Outlaws (1956) and War Drums (1957) but by the beginning of the 1960s she was reduced to appearing in nameless supporting roles on television. Carmen was married several times and is survived by three children.

Colin White, English language and literature academic, was born on January 23, 1932. He died on December 6, 2007, aged 75

Colin White was a leading academic at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) for over 40 years.

Born in 1932, he grew up in the suburbs of London, and after national service he read English at Queen’s College, Cambridge, making friends with the poet Ted Hughes.

In 1956 White left Britain for a series of jobs in Canada, eventually arriving in Mexico, where he began giving English lessons at the Anglo Mexican Cultural Institute, a large not-for-profit foundation.

He went on to secure a post in UNAM’s department of English language and literature in the faculty of philosophy and letters and by the late 1970s had been promoted to joint head of department. There he played a major role in the development of English language and literature curricula and radically increased the number of postgraduate students.

Passionate about education for all, White became a mainstay and champion of the university’s fledgeling open university. From 1992 to 1998 he served as head of the professional studies division at UNAM, and in 1997 he was awarded the university’s national prize for humanities teaching.

Throughout his career White made a point of teaching at all levels. His death triggered an outpouring of blogs by students past and present (eg, colinwhitemullerinmemoriam.wordpress.com/los-blogs-recuerdan/). These bloggers are representative of the generations of Mexican students for whom White was an inspiration — someone who, despite a language barrier, imbued them with a true love of English literature, especially poetry.

White was something of a polymath, read voraciously and was deeply interested in history and social welfare. In his spare time he pursued a love of sailing and a fascination with boat-building, constructing three sea-going sailing boats. He is survived by his wife, Liz, their son and daughter.

Pamela Benady Davies, solicitor, was born on July 8, 1934. She died on January 4, 2008, aged 73

Pamela Benady Davies started reading to be a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn at the unprecedentedly youthful age of 16. She was qualified by the age of 20 but was not eligible to be admitted to the Bar until she was 21, becoming the youngest woman to receive the call when it came in 1955.

She worked in a general practice in Gibraltar with her father, Samuel Benady, QC, for seven years and was the first female barrister to appear for the defence in a court martial. She then came to London, assisted in compiling Phipson on Evidence and wrote a book on the legal aspects of divorce.

Benady Davies joined Rowe & Mawe (now Mayer Brown) as a solicitor. Initially she specialised in advertising and copyright law but later became an authority on employment law. Her practice was built on her reputation for achieving agreements rather than engaging in expensive litigation, and she tailored her fees according to clients’ means.

Benady Davies took great pride in overcoming limitations on the rise of women in the legal profession, still firmly in place in the 1970s. Her successful practice included working with Barts Hospital in relation to salary structures, Caledonian Airways during the takeover by BA, and the Moscow Narodny Bank, as well as defending the reputation of numerous personalities and industry leaders.

She spent her final years as a consultant with Lester Aldridge LLP in the City, still enjoying using her profound knowledge of the law and her renowned sense of humour for the benefit of clients and colleagues alike.

She will be remembered for her integrity and humanity as a lawyer and for always seeking a just solution. Her work was a driving force for her, along with her son and friends. She continued to work from home until a matter of days before she died.

She is survived by her son.