Jan Harvey – TV personality, actress

Jan Harvey was born on 1st June 1947 in Penzance.

She is possibly best known for her starring role as Jan Howard in the British TV drama Howards' Way, from 1985–90, in which she ran a fashion boutique named Periplus.

The boutique specialised in the sale of après sail wear (and was also the first UK headquarters of the German mail order franchise, Die Spitz). Subsequently a partnership, Howard Brooke, was formed which ran multiple boutiques as well as producing its own designs. There followed the launch of an internationally renowned couture house (with attendant fragrance and cosmetics lines), the House of Howard, which was successfully floated on the stock exchange.

During the 1990s, Harvey appeared in the action series Bugs, and more recently was a regular cast member in the Five soap opera Family Affairs (in which she played Babs Woods). She has also guest starred in many other high profile British dramas including A Touch of Frost, Inspector Morse and Lovejoy.

Harvey starred in the 2010 UK tour of Calendar Girls which was repeated in a second run of the show in late 2011.

Since March 2015, Harvey has been appearing in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders, as Margaret Midhurst, the family solicitor, and aunt, of Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean).

This article has been kindly provided by Kernow Matters to Us and is the twelfth in a series on Famous Folk of Kernow (Cornwall).