Audrey Beecham

Audrey Beecham
by Tony Cowlishaw
Born	21 July 1915 Weaverham
Died	31 January 1989 Churchill Hospital
Occupation	Historian and writer
Nationality	British
Genre	poetry

Audrey Beecham or Helen Audrey Beecham (21 July 1915 – 31 January 1989) was an English poet, teacher and historian.

Beecham was born in Weaverham in 1915. Her great grandfather, Thomas Beecham, had created a fortune with Beecham's Pills. Her uncle was the composer Sir Thomas Beecham and her father devoted time to spending his inheritance.

Beecham took PPE at Somerville College in Oxford. She left with a second class degree and went to live in Paris in the group that included Henry Miller. She made a lasting friendship with the writers Lawrence Durrell and Anais Nin.

Beecham left Oxford and took a job at Nottingham University in 1950; she lectured and headed Nightingale Hall. One anecdote tells of how when faced with demonstrating students intent on occupying one of the buildings she hid the weapons but supplied them with toilet paper. She memorably noted that revolutionaries frequently forgot the loo rolls.

In 1957 she published her first book of poetry, The Coast of Barbary.

Beecham died in Churchill Hospital in 1989 from the asthma that she suffered from.