Section:GDN 1J PaGe:10 Edition Date:190821 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 20/8/2019 18:03 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian Wednesday 21 Aug ust 2019
10 Obituaries
O
n International
Women’s Day
in 1971, 4,000
women, men
and children
marched through
central London,
demanding equal
rights and equal pay. As a director
and producer, Sue Crockford, who
has died aged 76, led a team capturing
the event: A Woman’s Place (1971)
became the fi rst British fi lm about
the women’s liberation movement.
Her documentary, which
also covered the fi rst national
conference, at Ruskin College,
Oxford, the previous year, provides
an invaluable historical record. It
examined the movement’s demands,
but also addressed stereotypes
about feminists as humourless or
uninterested in parenting, giving
much attention to the conference
creche (run by fathers) and the
gaiety of the marchers, showing
women dressed up for a satirical
beauty pageant or singing the 1930s
song Keep Young and BeautifulSue Crockford
Film-maker and producer
who documented the
women’s liberation
movement in Britain
making and political activism found
expression in the late 60s through
the London-based Angry Arts collect-
ive, which used cultural events and
agitprop for political campaigns,
including against the Vietnam war.
Any public space could serve the
antiwar cause; she remembered
“war scenes ” enacted for the benefi t
of horrifi ed cinema queues.
In 1968 Sue helped create the
“consciousness-raising ” Tufnell Park
Women’s Liberation Group. Articul-
ate on camera, she was a regular
media contributor on the women’s
movement, and then with Liberation
Films made A Woman’s Place.
Children and young people then
became a focus of her professional
life. For 14 years from 1971 she ran
the Camden Town youth centre in
Somers Town, King’s Cross, London,
where she took responsibility for
those who had been excluded
from mainstream education. She
co-founded the fi rst gay teenage
group there and led students on
expeditions to the National Gallery,
parks and even – although the trip
was billed rather diff erently to
the local authority – a communeas they walked, accompanied by a
gramophone of the period.
A Woman’s Place was Sue’s fi rst
fi lm and, she later explained, “made
me realise why I wanted to make
fi lms. I wanted to see whether other
people could be engaged by what
I believed in.” An interview with
her about the making of the fi lm
is archived in the British Library’s
Sisterhood and After oral history
collection. She went on to produce
nearly 50 documentaries and
short fi lms, was a campaigner and
community activist, and helped
shape Channel 4’s disability and
children’s programming.
Sue grew up in Coulsdon, Surrey,
the daughter of Patricia (n ee Mead)
and Herbert Crockford, who worked
for the land registry. Time spent with
her father exploring open spaces
led to her later interest in gardens
and woodlands. After attending
the local girls’ grammar school,
she studied English and fi ne art at
Leeds University , also writing on
contemporary fi lm as part of her
degree. Her interest in theatre-in Scotland. Sue was unshockable
and never patronising: implacable
in her determination that the arts
belong to everyone. Other early
work included setting up two hostels
for homeless girls and, with other
local parents, the experimental
community nursery at Dartmouth
Park, north London, about which
she made the fi lm One, Two,
Three (1975) , with her long-time
collaborator Margaret Dickinson.
As she moved further into fi lm-
making she continued to explore
topics in north London: Somerstown
(1984) , for Thames Television,
was a social history combining
contemporary interviews with 20 s
footage; while King’s Cross: David and
Goliath (199 2), for Channel 4, focused
on opposition to redevelopment.
In 1985 Sue became an assistant
commissioning editor in education
for Channel 4, under Naomi Sargent.
She came up with Just 4 Fun, a half-
hour slot each weekday for pre-school
children and the open and creative
atmosphere at the channel suited her
perfectly. Sue went on to develop
Channel 4’s programming for deaf
people; her project of fi lm shorts
British Sign Language: Four Fingers
and a Thumb (1995) introduced sign
language to a general audience. In
1996 she co-founded the Deaf Film
and TV festival.
Her fi lm work was wide in scope
and always collaborative. She was
proud of the drama-documentary
The Rights of Man and the Wrongs
of Woman (1989) , starring Miranda
Richardson as Mary Wollstonecraft,
which was made for a Channel 4
series on political protest , and of
Don’t Stop the Music (1998), in
which the conductor Simon Rattle
challenged cuts to music education.
Full of ideas for collective action,
Sue refused to temper her outrage at
the world’s injustices, stood against
militarism with the antiwar network
Women in Black , and considered the
arts as necessary as breathing. Yet
she always did the practical work. A
founding trustee of the charity support
network Directory of Social Change ,
she remained on its board for 35 years.
Sue had two children: Barny,
with the writer and director Tony
Wickert, and Sky, with the furniture
designer Adrian Swinstead. In later
life, cancer left her with pain and
limited mobility, but did not impair
her wit, curiosity or generosity of
spirit. She continued to open her
home to family and friends.
She attained a gardening
qualifi cation from the Royal
Horticultural Society, encouraging
her fellow students to join trade
unions , and remained active in
the Islington Labour party and the
London Socialist Film Co-Op. From
2016 she was a driving force in
the regeneration of her local park,
Grenville Gardens, in Stroud Green.
Sue is survived by Barny and Sky,
and by her grand children Amelie,
Ida, Flo and Jacob.
Caitlin Adams and Anna DavinSusan Crockford, fi lm-maker, born
20 February 1943; died 29 June 2019The 1971 march
through the
capital, above,
which demanded
equal rights and
equal pay for
women. Right,
Crockford at her
home in north
London last year
TONY MCGRATH;
ANTONIO OLMOS/
THE OBSERVERI wanted
to see
whether
other
people
could be
engaged
by what I
believed inRELEASED BY "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws