My wife, Jackie Shipster, who has died aged 70, was an actor, pianist and music teacher, who used singing to help those with dementia and brain injury, before herself suffering a brain haemorrhage.
Jackie was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Her father was the Springbok cricketer Tufty Mann, one of the greatest spin bowlers of his era, who died of cancer in 1952, when Jackie was an infant. Her mother was the actor and theatre director Daphne Martin. Jackie went to Herschel girls’ school in Cape Town, and then the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. She graduated with a BA in music in 1970, and gained a postgraduate diploma in music librarianship at the University of Cape Town the following year.
It was her brother Chris, a university friend of mine (and now an award-winning poet), who introduced me to Jackie in 1972. I was then a rookie economist in Botswana and she was starting work at the South African Institute of Race Relations in Johannesburg. It was love at first sight and we were married in Gaborone the following year.
In 1976 we travelled to Britain by motorcycle, via India and Afghanistan. While I put on a suit and joined the Foreign Office, Jackie became an actor, including a tour in 1978 with the Cambridge Theatre Company, appearing as Amanda opposite David Jason as Lord Foppington in the restoration comedy The Relapse.
In 1980 we were posted to the Soviet Union, at the height of the cold war. Although diplomatic life in Moscow was highly restricted, Jackie found scope for drama, including directing The Real Inspector Hound with a British embassy cast. On the opening night, the KGB cordoned off the venue, perhaps suspecting any play by Tom Stoppard must be degenerate or dangerous.
Our two daughters, Katya and Tuuli, were born while we were in Moscow and travelled with us to China via the Trans-Siberian Railway. Our next posting was India, where our son, Robert, was born in 1987, and where Jackie struck up a friendship with the writer Vikram Seth through their shared love of music. She accompanied Seth (who was then working on his novel A Suitable Boy but had taken up Lieder singing for recreation) in a concert of Schubert’s Winterreise at our home.
In 1991 we were posted to South Africa, during the country’s transition to democracy, culminating in Nelson Mandela’s election as president. During this time Jackie wrote and produced a musical, The Rain Queen and the Baobab Tree, which played at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg to thousands of children.
On our return to the UK, where we settled in Hampshire in 1994, Jackie taught piano and singing. She also raised money for the Theatre Royal, Winchester, through events including a Schubertiad evening, featuring Janet Suzman and Seth. After a final posting to Washington (2004-06), we sailed away from diplomatic life, in our sturdy ketch First Lady - we got as far as Antigua before Jackie concluded ocean sailing was not for her.
Back home, Jackie dedicated herself to the Alzheimer’s Society’s Singing for the Brain project, to help those with dementia. But in 2016 she herself suffered a severe brain haemorrhage which left her paralysed and unable to speak. After two years of rehabilitation she came home and was warmly welcomed back by her former singing groups. Earlier this year, she was diagnosed with untreatable breast cancer.
She is survived by me, Katya, Tuuli and Robert, and by her grandsons, Hartley and Fleetwood.
