Actress to switch on Tree of Light

Actress Gabrielle Drake is due next week to switch on a fundraising Tree of Light in Shropshire.

The former star of TV hits Crossroads and UFO will be in Telford Town Centre to light up the tree at 4.30pm on Friday.

There will be seasonal music and a Salvation Army Band will play.

The Tree of Light campaign, now in its 15th year, is organised by the four Rotary clubs of Telford – Ironbridge, Telford Centre, Wellington and The Wrekin.

People pay to have their name or that of a loved one put around the tree, which is sited in Dean Square, and the money raised goes to charities chosen by Rotary. More than 3,500 names were added to the tree last year which raised more than £33,000 for worthy causes.

Gabrielle Drake famously played Lt Gay Ellis in the cult 1970 science fiction TV series UFO but is probably best remembered for her part as motel boss Nicola Freeman in the ITV soap opera Crossroads.

She has also appeared in a number of other British television series, including Coronation Street as Inga Olsen in 1967 and Vanessa in 2009, The Brothers, The Avengers, The Saint and The Kelly Monteith Show.

She also appeared as Madeline Bassett in the original London cast of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Alan Ayckbourn musical Jeeves in 1975.

Some of her big screen credits include There’s a Girl in My Soup (1970) opposite Peter Sellers, Au Pair Girls (1972), and a 1985 made-for-TV version of The Importance of Being Earnest.