The Americans have their historic photograph of six marines raising the Stars and Stripes during the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Second World War; the Russians still revere the picture of their troops flying the flag over the Reichstag in the Battle of Berlin on May 2, 1945.

The 85-year-old son of Brooke Astor was jailed for up to three years for exploiting the philanthropist’s mental frailty to plunder her millions.

IF REALITY television majors, these days, on the re-cycling of the second-rate nearly-famous, film is rediscovering people of rather different calibre.