Shelah Florey |
Late-developer poet with her own angle on the world
ALTHOUGH she had written all her life, Shelah Florey, who has died aged 82, found success as a poet relatively late in life.
The former secretary from St Alban’s Road in Kentish Town became a regular at poetry gatherings at Torriano Meeting House following her retirement. She won many fans with her witty, compassionate poems, epitomised in her first collection, The Making of Casablanca (Hearing Eye 1999).
Friends who paid tribute to her at the Torriano Avenue meeting house on Sunday included fellow poet Wanda Barford, who described Shelah as ‘a satirist with a kind heart, a humorist with no malice and a sometimes-stern critic but with a smile on her face.’ She added: ‘We all remember Shelah with much affection, both as a poet and as a human being. She was a very special person, with absolutely no chip on her shoulder, large or small.
‘As a poet she was truly original, with her own angle on the world. Under her eye things emerged fresh and different, though always recognisable.’
Born in Taunton in Somerset in 1924, Shelah moved with her family to Belsize Road, South Hampstead, in 1927 and attended North London Collegiate School. In 1941, she joined the Army’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, where she worked as a plotter for anti-aircraft gun batteries.
Always an independent spirit, she trained as a secretary after the war, taking on a variety of jobs through the years to support herself and her son Timothy, born in 1958.
Shelah never married and life was not easy for a single mother in the 1950s. Tim, now 52, recalled: ‘Financially, it was a continuing problem for us. It was a difficult time to be a single mum. But she was a very strong woman who was tough when she needed to be.’
In the 1980s, the pair moved to St Alban’s Road in Kentish Town, where Shelah would make her last home. Having retired as a secretary, she now had time to devote herself to her beloved poetry.
Published work soon included appearances in magazines and anthologies such as Work (Katabasis), An Enduring Flame (Smith Settle) and Poetry Introductions 8 (Faber and Faber). She also published a pamphlet, Camden Voices, and won a London Writer’s Award.
The perpetually youthful spirit was passionate about theatre and film. Her daughter-in-law and friend, Christine Florey, said: ‘She was very up-to-date politically - she was a very topical poet. She also kept up to date with music. She knew how rap worked for example, because of the language.’ Shelah’s love of film is clear in perhaps her most famous poem and the title of her collection, The Making of Casablanca.
She was cremated in a private service at Islington and Camden Crematorium in East Finchley on Tuesday.
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