EVENING STANDARD

 

London, 21 April 1976

 

London Day by Day - Goodbye

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Admirers of “Away to it All” will not need reminding that William Sansom, who died yesterday, had as a writer an almost supernatural sense of place and atmosphere. He was also the most efficient of travellers, his homework meticulously done, adept at dealing with porters in most tongues and finding obscure but excellent hotels.

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Friends arrived at a Paris station to claim couchettes reserved in coach 13. Unluckily the train ended at coach 12. Sansom produced coach 13 at the double.

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At home he was famous as gardener for his conservatory, full of geraniums, plumbago and jasmine.  He also once played the piano in a dance band, and often regaled late-night guests with his sweet and sour from the 30s and 40s.

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Goodbye was the title of a novel he published in 1966.