Rushforth, Peter 1945–2005
Rushforth, Peter 1945–2005
(Peter Scott Rushforth)
OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born February 15, 1945, in Gateshead, Durham, England; died September 25, 2005, in Blakey Ridge, North Yorkshire, England. Educator and author. Though not a prolific writer, Rushforth was an award-winning novelist. After graduating from the University of Hull in 1966 and earning his Dip.Ed. from the University of Nottingham the next year, he taught English at Huddersfield New College. In 1971 he moved on to the Friends' School, where he was made head of the English department. His first book, Kindergarten (1979), was inspired by Holocaust-era letters written by German-Jewish parents to the British government requesting that their children be allowed to immigrate to England. The book won the Hawthornden Prize in 1980. Despite this success, Rushforth would not release another novel until after he resigned from his teaching job in 1995. Pinkerton's Sister was published in 2004, and Rushforth had just completed his third novel, A Dead Language (2006), when he died suddenly while hiking in the Yorkshire Moors.
OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Independent (London, England), October 11, 2005, p. 37.