My father, John Darrah, who has died aged 98, worked for the family plumber’s merchants until it was taken over in the early 1970s, after which he took the opportunity to follow his longstanding interest in British prehistory.
His central idea was that Britain’s legends and folktales are based on real people and events, and his theories were published in two books, The Real Camelot: Paganism and the Arthurian Romances (1981) and Paganism in Arthurian Romance (1994).
John was born in Stockport, the oldest son of Herbert Darrah, who ran the family firm, and his wife, Daisy (nee Black). He went to Wrekin college in Shropshire and then to Peterhouse, Cambridge.
There, on a summer’s day, John went to a market to buy some strawberries. When he returned to his room he threw open the window to let in some air. A young woman whom he vaguely knew, Elizabeth Smith, was cycling past and looked up to see what was happening. John invited her in to share his strawberries; they were married in 1948.
They had three children, Richard, Peter and me. My father took us on adventurous holidays, getting the car freighted to a Spanish port before we spent several weeks driving back to Britain. The family lived in a previously derelict, moated Cheshire farmhouse that John had refurbished. At the time everyone thought he had lost his grip to want to live in such a dilapidated old building, but he made it into a splendid home.
In 1946 he had begun to work for the family firm, Baxendales, and he took on a directorship before the business was sold in 1970. Over the next three years he turned his attention to historical studies – and continued that work even after becoming a VAT inspector in London in 1973.
Elizabeth died of cancer at the age of 59 in 1981, and John retired six years later.
Later, as old age took its toll, he remained living independently – for a time in the family home with his granddaughter Kim and a young crowd of lodgers, who, when they returned after a night of clubbing, would find him still pottering around and happy to share a last drink with them and to exchange stories of nightlife past and present.
John is survived by Peter and me, and by four grandchildren, Rowan, Robin, Laura and Kim. Richard died in 2017.
