Obituary: Reginald Spink

Reginald William Spink, writer, translator: born York 9 December 1905; married 1932 Else Buus (one son, one daughter); died London 15 September 1994.

SHELLEY wrote of the vanity of translation, but vanity was not a word one would associate with the literary translator Reginald Spink. Its very absence from Spink's character made him ideally suited both to his occupation - his subjects included, among others, Hans Christian Andersen - and to his work during the Second World War in the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Additionally co-

opted in 1943 into the Political Warfare Executive, which sent out anti-Nazi propaganda, he broadcast on the BBC's European Service under the call sign 'En god ven af Danmark' ('a good friend of Denmark').

Indeed, as the British ambassador said when Spink in 1982 became the first non-Dane to win the country's prestigious Ebbe Munck Prize, he was 'a steadfast friend and supporter of Denmark in war and peace'. It was in no small measure thanks to his support within SOE of the Danish Resistance Movement that Denmark was established as an Ally in the struggle against Nazi Germany and so earned its place among those countries which laid the foundations of peace. Initially Britain had not recognised Denmark as a co-

belligerent because the Danish government, acknowledging their small country's exposed position militarily, had surrendered to the invading Germans. Having returned to Denmark on the first Allied plane there in May 1945, Spink was presented with the Freedom Medal by King Christian X, and in 1966 his contribution to Anglo-Danish friendship was recognised by the award of the Knight's Cross of the Dannebrog.

In that he was born in York, the old Danish colony of Jorvik, Spink's connections with Denmark began early. He had to leave school at 14 to earn his living, but by reading widely he educated himself. A good amateur actor, he played small parts in productions by touring troupes and by the time he was 21, harbouring theatrical ambitions, he was planning to go to London when the award of a scholarship sent him to Fircroft College in Birmingham. Thanks to friendships made there, in 1929 he went to the International High School in Elsinore, and staying on in Denmark taught English in Copenhagen and broadcast on the English-language programme of Danish Radio. In 1932 he married Else Buus, the daughter of a senior official of the Danish Tailor Workers' Union.

Spink became involved in the early Thirties in the Social Democratic movement in Scandinavia and became Scandinavian correspondent for Social Democratic papers and journals, particularly in the Commonwealth and the United States. From 1946 until 1949, when he returned to England to live permanently, he was Copenhagen correspondent of the Financial Times.

On the outbreak of war, Spink was attached to the British Consulate in Copenhagen, with the task of monitoring, and trying to prevent, trade between Denmark and Germany. When the Germans invaded in April 1940 he, his wife and young son were evacuated to England, travelling through Germany in a sealed train. Hardly was he home than he was sent with his family to the British Embassy in Rome, to undertake a similar role with regard to Italian trade. He was there only a month before Mussolini took Italy into the war.

In London, Spink's intimate knowledge of Danish conditions and his contacts with senior politicians in the Danish labour movement made him attractive to the nascent SOE, which had been entrusted with setting up and liaising with underground organisations in German-occupied Europe. An early mission saw him travelling first class to Aberdeen with an 'unspecified' parcel containing explosives destined for Norway via 'the Shetland Bus', but the Danish operation he ran as No 2 from the SOE headquarters in Baker Street had to overcome a tragic start when a leading agent's parachute failed to open as he was dropped into Denmark.

In the years immediately after the war, Spink lectured in Denmark about the effects on Britain of the war effort, and with a young Danish economist, Jens Otto Krag, later Prime Minister of Denmark, he wrote England bygger op ('Britain Rebuilds', 1947). On his return to England he concentrated mainly on translating. His translations of Andersen's writings brought him critical recognition, and his Andersen Fairy Tales, produced for the Everyman's Library in 1958, remains in print today in the new Everyman edition. He also wrote several biographical works on the Danish writer, including Hans Christian Andersen and his World (1972). As the London representative of a Danish theatrical agency, he was initially responsible for introducing Scandinavian audiences to, among others, Joe Orton, while his love of music took him regularly to the opera at Covent Garden and the Coliseum. In recent years he translated the libretto to Carl Nielsen's opera Maskerade, just as earlier he had translated Nielsen's books My Childhood and Living Music (both in 1953). For a self-taught man Spink had developed a catholic range of cultural interests.

A committed European, Spink travelled frequently and widely, and only two months before his death he had been in Croatia. What was happening in the former Yugoslavia, combined with his memory of the 1930s, made him gloomily concerned that the spectre of appeasement was abroad gain. A less reticent man might have tried, through journalism, to make more of his travels, but in the main this quiet, unconventional Yorkshireman travelled for no better reason than to savour the ambience and the company of other countries. He made friends wherever he went, particularly among the young, and a chance encounter with students on a Turkish ferry was as likely to bring an invitation to a wedding in Istanbul as a backpacker ringing his front doorbell.