John Richardson

I've just learned of the death of John Richardson in May. Not to be confused with the biographer of Picasso, he was the founder of Historical Publications who published so many interesting books on parts of London and aspects of the capital's history. 

Four of these books: Subterranean City, London's Coffeehouses Folklore of London and Decadent London (first edition) were by me. I will be eternally grateful to John for getting in touch after reading an article (the first!) I wrote and having the confidence to ask me to write Subterranean City. I had never written a book before and this one took a lot of research. The book did extremely well (John printed a revised and expanded edition in 2010) and I was pretty much allowed to choose the subjects of my next couple of books. I was also impressed by the amount of freedom given regarding illustrations and cover etc. 

John was a lovely man who was fascinated by local history, particularly of Camden - he wrote a number of books himself and supported many local projects and enterprises. He wound up HP a few years ago and retired to Whitstable, where I visited him a couple of times. On one occasion he gave me the rights to all my work to publish myself and I duly republished Decadent London in a larger revised and updated paperback edition under my imprint Accumulator Books (which I may reprint this year).  My thoughts go out to his wife Helen and his children.