Innes Herdan; Translator and writer who led a life of adventure, academia and domestic contentment
Hyfler/Rosner
Irini Antoniades
The Guardian,
Wednesday June 18 2008
On her first day reading English at Somerville College,
Oxford, in the 1930s, my grandmother, the translator and
writer Innes Herdan, who has died aged 96, met a Chinese
chemistry student, Liao Hongying. The event marked the birth
of a lifelong friendship and her fervent love for China. She
went on to lead a life combining adventure, academia and
domestic contentment.
Innes visited China many times and, in the late 1960s, was a
co-founder of the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding.
Her books included an invaluable dual-text translation of
Three Hundred Tang Poems (1973), The Pen and the Sword:
Literature and Revolution in Modern China (1992) and a
personal homage to her friend, Hongying: Fragments of a Life
(1996).
Born in Chelsea, west London, she inherited tough Hebridean
roots from her mother, together with the intellect of her
engineer grandfather, Charles Jacobs. After Oxford, she
studied Chinese at the School of Oriental and African
Studies (Soas) in London, and went on to Nanjing and Wuhan
universities (1936-37), sharing a house with Hongying and
beginning a love affair with the poet Julian Bell, which
ended with his death in the Spanish civil war in 1937. She
wrote of her experiences in China Only Yesterday (1938).
Back in London, she helped the artist Chiang Yee with his
Silent Traveller series; they became friends and writing
partners.
In 1938, Innes met the lawyer, statistician and linguist
Gustav Herdan at a Soas Chinese-language summer school. When
he returned to Czechoslovakia - then being dismembered by
the Nazis - his Jewish background endangered his life. Innes
flew to Prague on a one-way ticket and, according to family
legend, the couple fled the country by train. At the Swiss
border, Innes commandeered a plane to take them to England.
Their marriage was followed by a life in Cambridge, Bristol
and Bournemouth. Devoted to her three children, Innes
juggled family life and her intellectual interests,
collaborating with Gustav on academic publications until his
death in 1968.
Back in London in the late 1980s she met the communist
doctor Alexander Tudor-Hart, with whom she enjoyed
companionship until he died in the early 1990s. Later,
Hongying fell ill and Innes supported her and her husband,
the diplomat and sinologist Derek Bryan. After Hongying's
death in 1998, she settled in Norwich; her friendship with
Derek flourished until his death in 2003.
Strong and independent of spirit, Innes' kindness touched
many people. Her modesty, dignity and passion for life
remained with her till the end.
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This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday June 18
2008 on p33 of the Obituaries section. It was last updated
at 00:03 on June 18 2008.