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When Doreen died in spring 2016 it was a huge shock to all of us. As the raw emotion faded into a more settled form of grief, we began to think of our own ways to remember Doreen amongst the other tributes and events held to celebrate her life. For all of us at Soundings, friendship, scholarship and politics could never be separate from our work with Doreen. Many of us have found ways to share our thoughts and pay our respects - including through the finishing of joint articles, the writing of obituaries or the commissioning of pieces in the spirit of her political views. We wanted to share that opportunity with those who have had similar relationships to Doreen and her work. In this collection of short tributes, friends, students and colleagues recall how Doreen shaped their thinking and touched their lives through her writing and her comradeship.
The swifts of Kilburn
James Marriott
It has been an exhausting day. The melancholy of returning to Kilburn for a memorial dinner three months after Doreen's death has made me listless. The constant assault from the media in the run up to the EU Referendum next week has drained me. Then the sudden news of the murder of Jo Cox smashes the foundations of my resolve. The conversation around the table of those gathered to remember their dear friend lifts me a little and, in need of a rare smoke, I step out of the restaurant with a couple of others. It is a quiet street and above the hum of the city I can hear the Swifts screaming. Looking up I see packs of them chasing each other in the warm night air. I'm smiling at last, for Doreen is in the Swifts and the Swifts are in Doreen.
A Swiftis like a black space in the sky. A sickle-shaped hole careering over the rooftops, out away beyond the chimney pots towards the fields and the woods. A Swiftis completely of the air. When the young leave the nest they plunge into their element so joyfully that they do not touch ground for two years. For twenty-two months they remain on the wing, flying from England to Zimbabwe twice before they land. This is...