Happy birthday from all of us here at Silksoundbooks to our star audio book reader Virginia McKenna who is celebrating her birthday today. Virginia was born in London in 1931 and trained as an actress at the Central School of Speech and Drama, working extensively in both the theatre and films throughout the 1950s.

It was the 1956 film A Town Like Alice that shot her to fame and earned her the BAFTA for Best Actress. In 1958 the film of the life of the Second World war spy Violet Szabo, Carve Her Name with Pride established her as a mainstay of the British film industry.

She is probably most well known for her role as Joy Adamson in the 1966 film Born Free which led her to become a formidable activist in the world of animal rights and habitat protection. She established, along with her husband and co-star Bill Travers, the Born Free Foundation, an umbrella orgainsation covering her many campaigns. In 2004 these services to wildlife along with her services to the arts, were recognised as she was made an OBE, or to give it its proper title, an officer of the Order of The British Empire.

Virginia's unabridged audio book, The Secret Garden written by Frances Hodgson Burnett is available to download from silksoundbooks.com

The entire Silksoundbooks team wish you a happy birthday Virginia.