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Jacquemine Charrott Lodwidge

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Jacquemine Charrott Lodwidge (born 20 July 1919) is an English writer on crime and magic who also worked as an art director in British-made films and as a bookseller.

During the Second World War, she served with the Free French forces in the Syrian desert and with the British Red Cross as a welfare officer in the Lebanon.

Early life

Born at Langport, Somerset, in 1919,[1] Lodwidge was the daughter of Dr William Charrott Lodwidge MRCS LRCP (1864-1929), medical officer of health to the Langport Rural District Council, who at the end of the First World War had retired as a Captain from the Royal Army Medical Corps. Originally from Basingstoke, her father had lost his first wife, Sarah Harriet Forret, in 1917,[2] and in 1918 had married secondly in France Louise Elise Marie Kermaree (1894–1977). Jacquemine Lodwidge was their only child and was born in 1919.[3][4]

Dr Lodwidge, born in 1864,[5] was thirty years older than his second wife.[6] In 1925, the young Jacquemine won a prize for playing a Dutch girl in a carnival at Langport.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). and died in April 1929, aged 65, when Lodwidge was nine, leaving an estate valued at £883.[7] She was thus brought up by her French mother.

Career

At the beginning of the Second World War, Lodwidge was a student. A French speaker, she decided to join first the Auxiliary Territorial Service and then, in February 1942, the army of Free France (France Libre).[8] As a result, she spent two years working with the Bedouins in the Syrian desert,[9] distributing medical supplies from an ambulance, and by September 1945 was a British Red Cross welfare officer for Syria and the Lebanon.[10]

After the war, Lodwidge studied the history of architecture and spent several years in Greece.[9] By 1960 she was working as a researcher for BBC television, and one bemused Punch reviewer commented on a new programme about everyday London life called Our Street "For some reason or another I find myself intrigued to notice that the research was done by one Jaquemine Charrott-Lodwidge."[11] In 1962 she was writing television scripts and was then living in a flat on the Thames at Duke Shore, Limehouse Reach.[12] She built up a substantial collection of books for reference, especially children's and illustrated books.[9] Andrew Sinclair credited her as researcher for his book The last of the best: the aristocracy of Europe in the twentieth century (1969).[13] She researched the pictures for George Woodcock’s The British in the Far East (1969) and The British in the Middle East (1970).[14]

In 1974 Ivor Powell acknowledged Lodwidge's help with his book Astrology in the kitchen,[15] and the same year with David Norris she published a book about magic called The Book of Spells.[16]

In 1970 Lodwidge began to develop a career in the movie business, first as a fashion co-ordinator, later as an art director in films and television. However, she became a less active traveller after the death of her mother in 1977.[6] She continued to work as a researcher. In 1980 she moved into a cottage in Langport called Underwall, by a 14th century wall on Langport Hill. She decided to supplement her income between filming assignments by becoming a bookseller and selling some of her own books. Installing her stock in a gazebo, the new enterprise was called Pelekas Books, taking its name from a place Lodwidge had known in Corfu. In The Book Browser's Guide to Secondhand and Antiquarian Bookshops (1982), R. H. Lewis comments "There are herons at the bottom of the terraced garden, and a river from which excellent rough fishing can be had; accompanying husbands or wives not interested in books are invited to bring fishing rods. The building has been redesigned with film-set type features such as a spiral staircase and a gazebo, where the books are now housed... Normal hours, when Jacquemine is not on location, so strictly by appointment.”[9] Pelikas Books was still listed in 1984.[17]

She first worked with the director Henry Herbert as art director on his Malachi's Cove (1973), and worked with him again in the same role on Emily (1976).[18]

Lodwidge helped Daniel Farson with research into the case of Jack the Ripper and caused some surprise by claiming that the serial killer may have been King Leopold II of the Belgians. Her reasons for suspecting him were that his life was scandalous, that he was sadistic in his treatment of the Belgian Congo, and that his house in London may have been the one to which a medium, Robert James Lees, led the police after a psychic experiment to find the killer.[19]

Films

Publications

  • David Norris, Jacquemine Charrott-Lodwidge, The Book of Spells (Lorrimer, 1974)

Notes

  1. ^ Register of Births for Langport Registration District, vol. 5c , p. 441: "Lodwidge, Jacqueline [mother's maiden surname] Kermaree"
  2. ^ Register of Deaths for Canterbury Registration District, vol. 2a, June 1917 quarter, p. 1227: Lodwidge, Sarah H, 49, Canterbury
  3. ^ British Medical Journal (1904) p. 1119
  4. ^ Register of Births for Langport Registration District, vol. 5c (1919) p. 441: Lodwidge Jacqueline [mother's maiden surrname] Kermaree
  5. ^ Register of Births for Basingstoke Registration District, March 1864, vol. 2c, p. 173: Lodwidge, William Charrott
  6. ^ a b Register of Deaths for Yeovil Registration District, vol. 23, September quarter of 1977, p. 1400: "Charrott-Lodwidge Louise Elise M [born 13 October 1894]"
  7. ^ Probate Index for 1929 (England): "Lodwidge William Charrott of Langport Somersetshire died 3 April 1929 at the Home of Good Hope Bournemouth Hampshire Probate Taunton 17 May to Louise Elise Marie Lodwidge widow. Effects £883 9s."
  8. ^ Une Française Libre parmi 51449 Jacqueline Lodwidge (Resistance file GR 16 P 374733) at francaislibres.net, accessed 7 November 2017
  9. ^ a b c d Roy Harley Lewis, The Book Browser's Guide to Secondhand and Antiquarian Bookshops (1982), p. 188
  10. ^ ”Portland’s War Record” in Western Gazette dated Friday 14 September 1945, p. 8
  11. ^ Punch, Volume 238 (1960), p. 598
  12. ^ ”The Party Planners” in Tatler dated Wednesday 10 October 1962, pp. 28, 29
  13. ^ Andrew Sinclair, The last of the best: the aristocracy of Europe in the twentieth century (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 186
  14. ^ George Woodcock, The British in the Far East (1969), p. xi; The British in the Middle East (1970), p. xii
  15. ^ Ivor Powell, Astrology in the kitchen (Drake Publishers, 1975), p. 15
  16. ^ David Norris, Jacquemine Charrott-Lodwidge, The Book of Spells (Lorrimer, 1974)
  17. ^ 1984 Annual Directory of Booksellers in the British Isles Specializing in Rare and Out-of-Print Books (The Clique, Cheltenham, 1983), p. 50
  18. ^ a b Mike Kaplan, ed., Variety International Showbusiness Reference (1981), p. 388
  19. ^ King Leopold at casebook.org, accessed 7 December 2017
  20. ^ Harris M. Lentz, Science Fiction, Horror & Fantasy Film and Television Credits (2001), p. 915
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