News
Friday, July 23, 2010

Judy Gascoyne

It was very sad to hear of the recent death of Judy Gascoyne - the wife of the late poet David Gascoyne - at the age of 88.

Judy was actively involved in Island life for more than fifty years with a number of organizations. In the sixties she established a Youth Club at Yarmouth in the former Railway Station and she was also a long serving member of Yarmouth Carnival Committee. In addition, she did a lot of work collecting monney for charities, including Cancer Research.

Her first husband was West Wight veterinary surgeon Michael Lewis. The couple had four children. One of their sons, Milo, wewnt on to become Elvis Costello's road manager.

Judy later married poet David Gascoyne on 17th May 1975. The story of how they met is charming. David was a patient at Whitecroft Hospital. Judy was there reading poetry to the severely depressed patients. When Judy chose to read the poem 'September Sun', David explained to Judy who we was, and that he had written the poem. 'Of course yiu did dear' replied Judy. Over a cup of tea, David managed to convince Judy that he actually had written the poem. The couple lived in Northwood, and attended many poetry events together. both in the UK and abroad, until David's death in 2001. In 2002 Judy ublished her memoirs, entitled 'My Love Affair With Life'

Judy's main connection with music was that in August 1969, she was employed by Fiery Creations to look after Bob Dylan, George Harrison and others at Forelands Farm, Bembridge prior to the Isle of Wight Festival. Pete and I recorded an interview Judy about this, which was included on our 'Vaguely Sunny' Isle of Wight compilation CD which was released in 2000.

When I think back, Judy and David Gasgoyne ceratinly had an influemce on the path that Isle of Wight Rock Archives /Vaguely Sunny has taken over the past fifteen years. A visit to their Northwood home just before Christmas 1993 led to Mike establishing that Beat Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti had visited Cowes during the Second World War. That in turn , led to Mike and his family visiting San Francisco early the following year, where they visited Ferlinghetti at his world famous City Lights book shop and also met Alan Ginsberg. David and Judy were like that - they kind of pointed you in the direction of all kinds of interesting stuff.

I remember some years ago we went to see the poet Aidan Dun at Quay Arts. Judy introduced Aidan, and in his review, Mike wrote words to the effect that Judy had opened the evening like a champagne cork popping out of a bottle. That was what she was like.

Vic King