From her assistance with crosswords to a wink that set a career in motion, Guardian readers share favourite memories of the actor
In the 70s I wrote radio plays. Prunella Scales was in one of them. During a break I was doing a crossword and getting stuck. She sat down next to me and had a look at the mess I was making. “Silly boy!” she said (I was perhaps 30 at the time). “It’s ‘surprise’, not ‘suprise’!” and we soon finished it off. In the end I did around 25 plays, but that’s the only conversation with an actor I remember. Lovely lady. James, Sussex
When I was about 12, a pupil at Nonsuch high school in Ewell, my art teacher entered a piece of my work into an art competition. The brief was to design a Christmas card. My entry was a painting of Mary on a donkey with Joseph in an American-style cityscape, like the Sunset Strip, with city lights and signs around them. I’ve no idea where that idea came from. Anyway, I came second and went somewhere in central London to the awards do, where Prunella Scales was the celebrity congratulating us and giving out the awards. As she shook my hand, she whispered: “I liked yours best!” and gave me a wink. What confidence that gave me. I became an art teacher. Deborah Harris, artist and retired art teacher, Somerset
