Goodbye Dolly

There was only one Dolly Parton.

In an age when public figures are endlessly polished, repositioned and advised to become more palatable, Dolly remained gloriously, unmistakably herself. The hair, the rhinestones, the humour, the voice, the music, the lyrics - none of it came with an apology.

Of course, the apparent contradiction was part of her genius. Her image was knowingly artificial, but the woman inside it always seemed to me at least entirely authentic. She got the joke before anyone else could make it, once observing that it cost a lot of money to look so cheap. Beneath the superficial sparkle was a formidable songwriter, a shrewd businesswoman and a person of unusual generosity.

Perhaps the most moving expression of that generosity was Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. She created it in honour of her father, an intelligent man whose inability to read and write had limited his opportunities. What began in her home county in Tennessee grew into an international programme, sending millions of free books each month to children from birth to the age of five.

Her father reportedly told her that the Imagination Library was probably the most important thing she had ever done. For somebody who had written songs known across the world, that must have meant everything.

Dolly understood that being unapologetically yourself need not mean making everything about yourself. She occupied space magnificently - and then used her success to create space for other people’s dreams.

That may be her greatest legacy. Not the songs, films or sequins, but the permission she gave us: to be warm without being weak, ambitious without becoming hard, and to be utterly ourselves without asking the room for approval.

Goodbye, Dolly.

The world is a little less colourful without you - and immeasurably richer because you were here.