Jacquemine Charrott Lodwidge

Jacquemine Francesca Anastasia Charrott Lodwidge (born Jacqueline Lodwidge) (20 July 1919 – 20 February 2012) was an English writer on crime and magic who also worked as an art director in British-made films and as a bookseller.

During the Second World War, she served with the Free French forces in the Syrian desert and with the British Red Cross as a welfare officer in the Lebanon.

Early life Born at Langport, Somerset, in July 1919, Originally from Basingstoke, her father's first wife had died in 1917; in 1918 he had married secondly, in France, Louise Elise Marie Kermarec (1894–1977), known as Lisette. Dr Lodwidge, born in 1864, was thirty years older than his second wife. Jacquemine Lodwidge was their only child and was born in 1919. In July 1925, the young Jacquemine won a prize for playing a Dutch girl in a carnival at Langport.

In 1928, Dr Lodwidge retired on the grounds of ill health . She was thus brought up by her French mother, and they continued to live in Langport.

Career At the beginning of the Second World War, Lodwidge was a student. A French speaker, she decided to join first the Auxiliary Territorial Service and then, in February 1942, the army of Free France (France Libre). As a result, she spent two years working with the Bedouins in the Syrian desert, distributing medical supplies from an ambulance, and by September 1945 was a British Red Cross welfare officer for Syria and the Lebanon.

After the war, Lodwidge returned home to Somerset, and in 1947 was helping to produce school plays there. She went on to study the history of architecture and spent several years in Greece. In 1962 she was writing television scripts and was then living in a flat on the Thames at Duke Shore, Limehouse Reach. She built up a substantial collection of books for reference, especially children's and illustrated books. She researched the pictures for George Woodcock’s The British in the Far East (1969) and The British in the Middle East (1970).

In 1974 Ivor Powell acknowledged Lodwidge's help with his book Astrology in the kitchen, and the same year with David Norris she published a book about magic called The Book of Spells.

In 1970 Lodwidge began to develop a career in the movie business, first as a fashion co-ordinator, later as an art director in films and television. However, she became a less active traveller after the death of her mother in 1977.

She first worked with the director Henry Herbert as art director on his Malachi's Cove (1973), and worked with him again in the same role on Emily (1976), starring Koo Stark.

Personal life On 22 February 1992, Lodwidge married Commander Derek George Harbroe ('Jake') Wright DSC of Shillingford in Oxfordshire. Her husband, a Brooke Bond tea trader who had had a distinguished wartime naval career in motor-torpedo-boats, died in 2008, aged ninety-two.

Lodwidge died in Somerset in February 2012 at the age of 92.

Films The Breaking of Bumbo (1970) : fashion co-ordinator Under Milk Wood (1972) : production researcher Blue Blood (1973) : art director Malachi's Cove (1973) : art director Autobiography of a Princess (1975) : setting Spanish Fly (1975) : art director Emily (1976) : art director The Ups and Downs of a Handyman (1976) : art director Keep It Up Downstairs (1976) : art director

Publications David Norris, Jacquemine Charrott-Lodwidge, The Book of Spells (Lorrimer, 1974)