Judi Dench is Britain's best-loved actress of our time. Her very name encourages a warm and admiring response from the public, whether for Shakespearean performances or in the contemporary theatre, TV, or cinema.

Now she opens her photograph albums publicly for the first time, contributing substantial memoir and captions to pictures from throughout her seventy years. The private albums are augmented by photographs showing her work across 50 years of acting - on stage, film and TV.

Here are previously unseen pictures of Judi's happy childhood in York before the second world war, family holidays, schooldays and her first work as an amateur actor in her teens in York. We see her growing up, drama school and the performance that made her name as Juliet in Franco Zefferilli's famous and controversial production at the Old Vic when Judi was in her early twenties. To these are added informal shots back stage and off set, as well as photographs of her own family, her actor husband Michael Williams, daughter Finty and grandson Sam.