Joanna Lumley is absolutely fabulous. She is beautiful, funny, humble and uses her beautiful speaking voice for good. She is a British legend and now honored as a Dame of the British Empire for her services to the entertainment industry.
During her 76 years, she has achieved so much and given so much to others. Joanna wears many hats and she looks great in all of them. Joanna is an actress, presenter, author, television producer and activist.
Born in Srinagar in North India, Joanna went to boarding school in England at the tender age of eight. Her father, born in Lahore, was in the British Army in India. Joanna’s mother was English.
With such an interesting start in life in the late 1940’s, Joanna just kept getting more and more interesting. Stunning and tall, she worked as a model then scored a small role in the James Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Service. She took roles in many popular British shows such as Are You Being Served, Steptoe and Son and two Miss Marple mysteries.
Absolutely Fabulous, the TV Show
But Joanna Lumley is best known for her role as Patsy, the fashion designer in the 1990’s comedy TV show, Absolutely Fabulous. She spars with Jennifer Saunders as a comic version of her usual elegant self. The movie version made in 2016, features Joanna and Jennifer again in their popular roles and serves as the finale to the TV hit series.
Joanna’s Absolutely Fabulous Voice
Joanna is not only beautiful but she has a beautiful English voice, well recognised now from her films and travel documentaries. She has used her voice to do voice overs for company advertisements and on radio reading a part in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. She has also written her autobiography entitled No Room for Secrets. Joanna uses her unique voice for good.
Absolutely Fabulous Travel Presenter
More recently Joanna Lumley has treated us with absolutely fabulous travel documentaries in which we travel with her as armchair passengers on fabulous journeys to out of the way places. Her first was Joanna Lumley’s Nile in 2010 where we follow her fabulous journey up the Nile from the sea to its source in Rwanda.
Then in 2011 she hosted a four part series through Greece called Joanna Lumley’s Greek Odyssey. A year later, she set off on a three continent tour in search of Noah’s Ark.
Over the next three years Joanna presented Joanna Lumley’s Trans-Siberian Adventure, a 6400 km trip across the top of the world. Then in 2016 she was off again to Japan to feature in a three part series. In 2017, Joanna included India and in 2018, the ancient Silk Road Route in her impressive Joanna Lumley adventure journeys. She is indeed an adventure granny and seemingly tireless at 76 years of age.
The journeys themselves are fabulous but what makes Joanna unique as a presenter is her humanity and compassion for people wherever she goes. Despite her wealth and fame she becomes one of the locals and genuinely enjoys learning about their culture and life style. Joanna is certainly a woman for all people.
The Activist
Joanna has raised her voice for good to champion human and animal rights issues. She is the public face of the Gurkha Justice Campaign which supports these exiled Tibetan people being able to settle in Britain to honor their service during World War II. She understands the plight of these people as her father was a commanding officer of a Gurkha troop during that war.
Joanna also works for Survival International to save Indian Indigenous tribes from displacement by developers in the mountain area of India. She added her voice to a book, We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples written about the importance of the rich cultures of the Dongria tribe.
Fabulous Joanna is also a patron of Born Free Foundation, initiated by Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna to keep wildlife in the wild. She again lent her voice as the narrator of a short film, Protect Them, Protect Us. She is also a patron of a similar foundation in the Horn of Africa that tries to strike a balance between the environment and pastoralism. Joanna is also involved as a patron with the UK charity Earth Restoration Service.
Joanna is Absolutely Fabulous
Her altruism extends to people as well as animals and the environment. She supports the UK Charity, Tree Aid which helps communities in Afrika’s drylands become self-sufficient. She supports children in Darfur and is a patron for Population Matters that concerns itself with a sustainable global population.
Lastly and interestingly, she is a patron for the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust that aims to restore the former house and gardens where J.M Barrie the author of Peter Pan grew up. The gardens were his inspiration for Neverland. Joanna must be a fan of Peter Pan like me.
Well, by now you realise that Joanna is not just a beautiful face and voice. Joanna is truly beautiful and absolutely fabulous.
Joni Scott is an Australian author with two published novels: Whispers through Time and The Last Hotel. She co-hosts a women’s blog; https://whisperingencouragement.com/ and has her own website; https://joniscottauthor.com.
Read more articles about amazing women and women’s issues at whisperingencouragement.com/
