The New Elizabethans

During a long, dull drive to Mortlake Crematorium yesterday, I listened to a podcast of Radio Four's excellent Start the Week, in which Andrew Marr and his guests discussed a quest to find 60 'New Elizabethans'.

I'll let this extract from the Radio Four website explain things further:

"To mark the Diamond Jubilee, James Naughtie will be profiling the 60 public figures who have made the greatest impact in these islands during The Queen's reign - men and women who have defined the era and whose deeds will stand the test of time.

But who are the great achievers of the past six decades? Who will stamp their names in the history books just as Shakespeare, Drake and Raleigh did before them? Who will be remembered down the years for changing the way we live and think, for entertaining and amazing us?

We'd like your help to find The New Elizabethans. They can come from any walk of life. Their impact must have been on these islands between 1952 and the present day but that doesn't necessarily mean they have to be British.

You can suggest your New Elizabethans up to 5pm on March 9th 2012. All the names put forward will be passed to our panel of leading historians who will debate and decide on the final list of 60. Radio 4 will broadcast profiles of each of the chosen New Elizabethans during the summer this year."

I know that polls like these are a lot of nonsense, but I can't resist the allure of lists.

It's a relief to see that Radio Four aren't putting it to a popular vote (although I trust their listeners more than most people). Let's leave it to the experts. Democracy may work in the polling booth, but it's a lousy arbiter of quality.

However, the criteria are a little confusing.

The extract above includes anyone who has influenced British culture during the last 60 years, irrespective of nationality. But another Radio Four web page suggests that it should simply be a list of 'Great Britons'.

To confuse things further, what do we mean by 'Britons'? In 1953, citizens of Australia, New Zealand and Canada were widely regarded as de facto Britons, which is why Edmund Hillary's conquest of Everest was regarded as a British achievement. Where do we draw the line?

Driving home along the M25, I had a long time to think about this and started to come up with some names. I decided to limit my selection to individuals who were either born in Britain or have lived here for a number of years, as an international list would be far too difficult to narrow down to 60 people (mine would have to include figures as diverse as Elvis Presley, Bill Gates, Mikhail Gorbachev, the person who invented the Sony Walkman, Aaron Spelling, Milton Friedman and President Kennedy).

If I'd had more time, the list might have been very different. But for the moment these are the people who, for better or worse, seem to capture the spirit of the age:

David Attenborough

Margaret Thatcher

Rupert Murdoch

Charles Saatchi

Tim Berners-Lee

Germaine Greer

Paul McCartney

John Lennon

Malcolm McClaren

Delia Smith

Verity Lambert

Jack Cohen

David Beckham

Jacqueline Wilson

Richard Dawkins

Spike Milligan

Richard Branson

Stelios Haji-Ioannou

David Hockney

Mary Quant

Peter Cook

Shirley Williams

Richard Rogers

Andrew Lloyd-Webber

Robert Maxwell

Lew Grade

George Best

Bruce Forsyth

Lawrence Olivier

Diana Rigg

Simon Cowell

George Martin

Ian Fleming

Morrissey

Chris Evans

Princess Diana

Tony Blair

Enid Blyton

Alan Bennett

J K Rowling

Anita Roddick

Vivien Westwood

Patrick Steptoe

Doris Lessing

Michael Caine

Francis Crick

James Watson

Terence Conran

David Bowie

Elton John

Doreen Lawrence

Norman Foster

Mike Leigh

Terry Wogan

Magdi Yacoub

Judi Dench

Prince Charles

David Steel

Arthur Scargill

Tony Hancock

There are quite a few names I'd like to remove - Rupert Murdoch, for example - but their influence is undeniable. Each person on this list has either changed or defined the time they lived in.

It's certainly not a 'greatest' list - that would look very different. On mine, writers, artists and poets are thin on the ground because in the age of mass media, I think they've become eclipsed by entertainers and celebrities. Perhaps I should have included figures from reality television too.

There are three weeks left until the poll is closed and the great and the good make their decision.

I wonder if it's too late for me to put in a bid for Sid James?