Simon Winchester loved travel, following his curiosity wherever it led and telling a good story. Those qualities carried him from his native Westminster, England, to destinations around the world
But for 25 years, Winchester would return to a farm in Sandisfield, to the writing studio where best-selling books on topics as varied as the Yangtzee River, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the eruption of Krakatoa and the Industrial Revolution took shape.
Winchester, 82, died Tuesday at home following a heart attack, his wife, artist and journalist Setsuko Sato Winchester, told The Eagle. Word fanned out Tuesday night through Wednesday, leaving friends saddened and stunned at the loss of a talented and prolific writer.
He was an amazing courageous person
“He was an amazing courageous person and a great storyteller,” she told The Eagle on Thursday. “I’ve had a tremendous amount of correspondence from people saying how shocked and sorry they were. It’s really warmed my heart.”
Andre Bernard, of Stockbridge, a friend for the past 30 years, said he had just spoken with Winchester a day or two before, and attended a speech he gave two weeks ago in New York City.
“He spoke for about 40 minutes with no notes … he just awed the entire audience,” Bernard said. “Every sentence was perfect and the story itself was astonishing.”
Over the years I was really struck
“Over the years I was really struck by his deep erudition, his shimmering wit, his droll view of life, his sense of adventure and his excitement at discovery,” Bernard told The Eagle. “He could have been a character in a Jules Verne novel or a Sherlock Holmes story. He was the epitome of the highly educated, brilliant, adventurous Englishman.”
Winchester, a career nonfiction writer who rose to prominence with “The Professor and the Madman” in 1998, purchased a nearly 40-acre farm in Sandisfield in 2001 for $650,000.
This past summer, Simon and Setsuko Sato Winchester, a married couple since 2007, had sought to sell the property return full time to New York City, so that Simon, who had endured a number of health problems over the past two years including cancer, could be closer to healthcare providers. The property, since taken off the market, was featured in a story in The Wall Street Journal.
While living in Sandisfield, Winchester was a founder
While living in Sandisfield, Winchester was a founder of the Sandisfield Times, a former moderator for Sandisfield Town Meeting, a frequent guest at literary events throughout the area and a member of The Berkshire Eagle’s advisory board from its inception in 2016. Bernard and Setsuko both said Winchester was serious about his role as moderator, and arranged his schedule so he wouldn’t miss Town Meeting.
Setsuko said the farm and the writing studio Winchester built there served as his writing muse. “He travels around the world, gathers information, visits places .. and that’s where it puts it all together,” she said. “That’s the place he loved to be.”
Bernard said Winchester was proud of founding the Sandisfield Times “and took that very seriously … it meant a lot to him.”
He was also immensely proud of having been
He was also immensely proud of having been sworn in as a U.S. citizen in 2011, aboard the USS Constitution. “For someone with an Oxford education and background to become an American citizen meant so much to him. He was very, very proud if it,” Bernard said.
Born Sept. 28, 1944, in London, Simon Winchester was the only child of Bernard and Andrée de Wael Winchester. He was educated at boarding schools in England and graduated from Oxford in 1966
He is credited with authoring or contributing to 30 books, including a number of nonfiction best-sellers. According to Setsuko and a social media statement by his longtime publisher William Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins, he had plans for a book focused on the history of silver, as well as a memoir.
Winchester was made an Officer of the Order
Winchester was made an Officer of the Order of British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006. He is survived by three sons and two grandchildren.
Hans Morris, a co-owner of The Berkshire Eagle and chairman of its board of directors, first knew Winchester as a writer, having given a copy of “The Professor and the Madman,” a history of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, to his father as a gift. The two met at New York City’s Century Association, and Morris learned that Winchester not only read The Eagle, but did so first thing every morning.
When it came to the Eagle Advisory Board, Morris said Winchester “joined with vigor” and arrived at meetings prepared to praise what the paper did well and critique areas where it could improve its editing, reporting and presentation.
He offered very good, detailed, pointed and constructive
“He offered very good, detailed, pointed and constructive comments,” Morris said. “He wasn’t just a cheerleader.”
Newspapers, after all, were Winchester’s entry into a writing career.
An Oxford-educated geologist, Winchester was in the African nation of Uganda, working his first job in the field, when he read “Coronation Everest,” then known as James Morris. That book, about Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s first-ever summit of the world’s highest mountain, changed Winchester’s career path
“So I wrote to James and said, ‘Can I be you?’ as it were, and he wrote back and said, ‘Absolutely. If you want to leave Uganda, come back and get a job on a local paper in Britain and keep in touch.’ That’s what I did,” Winchester said in an interview in BookPage Magazine in 2001.
His first newspaper job, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, led
His first newspaper job, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, led to The Guardian hiring Winchester in 1969 and sending him to report on Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles. Winchester’s reporting assignments there included Bloody Sunday, when British soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters, killing 14.
In 1972, The Guardian sent Winchester to Washington, D.C., where he reported on Watergate, the end of the Nixon administration and the rise of Jimmy Carter to the presidency. Later assignment included reporting for The Guardian, The Sunday Times of London and Conde Nast Publications as a freelance correspondent.
As a correspondent for the Sunday Times, Winchester was accused of espionage by the Argentinian government during the Falklands War and held prisoner for three months.
[The movie character] Forrest Gump seems to be
“[The movie character] Forrest Gump seems to be in places where history was being shaped,” Setsuko said. “I feel that was Simon. Some of it was because he loved traveling.”
But it wasn’t just being there that made Winchester a talented reporter and nonfiction writer. He had a true talent for engaging people, listening and learning, and mining subjects other outlets had overlooked, family and friends said.
“He was one of the few people who could talk about Asia and Europe, and I could talk about Asia and America, and the two of us … we could fill in certain holes,” Setsuko said. “We used to say, ‘We’re not finished with this conversation.’ That’s how I feel. I’m going to miss …” she said before pausing, not finishing the sentence.
Bernard feels the same way.
“It was a privilege to be Simon’s friend, really,” he said.
