My brother Simon Aronsohn, who has died unexpectedly aged 62, began his working life as a solicitor before retraining as a mediator, in which role he helped to resolve disputes between companies.
A flamboyant, kind and generous character who was known for his colourful clothes and accessories, he was also dedicated to the craft of poetry. In his later years he performed his work at several north London venues, including at the Pentameters theatre and the MAP Studio cafe.
On the week of his death he was about to have a small anthology of his performance poetry published. Given that he had started writing poems as a six-year-old he conceded, with characteristically self-effacing ruefulness, that the emergence of the collection “had been a long time coming”.
Simon was born to Norman, a businessman with Jewish-Russian parents, and Lotte (nee Newman), a doctor who had emigrated to the UK from Germany in 1938. He went to University College school in Hampstead, north London, where he struggled with a stammer until, after receiving regular speech therapy, he was able to win the school reading prize with a poetry recital.
From there he went to Cambridge University, where he gained a law degree (1982), and on leaving worked for a time as a van driver for Frohweins, a kosher butcher. Qualification as a barrister was followed by retraining as a solicitor, and from 1986 he worked at the Gouldens partnership in London, specialising in town and country planning and conservation.
He left that job in 1992 to work in Russia, setting up a business helping Russians with visa applications, before taking a mediation course at Queen Mary University of London (2011-12) and setting up as a freelance mediator working with businesses.
In 2016-17 he lived in Málaga, Spain, and then Cork in Ireland, performing his poetry in both places before returning to London to care for his parents.
Apart from poetry he also enjoyed his Jewish identity and engaged passionately with the prayers at the West London and Highgate synagogues, occasionally taking part in blessing the congregation and leading family festival ceremonies.
He is survived by two children, Seth and Matilda, from his marriage to Sarah Jarvis, which ended in divorce in 2011, his father, and his siblings, Simone, Alexander and me.
