Lady Jill Freud, the actor and theatre director who inspired the character of Lucy in the Narnia books by CS Lewis, has died aged 98.

Her daughter, broadcaster and writer Emma Freud, announced the news on social media describing how her "beautiful" mother had "taken her final bow".

She said: “After a loving evening – where we knew she was on her way – surrounded by children, grandchildren and pizza, she told us all to f*** off so she could go to sleep. And then she never woke up.

“Her final words were ‘I love you’.”

Born June Flewett in London in 1927, she was evacuated to Oxford aged 16 to escape the Blitz during the Second World War . There she lived at the Kilns, the home of CS Lewis which he shared with his brother Warnie and adoptive mother - plus possible partner - Jane Moore.

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