The Guardian - 21.08.2019

Section:GDN 1J PaGe:11 Edition Date:190821 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 20/8/2019 18:04 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

Wednesday 21 Au g u st 2019 The Guardian •

11

Dozens of national newspaper

journalists – not a few of them on

the Guardian – who worked early

in their careers for the Oxford Mail

and Oxford Times will remember

the crime novelist and reviewer

Anthony Price (obituary, 3 July)

with nostalgic aff ection.

He was an extremely genial,

unfl ustered and unautocratic

fi gure, his day job as editor of the

weekly Oxford Times being not the

most demanding in journalism.

The two papers had a near mono-

poly, so most of the stories had

already appeared verbatim in the

Mail, an evening publication.

But each had its own distinct

character, the Times being some-

what more staid and upmarket,

selling self-consciously to the

university dons and members of

Letter

Anthony Price

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Other

lives

Jonathan Cutbill

Leading collector of LGBT books and
co-founder of the pioneering London
bookshop Gay’s the Word
My friend Jonathan Cutbill, who has
died aged 82, was a founder of Gay’s
the Word bookshop in Bloomsbury,
central London, and the foremost
collector in Britain of books of LGBT
relevance; there was a period in the
1970s and 80s when he was collecting
not only rare volumes but everything
new being published in English.
He co-founded the shop in 1979
with Ernest Hole and Peter Dorey,
and became a director, while also
working as an information systems
expert at the National Maritime
Museum in Greenwich.
In April 1984 Jonathan was
faced with imprisonment after
HM Customs and Excise raided
the bookshop. Customs offi cers
seized 144 titles ; he was one of nine
directors and employees accused
of conspiring to import and sell
indecent or obscene literature.
A defence campaign set up to fi ght
the charges and recover the stock
raised large amounts from authors
and publishers. When at one low
point it was suggested that the shop
should cease trying to fi ght, Jonathan
famously denounced any such idea:
“We go on!” The nine defendants
were committed for trial at the Old
Bailey, but in June 1986 all criminal
charges were dropped.
Born in Marylebone, London,
Jonathan was the only son of Helen
(nee Brook) and Dudley Cutbill, a
stockbroker. He was brought up, with
his sister, Joan, by his mother , after
his father did not return to the family

John Gardner Sue Owen

Steve Coventry

Oxford law professor enthused by

cooking, design, literature and music,

as much as by his academic work

My friend John Gardner, who

has died aged 54 of cancer, had a

glittering academic career as an

expert in legal philosophy and

served as professor of jurisprudence

at Oxford University.

Born in Glasgow to Sylvia (nee

Hayward-Jones) and William, who

were both lecturers in German at the

city’s university, John attended the

Glasgow academy. In 1983 he went to

New College, Oxford, to study law.

Dazzling his tutors and fellow

students alike, he graduated with a

fi rst in 1986 and won the Vinerian

scholarship for the top bachelor of

civil law degree. A notable academic

career followed: as a prize fellow at

All Souls College, Oxford (1986-91);

Expert in children’s care who fought

for better training, and greater

recognition, for childminders

My mother, Sue Owen, who has

died of breast cancer aged 69, had

a long and distinguished career

in children’s care. Her fi rst love,

and continued passion, was for

childminding, which she believed

was unjustly criticised and

misunderstood – and on which she

became one of the UK’s foremost

experts. She fought for better

Energetic chair of Hillingdon hospital
committed to a culture of openness
and public accountability
My friend and former colleague
Steve Coventry, who has died aged
66 of cancer, was committed to
public service, spending much of his
life helping to improve local health
services for people in Hillingdon,
west London.
Born in nearby Hayes to Violet

after serving in the second world

war. Jonathan went to Ampleforth,

the Catholic boarding school in

Yorkshire, and studied natural

sciences at Peterhouse, Cambridge ,

graduating in 1960.

After national service, he returned

to Cambridge, taking a PhD in 1965,

and was senior research assistant and

then assistant director of research in

geology (1967-76) before joining the

National Maritime Museum. In 1993

he retired and moved to Shropshire.

In the 80s Jonathan set out to get

the truth told about the war poet

Wilfred Owen. He deduced from

quasi-codings in Owen’s mature work

that the poet was gay, something

early biographers had denied or

evaded at the request of Owen’s

family , and in 1987 he published an

essay in the New Statesman entitled

The Truth Untold. It is now widely

accepted that Jonathan was right.

Joan died in 2018; Jonathan is

survived by a cousin, Stephen.

Andrew Lumsden

as a fellow at Brasenose College,

Oxford (1991-96); reader in legal

philosophy at King’s College, London

(1996-2000); and in 2000 – at only 35 –

professor of jurisprudence at Oxford

and a fellow of University College.

He became an honorary bencher

of the Inner Temple in 2003 and a

fellow of the British Academy in

2013, and returned to All Souls as

senior research fellow in 2016. From

that year, too, he was professor of

law and philosophy at Oxford.

