Art Cockerill, who has died aged 87, was a soldier, engineer, author, librettist, publisher and occasional contributor to Guardian Weekly.
Born in Blidworth, Northamptonshire, he was the fourth of 10 children, all of whom would later feature in his semi-fictional family saga Lay Gently on the Coals (2011). His father, John, was variously a soldier, manual worker and entertainer; his mother, Margaret, let rooms to theatricals – Art remembered John Mills as a lodger. He entered the Duke of York’s Royal Military School, in Dover, Kent, in 1939. A proud “Dukie”, he went on to write the school’s bicentenary history, The Charity of Mars (2002).
Commissioned as a regular into the Royal Engineers in 1950, Art served mainly in Egypt. In 1957, he emigrated with his wife of six years, Beryl (nee Simpson), to Canada where he worked as a hydroelectric engineer. His largest project was in Labrador. While still working as an engineer, he wrote the book for a bilingual musical produced in Quebec, taking advice from Tyrone Guthrie – Art was never shy – and acted as a stringer for London and New York broadsheets.
After Beryl’s death, in 1968 he married Charlotte (nee Brewer), and in the 1960s they moved to Cobourg, Ontario, where Art pursued his engineering career, which took him to Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East. He established Delta Tech Systems, a technical publishing company that was “more lucrative,” he joked, “than any other publishing I undertook”.
His fascination with military history led to Art making his writing debut in his mid-40s with the authorised biography of the MI5 chief Sir Percy Sillitoe (1975). He took the motto of the Duke of York’s school as the title of his 1984 history of boy soldiers, Sons of the Brave. Later came Winning the Radar War (with Jack Nissen, 1989), and Emma on Albert Street (1997), illustrated by Bill Slavin, which marked a first venture into children’s books.
In the mid-70s Art ran for political office in Canada as the New Democratic party candidate for the Northumberland Riding, serving two terms in the local executive; as well as founding the Help Honduras Foundation following a hurricane disaster where he had been working. His energy, joie de vivre and uninhibited generosity to others were extraordinary. To me, he was a firm friend who mentored me on my own way to publication.
His daughter Sarah, a Royal Canadian mountie, died in 2001. He is survived by Charlotte and their daughter, Emma; and by John and Kate, the other children of his first marriage, as well as seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
