My good friend Kate Duncan, who has died aged 43 of most cancers, was a author of quick tales and performs that showcased her wry sense of humour and vivid creativeness – and which featured a number of quirky characters.
Born in London to Hugh, a heating engineer, and his spouse, Dympna (nee Waldron), a civil servant, Kate grew up in Lyme Regis in Dorset, the place she went to the West of England College for Youngsters with Little or No Sight on account of congenital issues that affected her eyesight and mobility. Later she attended Woodroffe college in Lyme Regis, the place she gained A-level English literature and developed her love of writing.
Kate’s steadily worsening situation made it troublesome for her to work full-time, however over the following few years she helped as a volunteer at her old skool, till her eyesight failed utterly and she or he started to make use of a wheelchair.
It was then, in her 30s, that her writing abilities got here to the fore. Adopting the nom de plume Kitty Waldron in order that she might be recognised for her skill reasonably than her incapacity, she considered her writing as an entire type of liberation, and was eager that it needs to be learn by itself phrases.
Having began with just a few quick tales, she made one in every of them, The Arsonist, into a brief comedy for the stage, and it was carried out on the Marine theatre in Lyme Regis in 2017 as a part of a programme of performs by feminine writers.
A few of her different performs and monologues, together with Blown Away, Brightest Mild, Bohemian Cracksody and It’s the Drink Speaking, have been carried out between 2018 and 2023 on the Salisbury Fringe pageant, the place she was 4 instances runner-up within the annual prize for finest new writing – joking that she was not less than constant.
As well as Kate and I collaborated on Rose, a play about blindness and incapacity that was loosely based mostly on her personal circumstances. With Arts Council funding it toured theatres throughout the south-west of England in 2023. That 12 months a set of 5 of Kate’s quick tales, The Christmas Chronicles, was printed in Lyme Regis; one other compilation, Kitty’s Assortment, had additionally come out regionally in 2021.
Kate’s success in writing reworked and opened up her life, which she lived to the complete. Except for writing she loved going to the theatre, listening to standup comedy, studying with the help of BBC Sounds and Audible books, studying to play the saxophone and going to music festivals.
She is survived by her mother and father and her brother, Paddy.
