Saturday 30 April 2022 The Guardian •

9

FLINSPACH, Elisabeth, 87, died on 24 April 2022

in Marburg, Germany, after a long illness. Her two

children and their families will remember her as an

energetic and self-determined person, as well as a

passionate teacher and psychotherapist. We mourn

her loss, but are grateful that she is now at peace.

Family Schmuecker, Waldweg 25, 35041 Marburg,

Germany.

For Announcements, Acknowledgments, Adoptions,

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email us at [email protected]

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BOFFEY - SNELL, Alex and Derek Snell are proud

to announce the engagement of their amazing

daughter Grace Enid Snell to the wonderful Tony

James Boffey on 17 April 2022. With so much love

to you both. Mama and Papa xxx.

VIZARD, Michael, 81, of Exeter, died on 14 April

after a short illness. Former assistant chief

probation officer. Funeral service to be held on

Monday 9 May at 2pm, Escot House, Devon.

TERRY, Nigel, 30th April 2015. ’There is no way of

telling people they are walking round, shining like

the sun’.

RIDDICK, Amanda, 1970 - 2020.

So missed, never forgotten. Monika and Chris.

Today’s birthdays: Jacques

Audiard, fi lm director and

screenwriter, 70 ; John Boyne,

novelist, 51; Prof Giles Brindley,

neurophysiologist, 96 ; Jonathan

Brownlee, triathlete, 32; Dame

Jane Campion, fi lm director, 68 ;

Andrew Carwood, conductor

and director of music, St Paul’s

Cathedral, 57; Dickie Davies,

sports presenter, 89; Kirsten

Dunst, actor, 40; Colum Eastwood,

SDLP leader, 39 ; Leigh Francis,

comedian, 49 ; Justine Greening,

former secretary of state for

education, former Conservative

MP, 53 ; Tony Harrison, poet, 85 ;

Kit Hesketh-Harvey, writer,

broadcaster and cabaret performer,

65; Steven Mackintosh, actor,

55; Amanda Palmer, artist and

musician, 46 ; Tessa Traeger,

photographer, 84; Lars von Trier,

fi lm director, 66.

Tomorrow’s birthdays: Wes

Anderson, fi lm director, 53; Prof

Sir Richard Blundell, economist,

70 ; Bernard Butler, guitarist and

producer, 52 ; Steve Cauthen,

jockey, 62; Judy Collins, singer,

83; Rita Coolidge, singer, 77; Sir

Gordon Greenidge, cricketer and

coach, 71 ; Dame Joanna Lumley,

actor, 76; Mary Lou McDonald,

president, Sinn Feín, 53; Julian

Mitchell, writer and playwright,

87; Nina Hossain, newscaster, 47;

Yasmina Reza, playwright and

novelist, 63; Nicola Solomon, chief

executive, Society of Authors, 62 ;

Prof Megan Vaughan, historian,

68 ; Antony Worrall Thompson,

chef and broadcaster, 71.

John Woolf

Concert promoter who

provided a platform 

for new composers

and performers

A

fter the second

world war British

concert and

operatic life

benefi ted from

keen audiences,

expanded

education and

broadcasting, the commercial

success of the long-playing record

and public funding of the arts.

Remaining gaps – opportunities for

young performers, new music and

lesser-known operas – called for the

fl air of an imaginative impresario,

though one working in a not-for-

profi t e nvironment. John Woolf,

who has died aged 91 of cancer, was

such a fi gure.

A violinist with what was then

the Covent Garden Opera Company,

in 1956 he accepted the use of

a house in central London – 45

Park Lane, replaced in the 1960s

by a nightclub – as the base for

an organisation to do the things

that others were not doing. For

the next 65 years he ran the Park

Lane Group virtually on his own,

with the help of a supportive

committee. Funding came mainly

from musical trusts and shared

gala performances of West End

musicals, with some Arts Council

assistance in the early years.

From its start the PLG provided

the leading platform for young

performers of outstanding talent,

principally in the Purcell Room,

opened in 1967 at the Southbank

Centre, London. The 1,600 artists

presented by the time of John’s

death included the pianists John

Ogdon and Imogen Cooper,

the singers Thomas Allen and

Josephine Barstow, the Nash

Ensemble and the Arditti Quartet.

The work of many living composers

was featured, and in this area his

eff orts were aided by the music

publisher Giles Easterbrook.

The trust’s other two aims were

to mount imaginative musical

occasions, and to celebrate the

lives and work of great musicians,

which it often did by marking

anniversaries. In 1962 William

Walton conducted Façade, with

Irene Worth and Sebastian Shaw

reciting Edith Sitwell’s poems, in

the Royal Festival Hall; she marked

her 75th birthday by reading more

recent poems, and Peter Pears

sang. Outside London, Boulez in

Birmingham (2008) took place

in the presence of the composer.

Park Lane Opera functioned

until 1981, often at the Camden

festival in London, and there were

25 productions, mostly staged,

including Gian Carlo Menotti’s

Maria Golovin (1976), directed by

the composer.

