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Soho author and journalist dies, 75
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| Farewell to friend of Francis
Bacon and Daniel Farson |
FOR the best part of 50 years Sandy Fawkes has been one
of the most recognisable characters in Soho, often found at the
bars of the French House or Coach and Horses, nursing a glass of
whisky.
But the author and journalist is to be buried today (Friday) after
her death, at 75, on Boxing Day.
Ms Fawkes, with a shock of red hair, often in a hat and wearing
big spectacles, was one of a group of people who would spend their
days and nights drinking in Soho, most of whom have now died.
Her friends and acquaintances numbered journalist Dan Farson, Francis
Bacon and columnist Jeffrey Bernard and she wrote a personal history
of the French House in 1993.
Sandra Boyce-Carmichelle was born on June 30, 1929, and found on
the banks of the Grand Union Canal and was brought up by a series
of foster parents.
She studied at Camberwell School of Art where she came under the
wing of artist John Minton who first took her to Soho.
Ms Fawkes recalled that they would all be packed onto the Number
12 bus and they would head to the ‘French’. It was on
her first trip there that she saw Dylan Thomas “slumped on
the benches”.
She laster wrote: “I romanticised for years that this might
have been the celebrated occasion on which he left behind in the
French his only copy of Under Milk Wood.”
She accepted that this was not in fact the case.
Using Soho as a base she pursued a career in journalism from the
1960s, becoming fashion editor for the Daily Sketch and briefly
for the Daily Mail.
She worked as a features writer for the Daily Express and covered
the 1973 Yom Kippur War for the paper.
Her journalism career, however, was cut short after she met and
had a relationship with a man called Daryl Golden in the USA, who
was in fact Paul Knowles, a notorious serial killer.
She wrote a book of her experiences and it was republished in 2004
as Natural Born Killer.
She told the West End Extra that she was sacked from the Daily Express
and said that she had gone from “admired golden girl to sullied
scarlet woman”.
She added: “It hurt but you run your own life as you can.
“Many of his victims’ relatives rang me over the years
and said – it sounds terrible – thank you, because I had
described a person that was a human being.
“There were people who were tremendously hurt but at least
I tried to help them by trying to discover what made a man kill.”
She married the jazz clarinettist and cartoonist Wally Fawkes in
1949 and had four children.
But for much of her life she lived in a flat in Charing Cross Road
from where she would head to her regular haunts in Soho. In 1990
she assisted legendary maitre d’ Elena Salvoni in the writing
of her biography, Elena: A Life in Soho.
Ms Salvoni said yesterday (Thursday): “I was quite shocked
to hear about it; we have had a friendship for 40, 45 years.
“I used to see her at Bianchi’s, and then at L’Escargot
and then she followed me up to L’Etoile.
“She would come in with her friends and it was hilarious.
“In those days you had to stop drinking at 3pm, but getting
them to go could be pretty hard.”
Ms Salvoni remembered that it was Ms Fawkes who encouraged her to
write an autobiography.
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Traditional
bubbly gets the thumbs up
Supping a good bottle of champagne is like drinking the stars, said
Dom Perignon. We gave our panel the tough task of putting tradition
against innovation...
FULL STORY
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