To the opening chords of Goldfinger, Honor Blackman eased herself on to the stage to a thunderous ovation. Apart from a little unsteadiness on her feet, her looks belied her age.

In a long velvet gown she oozed elegance and for 90 minutes held her audience spellbound as she spoke of her life, including two marriages, and her acting career.

It was hard to reconcile the sophisticated image with fact that Miss B had been born in London’s East End and lived in crowded accommodation with no bathroom or inside toilet. An early pleasure was being stood and washed in the kitchen sink.

Her stage and film work was amusingly outlined, including being cast as Cathy Gale in The Avengers. A split in her fabric trousers, broadcast live, resulted in the famous leather and kinky boots costume. Goldfinger caused problems in the US over the name of her character but a newspaper photo of her with Prince Phillip captioned “The Prince and the Pussy” soon eased the way.

The conversational afternoon ended with reference to her work in musicals and one-woman shows – beautifully illustrated by an emotion-choked Send In The Clowns and a hilarious impersonation of Marlene Dietrich entertaining troops.