Obituary Notice

1929-1998

Of Italian/French parentage, Yolande read French and Italian at St Anne's College, Oxford, when it was still known as St Anne's Society. She spoke both languages fluently. In later years she completed a postgraduate degree in English Literature at Birkbeck College, London, and, more recently still, her work for the Journal of Analytical Psychology stimulated an interest in Jung and she attended the Basic Principles Course run by the Society of Analytical Psychology.

Yolande joined the British Council in 1965 where, apart from a break of three years from 1967-1970, when she worked for the British Museum, she stayed until her retirement, rising to the position of Head of the Literature Department. She edited several literary publications for the British Council, including Writers and their Work, Notes on Literature, and Nexus, a series on Commonwealth literature.

We were fortunate indeed when Yolande accepted our invitation to join the Journal of Analytical Psychology as Administrative Editor in 1991. She brought not only a wealth of experience to the task, but also very special personal qualities: she combined scholarship with a spirit of enquiry and a breadth of vision; she was both patient and outspoken, tenacious, even at times stubborn; her warmth, loyalty, sometimes wry sense of humour, and her utter reliability made her a good person to be with, as well as to work with. Of Yolande's editing skills a friend and former colleague writes:

She was a thorough, rigorous yet sensitive editor who brought out the best in the writers she worked with. She once told me that her mother did ‘invisible mending’ which means that she knew how to sew up rips and holes in clothing in such a way that the repairs could not be seen. I like to think Yolande edited in much the same way.

Characteristically, Yolande did not flaunt the considerable amount of charitable work she did. She was a volunteer for International Travellers' Aid for about twenty years, helping travellers arriv