ANDREA MEAD LAWRENCE, MILLARD KAUFMAN OBITS

There's a deep synchronicity in the two obituaries I wrote for today's papers. In the Independent, (here), there's the skier and environmental activist Andrea Mead Lawrence, and the photo which the paper uses shows her winning the US national downhill championship, at Cranmore in North Conway, New Hampshire, on my fourth birthday. I'd wind up spending much time in that area, at my great-uncle's boys camp at lake Ossipee, and at the houses of uncles and cousins nearby. Cranmore was where the 'skimobile' ran skiers up the mountain.

Meanwhile, in the Guardian (here), I wrote about Millard Kaufman, the screenwriter (Bad Day At Black Rock, one of my favourite 50s movies) and co-creator of Mr. Magoo, which was a pretty impressive daily double of his own. He also acted as the beard for Dalton Trumbo, when the blacklisted writer did the screenplay for Gun Crazy, one of my all-time favourite films. A writer to the end, Kaufman published his first novel at age 90 (another will be published posthumously). And, to make the synchronistic point, we shared a birthday.