My father, Don Chapman, who has died aged 91, was a feature writer who entertained many readers with his witty use of words.
An oddball story always appealed to him. At the age of seven he made a primary school teacher laugh by ending a composition: “Then the giant picked me up and blew his nose on me!” His sense of humour was sustained by a liking for treading the fine line between fact and fiction. The all-star variety bills his parents took him to at the New Theatre, Oxford, and the comedy shows they listened to on the radio, helped fan a talent to amuse. As a student at Oxford University, he began to write about the theatre after realising he was no good at acting or directing.
Born in Oxford to Violet (nee Hammond), a milliner, and Roy Chapman, a dental technician, Don went to Margaret Road junior school, then to Oxford high school for boys. He worked as a clerk at the Bodleian Library for a while (he was sent for a medical because he was underweight for his height and didn’t look strong enough to carry the books), before going to St Catherine’s College (which was then known as the St Catherine’s Society) to study English in the early 1950s.
As a student he wrote for Cherwell, the student newspaper; in 1956 he got a graduate traineeship with Westminster Press, working on the Keighley News and the Swindon Evening Advertiser before returning to Oxford to work on the Oxford Mail from 1959 until he retired in 1994. Thirty years as the theatre critic of the paper allowed him to satisfy a lifelong passion for the stage. He also covered local history and wrote humorous pieces in his daily column under the pseudonym Anthony Wood (a 17th-century antiquary), which ran from 1964 to 1984.
He met Sue Macfarlane, who joined the Oxford Mail as a darkroom assistant and later became a staff photographer, in 1961. They married in 1969 and moved to Eynsham in 1970. For 55 years Don was involved in many aspects of village life there; he was a founder member of the Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats and took an active interest in local planning issues. His 1994 campaign about the Swinford toll bridge on the B4044, which caused horrendous traffic queues, led to quotes in the Wall Street Journal.
After his retirement he wrote a history of the Oxford Playhouse (2008), which was recognised by a doctorate from the University of Leicester. He also wrote Wearing the Trousers: Fashion, Freedom and the Rise of the Modern Woman (2017), and a memoir, A Tenpenny Dip in Paradise (2022).
He is survived by Sue, his daughters, Katie and me, and his grandchildren, Ben, Emma, Alex and Leo.
