Former Commons speaker Betty Boothroyd left more than £3.7m in her will
FORMER Commons speaker Betty Boothroyd left more than £3.7million to her friends and charities, her will revealed.
The pioneering Baroness, who died in February aged 93, also asked for Climb Every Mountain to be played at her funeral service.
She left legacies to 20 friends for their “hard work and headache”.
They included £5,000 and various gifts to goddaughter Jacqueline Martinez, with whom she appeared in a celebrity version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in 2002.
However those were later revoked in a revision to her will before her death.
Friends also received pictures of her meeting the late Queen and South African hero Nelson Mandela.
Sums of £20,000 each were donated to a string of charities including Christian Aid, Marie Curie and The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.
Several pieces of artwork were left to the Commons including her portrait by John Bratby plus watercolours of the Palace of Westminster by MPs.
Other items listed include a box given by Russian president Boris Yeltsin and a silver teapot from 1799.
Yorkshire-born Betty was a Tiller Girl who danced at the London Palladium before she entered politics.
She was elected MP for West Bromwich West in 1973 and was voted in as the first — and so far only — Madam Speaker in 1992.
She had no children and turned down several marriage proposals, as “politics always got in the way”.
In 2000, aged 70, she stood down as Speaker, ending her last PMQs as she always did, shouting: “Right, time’s up.”
She then spent 20 years in the Lords.