This from Virginia Ironside, part of the crew responsible for ressurecting the reputation of Julian Maclaren Ross, the 1940s/50s writer and Soho gadfly. Coincidentally I’ve just been enjoying his memoirs, recently republished by the good folk at Black Spring Press (and no, I wasn’t paid to say that).
If anyone can help please get in touch with us via further(at)strangeattractor.co.uk
“The writer Julian MacLaren Ross, who is enjoying a well-deserved resurrectrion in literary circles, lies in an unmarked grave in Mill Hill Cemetry. It is a bleak spot and it is high time he had a headstone. Everything is lined up – his son, Alex, is all for the idea, and Virginia Ironside is trying to co-ordinate everything with a brilliant stone-carver, John Bates, who is offering his services free… but it turns out that they are stymed. Nothing can be done without the permission of the owner of the plot.
It turns out that she is MacLaren Ross’s then girlfriend, Eleanor Brill, and no one knows what on earth has happened to her. If she is dead, then it is likely that the plot is now owned by her daughter, Caroline Brill, who was ten when MacLaren Ross died, on November 3rd 1964, at 4 Dawson Place, Kensington. But where is she? Does anyone know? Please help!
If anyone has any letters from Julian please also let us know, and send copies, because Paul Willetts, his biographer, is republishing a collection of them…”
