This is my obituary of Sid Rawle, published in The Guardian on 27th September.
Important correction re Sid’s mother received from a member of Sid’s family:
‘Sid's mother was not a Romany girl as you have reported. Our mother was a born and bred London girl, from Parsons Green, Fulham, as was our grandmother and great-grandmother. I was born eight years after Sid in the same house in Fulham -four generations of London girls. Betty, our mother, met and married Sid's father whilst working on his farm as a Land-Army girl. When Sid was seven the marriage failed and she returned to London with him. However, after a protracted custody battle, Sid was handed back to his father on the Exmore Farm. It was deemed better, by the powers that be, for him to be brought up on an Exmore farm than in post-war London. He was not brought up as a solitary child, he had three step-brothers. Sid didn't see our mother again from the age of nine to eighteen when he tracked us down in Slough. The rest, as they say, is history...’
See the excellent tribute to Sid on Andy Worthington’s site.
See Sid on YouTube
Sid Rawle on Wikipedia
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