Today I'm celebrating a favourite and brilliant actress ... an amazing performer and a real inspiration to me and to many millions more.

She's renowned for playing Queens of England on film ... Queen Elizabeth 1 and Queen Victoria spring to mind. But she's so much more ... and she's graced our stages and TV and movie houses for many years, and she's still going strong.

In recent years younger audiences will know her for playing 'M' the chief of MI6 in eight James Bond films but for those of us with slightly longer memories we will recall her time on TV in Shakespearean classics, amazing movies and in gentle British comedic dramas like A Fine Romance and As Time Goes By'. There are also fairly recent roles in popular movies like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel  and thought provoking and challenging roles in films like Philomena, one of my particular favourites.

I'm talking, of course, about the wonderful Dame Judi Dench, who's birthday it is today.

Dame Judi was born on December 9th in 1934 and she is, without doubt, one of the best actresses in British history. She's played every part under the sun, from Shakespeare and classical plays with companies like the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company to stage musicals like Cabaret. She's won so many awards down the years, it's astonishing. Dame Judi is a multi-award winning performer, including seven Academy Award nominations - she won the Oscar or Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in the movie Shakespeare in Love - and during a lifetime's work she's been honoured with Olivier Awards, BAFTAS, Golden Globe Awards, a Tony ... the list goes on. And, of course, she's been recognised at the very highest level by the Queen of England with several titles, including the honour which made her a 'Dame' in 1988... when she was awarded the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Dame Judi is not just hugely talented and charitable but also feisty. She's not afraid to speak out on stuff like injustice. And she's been very outspoken on the prejudice she has encountered against 'older' actresses in the movie industry. She is reported as saying she is tired of being told that she's too old to try new things.

In 2014 she told the Hollywood Reporter: 'I should be able to decide for myself if I can't do things and not have someone tell me I'll forget my lines or I'll trip and fall on the set. [...] Age is a number. It's something imposed on you. It drives me absolutely spare when people say, 'Are you going to retire? Isn't it time you put your feet up?' Or tell me [my] age."

Good on you Dame Judi ... I absolutely love that. That's one of the reasons why Dame Judi inspires me ... and I suspect that the older I get,  the more I feel I may rant against a world which wants to put me in a compartment and define me through their own 'ageist' prejudices and tell me what older people may or may not do. We need more people like Judi Dench to speak out against this sort of ageist nonsense. She's proved time and again that age is no barrier to excellence.

And here's another thing about Dame Judi and one you may not know - she has been a Quaker since she was a school girl, and her Christian faith is very important to her. In 2013 she is reported to have said of her faith ..."I think it informs everything I do. [...] I couldn't be without it."

As I said ... inspiring.

So to celebrate Dame Judi's birthday today I'm actually turning to one of her most recent projects... a song recorded by the singer/TV presenter Aled Jones with Dame Judi narrating ... It's on his 2020 album 'Blessings'.

'How can I keep from Singing?' is an adaptation of an American folk song and hymn written originally in the 19th century by the American preacher and hymnwriter Robert Wadsworth Lowry and it's beautiful. 

Just take a moment and listen to the words...it'll lift your spirit!