Chronicler of the making of her husband’s Apocalypse Now whose footage and recordings were the basis for a documentary and book In March 1976, Eleanor Coppola arrived in the Philippines, her three young children in tow, to film behind-the-scenes footage on the set of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie Apocalypse Now, which transposed the plot of Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness to late-1960s Vietnam. No one could have known then that production on this war epic would stretch on for more than a year, delayed by catastrophic weather, medical emergencies, military conflict ..read more

My husband, Mick Ryan, who has died aged 82, was emeritus professor of penal politics at the University of Greenwich, in London. Mick joined what was then Thames Polytechnic in 1973 to teach politics. After some early collaborative work on London Docklands regeneration and parliamentary scrutiny of European legislation, he became interested in the organisation Radical Alternatives to Prison (RAP) and published his first book, The Acceptable Pressure Group, about it and the Howard League, in 1978 ..read more

If you have ever been to a large RSPB wetland reserve anywhere in the UK, and enjoyed the evocative calls of breeding redshank, snipe, curlew or lapwings, it is very likely that my friend Mark Smart, who has died suddenly aged 56, was involved in some way in directly creating that habitat. His work was formally recognised in 2018 when he was given the national Marsh Award for Wetland Conservation Achievement. I first met Mark when we were teenagers volunteering with the Wash Wader Ringing Group (WWRG) in the saltmarshes of East Anglia. I was with my bird-obsessed parents, and he had tagged alo ..read more

Creator with his design partner Colin Banks of corporate identities for clients including Royal Mail and British Telecom The typographer and designer John Miles, who has died aged 92, had a partnership with Colin Banks that was responsible for some of the most high-profile public sector identity schemes of the 1970s and 80s. Chief among them was that for the Post Office, particularly the alphabet of double line lettering, created in 1972 and still in use by Royal Mail; and the British Telecom identity (1980), with its unabashed modernist style and distinctive blue and yellow livery that was re ..read more

Hungarian conductor of modernist music who went on to compose operas with texts ranging from Three Sisters to Angels in America The Hungarian composer and conductor Peter Eötvös, who has died aged 80, is now best known for the 12 operas that he wrote during the last 25 years of his life. Before that, he played a leading role as a conductor specialising in the promotion of European musical modernism. Premiered in Lyon in 1998, the work that launched Eötvös’s career as a successful opera composer was Three Sisters. The libretto, written with Claus H Henneberg, reworks Anton Chekhov’s play into a ..read more

My father, Dominic Stevens, who has died aged 84, was a dedicated doctor with a sense of wanderlust and a kind heart. For nearly two decades he practised as a GP in Bedminster, Bristol. General practice medicine fascinated him, and his particular interest lay in sexual health. He loathed smoking – he used stencils with messages such as “Players Slayers” and “Piccasilly way to die” to graffiti the walls of Bristol’s tobacco factories a stone’s throw from his surgery ..read more

My friend June Holroyd was an architect who, late in her career, established with her husband and elder son a Hispanic-Mediterranean style centred on Santa Barbara, California, having moved to the US with her family in the 1960s. June, who has died aged 97, met Geoffrey Holroyd when they were both architecture students at Sheffield University, where she enrolled in 1944 – she was one of only three women in a class of 80 ..read more

My friend Gill Stoker, who has died aged 69 of a brain tumour, became one of the internet’s most popular teachers of English as a second language, attracting two million subscribers to her YouTube channel and reaching 31m views, so far, with her most popular lesson. Her clear, uncomplicated style, allied to a deep understanding of her audience and a gentle authority, helped to make Gill’s lessons popular – and she never tried to be funny or ironic, so there were no distractions from the learning ..read more

Leading bowler for England whose consistently accurate left-arm spin made the most of any assistance from the pitch No cricketer was more devastating on rain-affected pitches than Derek Underwood, who has died aged 78. “Deadly”, as he was known both to friend and foe, took more Test wickets – 297 – than any other English spin bowler, and stands sixth on the all-time list of England wicket takers. Playing for much of his career when pitches were left uncovered outside play, he became expert at exploiting “sticky dog” surfaces. For Kent and England he took five wickets or more in an innings 153 ..read more

Italian fashion designer who used exotic animal prints, embossed leather and distressed denim to create his flamboyant clothes As Italian fashion went global in the later 20th century, it diverged into two schools: the sensuous, soft in silhouette and touch, and the boldly sexual, flamboyant to the eye. The first, and lasting, head of the sexy school was Roberto Cavalli, who has died aged 83. The material bases for both schools were the nation’s specialist textiles and leather firms: for Cavalli, they delivered figured and lamé leathers, garments printed after sewing so that no seams interrupt ..read more