My father, Philip Pacey, who has died aged 79, was a librarian, editor and poet.
From 1975 until his retirement in 2007 he was an art librarian at Preston Polytechnic, later the University of Central Lancashire. His career began as art librarianship was emerging as a distinct branch in the field, and Phil was quick to get involved, becoming founding editor of the journal of the Art Libraries Society (ARLIS), editor of the Art Library Manual (1977, still a valued reference book today) and, later, chair of ARLIS.
He became a regular attendee at conferences of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). The 1991 meeting took place in Moscow, and the delegates had barely gathered before the city was disrupted by the August coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev. The conference continued, in solidarity with the attending Soviet librarians, and Phil – along with 1,500 other delegates – returned home with extraordinary memories and a renewed sense of hope.
Throughout his life he wrote poetry, seeing it as “a tool of living, a means of thinking, of sharing, of remembering, of celebrating” – something anyone could do. He was encouraged by the friendship of other writers including Jeremy Hooker and BS Johnson, and won the Pernod National Young Poets prize in 1971 and a Gregory award in 1983. An anthology, Falling Into Place, was published in 2022.
Phil was born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, the youngest of the three children of Leslie Pacey, a Methodist minister, and Mildred (nee Button), who had met in China, where Leslie was a missionary, and Mildred a nurse and midwife. After leaving Kingswood school, a Methodist boarding school on the outskirts of Bath, Phil went to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, to study history and fine art and architecture, then undertook postgraduate study at the College of Librarianship in Aberystwyth.
In 1970, he was appointed tutor librarian at St Albans School of Art, and the following year married Gill Terrill, whom he had met in Aberystwyth.
His life was always full: with music, choral singing, walking, gardening, conservation work and railways. In every aspect of his life, he sought – and often found – glimpses of heaven on earth. He saw love, friendship, peace and beauty as tangible evidence of the world as it might be “if we choose to cherish it”.
As a husband and father, he strove to create a loving home, infusing life with curiosity, creativity, and intention – always, of course, with Gill’s support and collaboration. He relished domestic life, seeing the role of home-maker as equal to that of artist.
He is survived by Gill, their two sons, Daniel and me, his grandson, Hallam, and by his brother, Arnold.
