Valerie Grosvenor Myer

Valerie Winifred Grosvenor Myer (13 April 1935 – 9 August 2007) was a British writer, university teacher, and editor.

Early life Valerie Winifred Grosvenor Godwin was born in Lower Soudley in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England, to Donald Godwin, who worked in insurance and as a smallholder, having started work aged 14 looking after pit-ponies in coalmines, and "educated and ambitious" Margaret (née Jones). She was raised in "tranquil poverty"; the village had no electricity or indoor sanitation until she was in her late teens. Her parents were second cousins, and there was an "alluring legend" that the family descended from nobility via a bastard child several generations ago. She studied at East Dean Grammar School in Cinderford, but had to leave at the age of 16 to train as a librarian in Gloucester; a "crisis in family finances" meant she was unable to go on to the university education her mother had led her to hope for.

Later career Her post-graduate career was in editing, university teaching, and writing. Having studied for a Postgraduate Certificate in Education at Hughes Hall, Cambridge, she taught briefly at secondary school level; but finding this uncongenial, she appropriately combined her two areas of experience in educational journalism: Deputy Arts Editor of The Times Educational Supplement before moving to The Teacher (weekly newspaper of the National Union of Teachers) as Literary and Features Editor. She remained living in Cambridge, commuting by train to these London jobs, whilst also supervising undergraduates, having been included on the English Faculty list of Approved Supervisors, for Cambridge colleges Queens', Homerton and Robinson, and was elected to an Associateship at Lucy Cavendish College. Notable among her supervisees were Richard Maher at Queens', Jan Ravens at Homerton, Andy White and Morwenna Banks at Robinson. On the invitation of Professor Wu Ningkun, who was a visiting fellow at Cambridge, she taught at the Beijing Language Institute, later the Beijing Language and Culture University, and in 1989 worked there close to the Tiananmen Square protests, visiting her students in the square just the day before the demonstration was brought violently to an end by the People's Liberation Army, after which she had to flee at risk of gunfire before her year's contract was complete: she spent a night at the Beijing Toronto Hotel on her way to the airport, and there were actually bullet-holes in its walls next morning. She also taught at Fourah Bay College, (University of Freetown), Sierra Leone, where she was caught up in the civil war in 1991. "These episodes suggested that Valerie's life was becoming more adventurous and dangerous as she neared retirement age," wrote Sue Limb in her obituary in The Guardian.