My father, Roy Shaw, died on 15 May 2012, aged 93 (pictured in 1975, left, and 2011, below). Informed appreciations of his life and work can be found as follows:
- by Richard Hoggart in The Guardian, with further comments in The Guardian by Simon Hoggart (and again), Ian Searle and Paul Oestreicher, together with letters by Jane Robinson and Robert Hutchison
- by Francis Beckett in The Independent
- in The Times (paywall)
- in The Tablet
on the Arts Council website
There was also an obituary in the Daily Telegraph. In his final year my father wrote a partial draft of an autobiography, which was completed after his death by my mother and published privately by her under the title Catching the Rope: A Memoir of the Early Years 1918-46 (2012).
My mother, Gwenyth Shaw, died on 13 October 2018, aged 95, and I wrote her obituary in The Guardian. She also wrote an autobiography of her early life, Becoming Me: A Memoir of the Years 1923-1946, also published privately (2014). Copies of both autobiographies are available on request to m.shaw@sussex.ac.uk
Gwen Shaw, 1946 and 2008
Dear Martin, I didn’t know that Roy Shaw was your father. I think he was an outstanding advocate for the arts and The Arts and the People is an exemplary argument for their importance. My sympathies on your bereavement.
Oliver, many thanks for your kind words, Martin.
I sent an email to m.shaw@sussex.ac.uk enquiring about obtaining the two privately published biographies of your parents but the email sending failed.
This seems the only way of enquiring about this.
Alan, that is a correct address so can you try again?