oh good. thanks
it's funny - I thought of her only last week, thinking "won't be long now"
or something similarly upbeat.
I sent it to Goldsmiths and they think they might send it to Higher Ed Supp.
Nothing while you're alive; but die and you get a strip of newsprint
heh ho
ta for the post
L
On 13 February 2015 at 16:20, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thank you, Lawrence.
>
> I didn't know her, but you bring her to life, & sow us why she matters...
>
> Doug
> On Feb 13, 2015, at 7:03 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Few will know of whom I speak.; but it is a moment I wis to mark..
> >
> > Dr Rosemary Sumner has died.
> >
> > Rosemary was a senior lecturer at Goldsmiths until her retirement in
> 1989.
> > I believe she first joined the staff of Goldsmiths in the late 50s.
> >
> > I met her first in the early 90s when he son's VOICES FOR 9 was presented
> > at Royal Court in London
> >
> > She wrote on Hardy, Golding, Beckett, Lawrence and others; and was for
> many
> > years, I believe, a stalwart of the Hardy Soc
> >
> > She wore her learning lightly; but she had been adept in many languages;
> > and told that, on leaving school, she was recruited to Bletchley Park
> where
> > they gave her three months intense tuition in Japanese before letting her
> > loose on Japanese signals.
> >
> > I asked her how many she decoded or how may discoveries she made - it was
> > never clear what she did and it may have been quite humdrum -- and she
> said
> > none; but she would have said that whatever the truth.
> >
> > After the war, she married and emigrated to South Africa; but, after the
> > birth of her only child, Stephen known to the world by his fifth name,
> > Alaric, she separated from her husband - he left her when the baby
> arrived
> > - and returned to UK.
> >
> > She taught for a while at Neill's Summerhill. She described teaching with
> > the baby in a pram beside her.
> >
> > At some point she spent some months in Sweden on an educational project.
> >
> > She was mother, as I say, to Alaric Sumner, artist and writer (remembered
> > now mainly for Waves on Porthmeor Beach with the late Sandra Blow R A)
> who
> > died in March 2000 aged 52, a loss from which Rosemary never really
> > recovered.
> >
> > Alaric bought a house with her in St Ives in Cornwall and she moved there
> > in 1990. Then, within a few years, he spent a year away in Leeds studying
> > at the university; and a few years later he had taken accommodation in
> > Totnes, Devon while he taught at Dartington College, some years before
> its
> > move to Falmouth; and he tended to spend much of his time in Devon
> > returning for weekends and holidays.
> >
> > Throughout the 1990s, Rosemary punctuated her days and weeks by walks,
> > especially along the cliffs to Zennor.
> >
> > Her last years were quite sad and probably lonely. She was increasingly
> > unwell from the early years of this century; and her last professional
> work
> > was a book review in 2004.
> >
> > I am not sure that she had adjusted to her move from London, seeming
> quite
> > isolated; it had been Alaric's idea. She read much of the time until the
> > concentration was beyond her; and then she relied upon Radio 3. Put in
> care
> > by those to whom she entrusted her well-being, she was often left to
> > Classics FM or silence. Few visited.
> > She died in her sleep on Monday 9 February 2015. A date has yet to be
> fixed
> > for her funeral.
> >
> > L
> >
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2
> (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> that we are only
> as we find out we are
>
> Charles Olson
>
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