24 September 2013
Times readers may have been surprised to read an obituary to Louisa or Louis Killen, pioneer of the British folk revival with his bawdy songs of miners and seafarers who joined the Clancy Brothers and was a friend of Pete Seeger.
A picture shows a bearded man singing. “She is survived by three former wives,” says The Times. “She died of cancer on August 9, aged 79.”
Times obituary editor Ian Brunskill tells me: “In his heyday, he was a bearded folksinging type. In later life he became a woman.
“So the woman it was that died. I suppose. Hence Louis in the headline and she at the end. Not entirely satisfactory, I know. Always a bit difficult on these occasions.”
