Celia Mitchell in the shop

CELIA Mitchell, who has died aged 91, enjoyed a starry career as an actor – and closer to home, brought the pleasure of the written word to thousands of parents and children through her Highgate book shop, Ripping Yarns.

As well as being a well-known theatre, TV and film actor, Celia was immortalised in a poem by her late husband, Adrian Mitchell.

He wrote the poem Celia, Celia for her “When I am sad and weary, When I think all hope has gone, When I walk along High Holborn, I think of you with nothing on…”

She appeared in the 1956 TV series The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel and then she was a Rank Starlet – a young British female actor employed by Rank Films.

Celia as a young woman

It led her to appear in numerous English movies, including Dunkirk and The One That Got Away, and classic series including Dixon of Dock Green.

She suffered a tragedy when she was in her early 20s and engaged to a double bass player in a jazz band called Hugo.

He was killed in a car accident, leaving her bereft.

Two of Hugo’s friends tried to help her and would take her to jazz shows. At a post-gig party, she spotted a poet across the room wearing a CND badge. It was Adrian Mitchell. The couple fell for each other and married in 1964.

The old Ripping Yarns bookshop

Celia established an antiquarian bookshop for children and adults called Ripping Yarns in the 1980s in Archway Road.

An expert in children’s literature, she loved Victorian and Edwardian authors. Ripping Yarns had a secondary role: Celia provided work at the shop as a support network for drama students, musicians and actors between jobs.

After Adrian died in 2008, she found solace in listening to the Glaswegian pop singer Paolo Nutini.

She is survived by her daughters Sasha and Beattie and grandchildren, Caitlin, Zoe, Lola, Annie and Mitch.