Obituary: Lois Beeson

Lois Beeson

Died 6 March 2003

Anne Marley writes…

The children’s book world lost one of its great unsung heroes on World Book Day 2003 when Lois Beeson died of cancer at the age of 53. She was the Administrator of the Children’s Laureate and the Branford Boase Award, as well as being a major contributor to the publication ‘Young Writer’. She was previously heavily involved with the ‘Poets in Schools’ project for the Poetry Society and also the W H Smith Young Writers’ competition. Anne Fine, the Children’s Laureate, says of Lois: ‘She was astonishing: warm in spirit, thoughtful, always interesting and insightful, but, above all, fearless and uncompromising both in principle and intellect. Without her, I could not have done even a small fraction of what we managed together during the last couple of years. She was unfailingly supportive, and I came to have the highest possible respect for her. It doesn’t make sense to me that people should be missed even more, simply because of their virtues. But Lois’s death will be a lasting loss, not just to her close family, but to us all.’