John published three philo-

sophical books on law, including

Law as a Leap of Faith (2014) and

From Personal Life to Private Law

(2018). In his fi nal weeks, he fi nish-

ed a book on torts, which will be

published posthumously.

He took his work seriously, but

his intensity of purpose was lit up by

an infectious and lively enthusiasm

for everything he took on. That

extended not just to his work, but

to his outside interests in cooking,

design, literature and music, and

to his relationships with friends,

students and work colleagues.

He is survived by his wife, Jennifer

(nee Kotilaine), a barrister, whom

he married in 2012, and by their

children, Henrik, Annika and Audra,

his mother, and a brother, David.

Nicola Lacey

training and qualifi cations for

childminders, and for their work to

be given higher value in society.

She was born in London, to

Bridget (nee Madden), an accountant

at Harrods, and Owen Owen, an

electrician for the Metropolitan

police, employed at Scotland Yard.

Introduced to ballroom dancing

at an early age by her parents, Sue

went to Frank and Peggy Spencer’s

ballroom dance school in Penge, and

won many prizes, even performing

as a background dancer in the

Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour fi lm.

She went to Beckenham grammar

school, and spent summers in

north Wales with her aunt, the

writer Dyddgu Owen. Dyddgu fi rst

stimulated Sue’s interest in travel

and children through the Welsh

travel guides and children’s books

she wrote. While at Manchester

University studying American

studies, Sue volunteered in local

playgroups, and after her degree she

worked as a playgroups organiser for

Manchester city council, from 1971.

During this time she also helped

with research on a BBC series on

childminding, Other People’s

Children (1977), which was the

catalyst for the launch of the

National Childminding Association

(NCMA) later that year.

Sue met her fi rst husband, the

artist Dennis Duerden, while living

in Manchester. He was teaching at

the University of California in Santa

Cruz, so they moved there in 1977.

Sue used her data as the basis for a

PhD at UC Santa Cruz, on the growth

of professionalism in childminding.

The couple returned in 1981 to live in

London, where I was born in 1985.

Sue worked as an information

offi cer for the NCMA (now known

as Pacey) and also advised on the

drafting of the 1989 Children Act. At

the end of her career she spent a long

period in various director roles at

the National Children’s Bureau, from

where she retired in 2013.

Dennis died in 2007, and in 2016

Sue married the former MP Ednyfed

Hudson Davies. She lived during her

last years in the New Forest. Ednyfed

died in 2018. Sue is survived by me

and my daughter, Olivia.

Katharyn Owen

Haxell, a comptometrist, and John

Coventry, a mechanic, he attended

Hayes grammar school. He passed

his Institute of Taxation (now the

Chartered Institute of Taxation)

exams in 1975 at Harrow College and

qualifi ed as a certifi ed accountant

in 1982, allowing him to set up a

thriving accountancy practice,

Abbots, in 1986, which he ran until

he retired in 2012.

However, as a young man he

also had a parallel career as a local

politician. In 1974, at the age of 21,

he became the youngest Labour

councillor in the London borough

of Hillingdon, taking on the role of

chair of the adult and youth services

sub-committee, responsible for

youth centres, adult education and

outdoor activity centres. He served

on the council until 1978 but was

an active Labour party member

throughout the 1980s and 90s.

In 1990 Steve was invited to join

the board of Hillingdon hospital,

where I became chief executive, as

a non executive director. For the

next 10 years his involvement was

remarkably energetic, and he took on

the role of chair of the hospital in 1998.

The immediate challenges were

to recruit an entirely new board and

executive management team and to

shift the culture around clinical and

operational performance. His time as

chair was marked by a commitment

to openness and accountability;

members of the public were

encouraged to ask questions.

He drove through investment

in new and refurbished facilities

in all the mental health services in

Hillingdon, a new state-of-the-art

neonatal unit and a new accident

and emergency department. In

2003, having reached 10 years on

the board, the maximum allowed,

he stood down.

Steve’s interest in health matters

endured, as he became a trustee

of Mind in Hillingdon and then, in

retirement, a volunteer with the

Samaritans. He will be remembered

for his curiosity and his belief that

everything could be fi xed in the end.

He is survived by his wife, Carol

(nee Dunlop), whom he married in

1976 after they met at a Labour party

social event, and by their sons, John

and Paul, and grandchildren, Freya,

Joey and Ada.

David McVittie

Europe Now

will return in

the autumn

Reread our obituaries of

the Easy Rider actor and

screenwriter Peter Fonda,

the prizewinning author

Toni Morrison and the

entertainer Joe Longthorne

theguardian.com/

obituaries

the professional classes. This was

how Tony – small C conservative

and customarily wearing his purple

and white striped Merton College

tie – wanted it to be.

Plotlines for his next novel were

never far from his mind: when he

learned my brother was a career army

offi cer he enlisted his help tracking

down a detail of military regulations

that formed the core of his next book.

Tony was certainly the nicest and

most approachable of editors.

Stephen Bates

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