Donald Henderson

Donald Henderson was a near contemporary of Margery Allingham, being born in 1903 to her 1904. But that wasn't why I snapped up a copy of Goodbye to Murder on ABE Books. A while ago I was reading a diary that my mother had written aged about 15. There was mention of a Donald who arrived as part of a group of actors and was obviously a bit special to my15 year old Mum. 'A cousin', she said. Recently we were sorting through some photographs and there he was again. 'He wrote novels', she said and with a wonderful memory flash remembered the title of one Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper. It rang a faint bell with me to - but was I just getting muddled with Mr Britling sees it Through?  Possibly. Mr Bowling was written in 1943 and has a wartime setting - I think. Can't yet afford the copies on ABE but am full of enthusiasm as Raymond Chandler was apparently a fan of this psychological thriller.

Goodbye to Murder was an early Pan paperback (1947) so was affordable and fascinating. Published just after Henderson had died, this black comedy has one almost yelling at the murderer to get on and do the deed - the main victim is SO complacently loathsome. An evocative setting of post-war middleclass living in a London mansion block with points to make about oppression in marriage and repression in sexuality. I know I'll want to read it again but had to hand the copy over to Mum.

Henderson wasn't her cousin after all. He was the adopted son of one of her father's many sisters. About 20 years older than Mum, he worked for her father for a while before becoming an actor and then working for the BBC during the war. He was buried in a bombed house and dug out, but his lungs never recovered. He was always kind to this much younger 'cousin', noticed her and took her out. No wonder she had a bit of a crush on him. Clearly a kind as well as a gifted man. How sad that he died so prematurely.