He not onlyĬheated death and made an excellent recovery, but went on to outlive most of his contemporaries. Of the power of the mind, Leslie confounded the doctors. He was sent by his trade union to a sanatorium in Switzerland, from His chances of survival were considered low and Was twenty he had developed asbestosis, which later led to his
Ominously, his place of work was an asbestos factory, and by the time he On leaving school at fourteen he had aspired to become a libraryĪssistant, but, disappointed, he studied shorthand, typing, andīook-keeping at a commercial school and took a job as an office boy. MacCool, which led him to a lifelong interest in folklore. Kingsley's collection of Greek myths and the legend of Finn The bottom of the class, until he discovered books, namely Charles In fact, for several years he languished at 'genteel poor', he emphasized-and his schooling at Harold His family in West Ham were very poor-though It would be easy to assume that he came from a privileged homeīackground and had a distinguished education, but this would be well Were respected in several fields of study. He was also extraordinarily well-read, and his scholarship and expertise Leslie was not just a prodigious collector, Wall of every room of his house and garage covered with shelves ofīooks, some double-banked. On the other complemented the discourse of his Marxist contemporaries, Volumes that on the one hand developed systematically the sleuthing ofĮarlier folk song scholars and antiquarians, such as Frank Kidson, and (3) and his wide-ranging The History of Street Literature, (4) were His monograph on Theīroadside Ballad, (2) his detailed case study of the printer John Pitts, Vernacular and popular print culture and ephemera. Unassuming way, he wrote himself into every folklorist'sīibliography with his ground-breaking scholarship, which focused around
Leslie Shepard's other label for himself-'a bit of aīack-room boy'-is perhaps more appropriate, for, in a quiet, He confessed himself to be both a recluse and an outsider. In his adopted home in the Irish Republic Great Vampire Stories (1977) and How to Protect Yourself against Black Even on a modern housing estate, Leslie managed to createĪn aura of mystery appropriate to the editor of The Dracula Book of My wife parted an overgrown leylandii hedge to reveal it hiding among However, house Number One was not to be seen until Had conversed and corresponded since the late 1960s, at his home in To renew my acquaintance with an old friend, Leslie Shepard, with whom I On a bright May morning in 1997, I made the first of several visits APA style: Leslie Alan Shepard (1917-2004).
2006 English Folk Dance and Song Society 06 May.
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