My father, Andy Christian, who has died from cancer aged 69, was an arts professional, journalist and educator. He was well known in the south-west of England crafts community.
Born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, Andy was the son of Ethel (nee Cooper), known as Mary, and Wallace Christian, a proofreader, and grew up in a Strict Baptist community in Letchworth. He had an older brother, David, and sister, Sheila. At Norton school, Letchworth, his peers knew him as “Onward”, and he was a keen artist and avid reader. His first exhibition of paintings came at David’s Books, a local bookshop, in 1969. At that time, the artist Adrian Campbell (his A-level art teacher) and Peter Scupham (a poet and English teacher) were big influences. Aged 17, he started working at the London Library.
