My mother, Caroline Compton, who has died aged 81, lived a large part of her life in Hampstead, north London; in fact much of it in the same street, Downshire Hill, at numbers 47, 48 and finally 41. Her parents, Diana (nee Croft) and Fred Uhlman, were well respected Hampstead characters, their home a hive of activity, where the Free German League of Culture and the Artists’ Refugee Committee were established.
In the book Hampstead Memories (2000), Caroline recalled stables in Downshire Hill, sheep grazing at nearby Kenwood, skating on the Whitestone Pond and a ski-jump constructed on scaffolding with snow brought from Norway, appearing as if by magic on Hampstead Heath.
