Renee Simm; proprietor of the Greyfriars Art Shop (GREAT)
Hyfler/Rosner
18 November 2005
Mildred Renée Evelyn Simm, art-shop proprietor: born
Neuilly-sur-Seine, France 5 February 1901; (one daughter);
died Perth 11 November 2005.
The First World War changed everything for Renée Simm.
Uprooted from her native France to the Edinburgh of Miss
Jean Brodie, where most of the males of her generation had
been killed, she longed to go to art school, but had instead
to work for a living - 40 years of shopkeeping, which she
frankly found dull. She became fiercely independent, and
formed friendships with a series of remarkable men who
became her heroes: the painter and sculptor William Lamb in
her youth; the potter Bernard Leach in her art-shop days;
and, in the long evening of her retirement, the poet and
writer George Mackay Brown.
She was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the western outskirts
of Paris, in February 1901, a fortnight after the death of
Queen Victoria. Her father, a Scot from Paisley, worked in
France as an agent for George Rowney, the purveyor of
artists' materials, and had settled with his family in
Sèvres. Simm's early childhood here was blissfully happy.
She used to say that when she and her elder brother played
in the garden they felt they were "surrounded by angels".
Events from the wider world were slow to impinge. Simm
remembered the shock and terror she felt when, in April
1912, news came through of the sinking of the Titanic. For
years afterwards, she suffered recurring nightmares that she
was trapped and drowning in a freezing sea. Then war broke
out, and, from her classroom, she could hear the boom of Big
Bertha pounding Paris. In 1918, she was presented with an
official medal for not having missed a single day's school
in the entire course of the war.
Renée Simm first met William Lamb when he was invited to a
salon given by her mother for soldiers on furlough. Less
than eight years Renée's senior, he was a sculptor from
Montrose of exceptional talent, and her father took an
interest in him and in his work. When Lamb was invalided out
of the Army suffering from trauma, and with an irrevocably
shattered right hand, the Simm family took him in. Mentally
restored by his stay with them, he returned home to
Scotland, where he taught himself to draw, paint and sculpt
with his left hand.
He became involved with some of the local writers and
artists championing a Scottish Renaissance, notably a
reporter on the Montrose Review, C.M. Grieve, who, as Hugh
MacDiarmid, used Lamb's bust of him to illustrate his 1932
book Scots Unbound and Other Poems. In the same year, the
then Duchess of York commissioned Lamb to model portrait
heads of her daughters, the young Princesses Elizabeth and
Margaret Rose. Impressed by his work, she then commissioned
him to sculpt a bust and paint a portrait of herself.
For Renée Simm, William Lamb, who died in 1951, was a model
of what a true artist should be: unconcerned with worldly
success, utterly dedicated to his craft. Until the end of
her life, she devoted unflagging energy to keeping his
memory alive, and his work in the public eye.
In the aftermath of the war, as the franc plummeted in
value, George Rowney's French business collapsed. William
Simm, who had invested his all in it, was forced to bring
his family back to England, and then to Scotland. In 1927 he
took over what had been a branch of the art shop Doig,
Wilson & Wheatley (established in 1840), hard by Greyfriars
Kirk in Edinburgh. His health was precarious, however, and
less than three years later, in 1930, he was dead. Renée,
just 29, took over.
To relieve the boredom of shopkeeping, she trained during
the Second World War as a picture framer. She also began to
stock, along with artists' materials, work from the pottery
of Bernard Leach. "Potting is one of the few activities
today in which a person can use his natural faculties of
head, heart, and hand in balance," Leach believed. It was a
Lamb-like approach, and Leach (who died in 1979) became
first a friend and then another hero for Simm. She built up
her own collection of Leach pots, and they became a pension
that saw her through a retirement of over 40 years.
Simm, remembered as a formidable figure behind the counter,
sold Greyfriars Art Shop in 1967 (she had bought the
premises 20 years earlier), and spent half the money raised
on a ticket to Australia to visit her brother, stopping on
the way in Athens, a city she had dreamt of seeing since her
schooldays.
Back in Edinburgh she grew increasingly disenchanted with
urban living. Browsing in a railway bookshop one day, she
came upon a collection of pieces by the poet George Mackay
Brown. She sensed through the writing a man who shared the
humility and vision of Lamb and Leach, and she wrote to him,
initially seeking advice on a biography of Lamb. Soon, she
and Brown were corresponding weekly, and in 1983 she
exchanged her Edinburgh flat for the tumbledown end of a
traditional long house on the outskirts of Brown's home
town, the Orkney seaport Stromness.
Aged 82, she moved into a youth hostel for three months
while the house was rebuilt. The grain kiln became a
showcase for William Lamb's life-size sculpture of a boy.
The adjoining byre became a storage room for her treasures,
including an architect's chest full of Lamb etchings. Her
collection of Leach pots was stowed in the rafters, and when
her funds ran low she would parcel one up, carry it down to
the harbour and dispatch it on the ferry-boat St Ola to
Sotheby's.
Fitting into an island community was not always
straightforward. Simm did not mince her words, and some felt
overwhelmed by her strength of character. But for George
Mackay Brown, who barely travelled, and for whom those from
outside Orkney therefore had a particular fascination, her
company was invigorating. "Renée Simm," he wrote to a
friend, "has the heart of a lion", and he marvelled at her
"seemingly bottomless well of hope".
Once a week, she would sweep down into Stromness in her blue
Citroën Diane (her driving might not be up to "mainland"
standards, she conceded, but for island purposes it was
perfectly adequate) and take Brown up to "Little Quildon"
for some French cuisine, and an afternoon of dozing and
chatting by her fire. He dedicated a book, Tryst on Egilsay
(1989), and a number of poems to her. "Renée will outlive us
all," he predicted.
Brown's death in 1996 was a profound shock to Simm, and left
her somewhat isolated. She continued, nevertheless, to
embrace life with astonishing vigour. Already active in the
Orkney Transcendental Meditation community, at the age of 96
she was received into the Roman Catholic Church.
After celebrating her 100th birthday in London, she sold up
and moved to an old people's home on the mainland, first in
Aberfeldy, then in Perth. She was a quarter of a century
older than many of her new companions, but her mind (and
tongue) remained sharp and her memories vivid. She continued
the careful process of dispersing her possessions, earlier
this year returning the enormous original keys to the
Greyfriars Art Shop.
Her great age became a source of curiosity not only to local
newspapers, but also to herself. "I am afraid," she would
say, with a mixture of jest and genuine bafflement, "that
God has forgotten me."
She died on Armistice Day, within sight of her 105th
birthday.
Maggie Fergusson
Bob Feigel
magnanimously proffered:
>From The Independent ~
>
>18 November 2005
>Mildred Renée Evelyn Simm, art-shop proprietor: born
>Neuilly-sur-Seine, France 5 February 1901; (one daughter);
>died Perth 11 November 2005.
<snip>
>Her great age became a source of curiosity not only to local
>newspapers, but also to herself. "I am afraid," she would
>say, with a mixture of jest and genuine bafflement, "that
>God has forgotten me."
>
>She died on Armistice Day, within sight of her 105th
>birthday.
>
>Maggie Fergusson
Fascinating ...
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~