The Modern Salonnière was a post from 2015 dedicated to my great friend, Sarah Vernon, who died on 13 January. It is reblogged below as a tribute.
At the time it was written, Sarah was living on Crete, where she had bravely started a new life. That was what Sarah always did. She never stopped looking, learning and working. Every time she changed location, she embraced and contributed to the community. She was at home on islands, preferably in a warm climate, but she was always part of the main. And, yes, she hated Brexit.
Through bad health and bad luck, Sarah’s acting career was cut short. Like many actors’ children, she could never be sure if she would have gone into the entertainment industry if her parents had not been actors.
It wasn’t an industry or a job for Sarah: it was a romance and an art. Being an actor was her body and soul, an act of love uniting emotional aspiration with technical accomplishment, a child’s dream of perfection made real. Don’t put your daughter on the stage. It could break her heart.
Sarah could have been a casualty of the devil’s profession, but she had a brain, a life-sustaining sense of humour, and other artistic and literary talents to cultivate. She engaged in the present and the past with equal intellectual force, she was computer and internet savvy, she was an entrepreneur, and she was brave, till the end. She was still designing, still writing, during her last illness. Her mind could not stay still. She was inspired and burdened by heritage and history. The current state of Britain angered and grieved her.
She conquered social media, which is why I reblog this old post of mine, for her WordPress friends and admirers. As one of them, Pete Johnson, has written: “The world is a lesser place without her wit, her intellect and her talent”.