Veteran actress quietly dedicating years to helping prisoners rebuild their lives. One inmate said her presence made him feel free even in captivity

Veteran English actress Jenny Agutter is popularily remembered for playing the role of Bobbie in The Railway Children and decades later, she played the role of Sister Julienne in Call the Midwife. But away from her life as an actress, she has spent years supporting people who are often overlooked, including prisoners and those trying to rebuild their lives after being released.

Agutter's involvement with prison rehabilitation has included work with St Giles Trust and Liberty Choir, organisations that help people reconnect with society. For Agutter, the work is tied to a belief that people should not simply be left without support once they have served their sentences.

Why she chose to work with prisoners

Agutter has visited prisons including HM Prison Wandsworth and HM Prison Send, where she has listened to inmates talk about their lives and experiences. Speaking to the Daily Express, she described how difficult it can be for prisoners to reconnect with the outside world after being separated from society.


“With St Giles, I’ve been to men’s and women’s prisons and listened to prisoners’ stories. I’m very aware they are cut off from the outside world,” she said.

St Giles Trust works with people before and after release, helping with areas including accommodation, employment, relationships and access to food. Agutter has also supported its food hubs, which provide affordable food to people struggling with the cost of living.

Agutter has said the charity work is not always an easy subject to promote because people can find it difficult to sympathise with offenders.

“It’s not an easy charity to talk about because it doesn’t have the things people want to help, like taking care of the sick or children,” she said.

Music became another way to offer hope

Agutter is also an ambassador for Liberty Choir, which was founded in 2014 by composer MJ Paranzino and journalist Ginny Dougary. The programme brings prisoners and community choir members together for regular rehearsals, with music being used as a way to build confidence and create a connection with people outside prison.

During one choir session at Wandsworth Prison, Agutter spoke to an inmate who told her that the music gave him a temporary feeling of being outside the prison environment.

Speaking about one of her choir sessions with Hello! Magazine, she said, “I was sitting next to somebody who was very, very quiet throughout, and I said to him, ‘Do you like to come to this? Does it mean something to you?’ And he said, ‘Yes, it's the only time I ever feel I'm not stuck in this place and that I'm actually in contact with people. I just kind of forget things for a while and listen to the music.’”

Agutter said the experience affected her emotionally and also pointed out that some inmates are talented musicians and that performing together can create a sense of belonging.

After prisoners are released, Liberty Choir supports them in joining choirs in the community. The aim is to give former inmates something familiar to return to while helping them establish social connections outside prison.

Her work with disadvantaged children

Agutter's interest in social causes goes back much further. When the veteran actress was in her twenties, while living in the United States, she had volunteered for six years at Sheenway, a school in Watts, Los Angeles, serving children from a disadvantaged neighbourhood.

She later explained that her own opportunities had made her conscious that many people do not receive the same chances in life.

As per The Guardian, she said, “I’ve been very grateful, but I’m also very aware that many people do not have opportunities in their lives. So there’s a part of me that has a strong sense of ‘I can’t just live by taking stuff and not giving stuff back.’”

Her charity work has been going on alongside a long acting career. Agutter, who was born in Somerset in 1952, began acting as a child and had her major breakthrough as an actress by playing Bobbie in The Railway Children in 1970. She later appeared in films including Logan’s Run, Equus, The Eagle Has Landed and An American Werewolf in London.

For many people she is now equally familiar as Sister Julienne from Call the Midwife. But her social cause work away from television has remained an important part of her life, particularly her efforts to support people who are struggling to find their place in society again.