Inge Laird obituary

My brief obituary of Inge Laird appeared in yesterday's Guardian Other Lives - click here to read it. I originally submitted a longer piece, which I have posted below in a slightly edited version.

INGE LAIRD

Poet and translator

Inge Elsa Laird, who has died of cancer aged 71, was a generous-spirited supporter of the arts and a fine poet, whose minimal verses hid considerable depths under their frail meniscuses.

Born in Düsseldorf in 1939, the younger child of Margarete and Robert Drenker, she spent the war years unaware of the Jewish heritage that her mother’s marriage to her Christian father hid. Shortly after the war was over, her parents separated, and Inge did not see her father again until 1990.

She lived with her mother, stepfather and brother Günther in a small apartment near a farm, which cemented Inge’s love of the countryside, especially after witnessing the privations of war in urban Düsseldorf. These were happier times, as Inge revelled in school life, sports and the company of her fellow students. She also developed a love of dancing in Düsseldorf’s New Orleans Jazz Bar, listening to the trad jazz of Ken Colyer and others, a love that stayed with her for life. One of my earliest memories of Inge, in the mid 1980s, is of her hopping around the 100 Club, a look of solemn glee on her face, as Ken Colyer played Goin’ Home.

Having started her working career as a teenager scouting out package holiday destinations for a German travel agency, she came to England in 1962 and worked as a portrait model in Richmond, Surrey. She met the musician Michael Laird in 1963 and they married the next year. Their daughter, Nicola, was born in autumn 1964.

Inge settled into British life but never lost her connections with Germany – her accent stayed, though it softened. She worked at W & A Houben, a bookshop in Richmond owned by a Holocaust survivor, and for Lufthansa, which gave her the freedom to indulge one of her greatest pleasures, travelling and exploring the world. She also worked for the hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, as a translator and interpreter.

Throughout the 1980s, Inge became increasingly involved in the literary magazine New Departures and Poetry Olympics festivals alongside my father, the poet Michael Horovitz, eventually becoming the co-editor of New Departures. During this time, she also honed her skills as a poet and reviewer.She also became a fiercely maternal figure for me after my mother died, and would always, if she could, be there to listen and help. I was not alone in receiving these tender ministrations – she was generous with her time with all of her friends and loved ones. And if she needed cheering up, she would put on a record and dance. I cannot now listen to Nina Hagen without seeing Inge, almost levitating around the trumpet-lined front room of her home in Wimbledon, an impish smile on her face as she encouraged my girlfriend and I to join her.

Inge’s sometimes ceremonial joyfulness did not diminish on becoming a grandmother to Benita and Max Laird-Hopkins, born 1992 and 1995 respectively. If anything, it increased. She also found in herself an ever-deepening stillness as a poet and performer, often collaborating with musicians to allow herself, and the words, time to breathe. A recording survives of her reading from her 2001 Elephant Press pamphlet, Poems, accompanied by Oud player Hassan al Hassani (Namiq Hamoodi).

Inge also began to rediscover her Jewish identity – her mother’s Hungarian Jewish ancestry had been understandably suppressed during the Second World War and Inge was only told about it in 1950. Her interest began to flower fully in the 1980s, after meeting members of my father’s family. Much as she enjoyed rediscovering aspects of it she did not let it posses her utterly – she was just as interested in other religions, although much of her time was given to buddhism and yoga.

Despite serious illness in the last months of her life, she retained her beauty and joie de vivre. I was one of several people lucky enough to receive a phone call from her on New Year’s Eve 2010 and she sounded as if she had never been ill, full of hope for the future and concern for others.

She is survived by Michael Laird and her daughter and grandchildren.

Inge Elsa Laird, writer, translator, interpreter, editor; born 19 January 1939; died 3 January 2011.