The PLG was particularly active

in the 70s. The 1972-73 season,

for example, opened with the

mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian in

a Parisian salon programme in the

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London; later

in the season Igor Oistrakh gave

a violin recital there. The music

of Lord Berners was celebrated

by the pianist and PLG founding

member Susan Bradshaw, the

mezzo-soprano Meriel Dickinson,

my sister, and me in songs with

piano, and the poet John Betjeman

giving readings. John Cage ’s

Music Circus, with students from

Birmingham University, took

over the Round house, north

London, for its fi rst performance in

Europe. Eight concerts including

performers from six mainland

European countries marked the

UK’s accession to the European

Economic Community. The

soprano Jane Manning took part

in an electronic music programme

with Tristram Cary. There was jazz,

with a commissioned work from

Ian Carr, and a programme from the

Mike Gibbs Band. Singers included

Shirley Verrett in the Royal Festival

Hall and Felicity Palmer in the

Woolf played

the violin

in various

orchestras for

50 years

JAY GOLDMARK

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Queen Elizabeth Hall with the Park

Lane Players.

Born in Nice, in the south

of France, John was the son of

Antoinette (nee Piguete), and

Hermann Woolf, a translator. In

June 1940, John and his father

escaped from France through

Marseille and to Gibraltar on a

Scottish collier. Eventually they

reach ed Plymouth, and were able

to join his mother and older brother

in London.

John played the violin in various

London orchestras from the mid-

1940s. In 1952 he joined the second

violins of the orchestra at the Royal

Opera House , moving on to the fi rst

violins in 1974 and leaving in 1995.

He greatly valued his contact with

the operatic repertoire, and came

to regret selling his fi ne violin after

his departure.

After the Covid pandemic made

the Purcell Room concerts around

new year impossible, John put

on lunchtime concerts for young

artists that were streamed live from

St James’s church, Piccadilly. At the

time of his death a new lunchtime

series was running at Holy

Sepulchre church , High Holborn ,

and he had other plans in train for

the future.

John was incredibly generous

and dedicated , and an aff able

companion. He was appointed

MBE (1974) , an honorary member

of the Royal College of Music (1981)

and honorary fellow of the Royal

Academy of Music (2007). But

ever modest, he refus ed to let me

write an article about him and his

achievements for his 90th birthday.

He was like a gambler with concerts

• he could not resist them and
  undoubtedly put a considerable
  amount of his own funds into the
  PLG over many years.
  His brief marriage to Catherine
  Roberts ended in divorce, and he
  is survived by their son, Andrew,
  a  saxophone and clarinet player.
  Peter Dickinson

John Robin Marcel Woolf, concert

promoter, born 12 April 1930;

died 30 January 2022

in Britain (1967), by Alexander
Thom, a professor of engineering
science at Oxford University.
Though published by a university
press, it acquired a cult following,
introducing the world to a
“ megalithic yard ” and the idea that
stone circles were laid out with
extreme precision, sometimes
aligned on features of the night
sky. Calanais and its surrounding
sites were said to display “the most
important group of alignments in
Britain”. Here, wrote Thom, there is
no complete survey. The Pontings
got in touch.
Margaret corresponded
regularly with Thom, a man she
found more helpful than many
professional archaeologists, and he
introduced them to Ronald Curtis,
an Edinburgh-based chartered
civil engineer who had started his
own surveys at Calanais in 1972.
Within a year Margaret had found
previously unidentifi ed megaliths,
and the Pontings soon joined Curtis
in surveying many of them.
Their work was highlighted
in 1978 when Margaret and
Gerald were fi nalists in the BBC
Chronicle award for local amateur
archaeologists. They were not
winners, but at the ceremony
were presented with a cheque and
champagne by Prince Charles as
a special award for initiative.
They self-published a succession
of guides to Calanais and other
stone circles, selling them from
the garage next to their house,
where Margaret accumulated
her collection of artefacts and
entertained visitors from around
the world drawn by promises of
visionary tours and eccentric,
friendly company.
Gerald left Scotland in 1984
after they had separated, and
Margaret continued to work with
Curtis. They married in 1989,
co-authoring many technical
reports of surveys and discoveries,
which included a complete stone
circle that Margaret fi rst spotted
from a bus. Their experiments
in moving and erecting stones
attracted the attention of the
mason and writer Rob Roy, who
gave Margaret another book
chapter, in his Stone Circles: A
Modern Builder’s Guide (1999).
In September last year, Peter
Vallance, a storyteller at the
Findhorn Foundation, recorded
Margaret talking by the Calanais
stones. “It’s like doing a jigsaw,”
she said, “every little bit gives you
another insight into what was going
on. And I think I’ve pretty well got
to the end of all the insights.”
Ron died in 2008. Margaret
is survived by her son, Ben,
and daughter, Becky, four
grandchildren, Eloise, Sasha,
Tabitha and Calum, and two
great-grandsons.
Mike Pitts

Margaret Curtis, teacher,
archaeologist and megalith
enthusiast, born 7 June 1941;
died 26 March 2022