HAGGARD, Piers Inigo OBE 1939-2023
Richard R
He was s of Capt Stephen Hubert Avenel HAGGARD 1911-43 scion of that gentry family of f/o Braddenham and as her 1st h (her 2nd was William Elmhirst) Morna Christian 1915-77 d of David GILLESPIE MC 1886-1949 and Blanche CATLEY 1886-1963. He m 1st 1960 (Mary) Christine d of Gerard Charles STOKES of Eaton Sq, London SW1, and had a son and three daus. He m 2nd 1972 Anna SKLOVSKY and had a further son (William Godfrey A. b 1975 reg Q3 Lambeth) and a further dau ((Celia) Daisy Morna b 1978 reg Q2 Lambeth, writer & actress).
Obit in the Times of 31 March 2023:
E X T R A C T
Piers Haggard obituary
Innovative theatre, television and film director best known for bringing Dennis Potter’s Pennies from Heaven to the small screen
… The great-great nephew of the Victorian adventure novelist H Rider Haggard, author of King Solomon’s Mines, Piers Haggard was born in London in 1939 to Stephen Haggard, an actor and poet who had worked in the West End and briefly on Broadway, and Morna Gillespie, who was half Scots.
At the outbreak of the Second World War Stephen joined military intelligence and served in the Middle East, while his wife and three sons were sent to the United States, where his father was consul-general in New York. Of Piers’ two brothers, one died very young; the other, Mark, an emeritus professor of psychology at Cambridge, survives him.
Haggard had little chance to get to know his father, who in 1943 committed suicide while travelling between Cairo and Palestine, left devastated after a married Egyptian woman had ended their love affair.
In 1946 Morna married Richard Elmhirst. They bought a farm near Dollar, a small town in Clackmannanshire, which became the family home. Piers attended school at Dollar Academy and met his first wife, Christiane Stokes, while they were studying at the University of Edinburgh…
… His marriage to Christiane ended in divorce. They had four children: Sarah, who emigrated to Canada and has worked in publishing; Claire, who has worked as a writer and therapeutic musician; Rachel, who was a solicitor in London before moving to Bangladesh and switching focus to the development sector; and Philip, who works in equity research in the City.
In 1972 Haggard married Anna Sklovsky, an Australian stained-glass artist whom he met on a blind date. They had two children: the television actress and writer Daisy Haggard, who is known for Back to Life and Breeders, and William, who is an architect.
Haggard is survived by Anna and his six children.
… With his “Wordsworthian” passion for the countryside (his own choice of adjective), he bought a gamekeeper’s cottage near Petworth, West Sussex, and was proud to have planted a forest of a thousand trees there.
Piers Haggard OBE, director and campaigner, was born on March 18, 1939. He died of undisclosed causes on January 11, 2023, aged 83
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/piers-haggard-obituary-l6dvj7952