Mullingar girl who knew both great tragedy and privilege

A tribute remembering Josephine Hart (1942-2011) by Nuala Holloway

Seeing reality head – on gives you energy…

I am a Piscean

A lover of murky reflections

The abstract world in which reality plays

(Everywhere – At First Light)

These luminous gems of poetry by poet and artist Niall Hughes (1959-2007), come to mind as I reflect on the life of one of Westmeath’s most outstanding women. She was a writer, theatrical producer, poetry promoter and TV presenter.

Josephine Hart was a Piscean, born on March 1, the time of year when all energy through nature is pouring forth in all its beauty. Pisceans are known for being deeply emphatic and intuitive. They often put others’ needs before their own. That is exactly what Josephine Hart did.

After her secondary school education, her dream was to go to university but due to a number of tragedies in her family, she returned home from boarding school to help her parents, who were devastated by the loss of three of their children.

A baby brother, Charles, died at eight months, a sister named Sheila, who was paralysed by meningitis, died at age nine. Some months later Josephine’s brother, Owen, was badly injured in an explosion. He had been experimenting with chemicals in the garden of their home. He died in hospital. These awful tragedies had a deep effect on Josephine.

She remained at home for four years with her only surviving sibling, Diarmaid. She sought comfort in reading and participating in amateur drama.

She was encouraged by the local playwright and historian, Leo Daly, who cast her in some of his plays. They became lifelong friends.

In 1963, she went to London, where many young Irish creative people got their first opportunity to excel. She signed up for acting classes in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, but she quickly discovered it was not for her and took a telesales job with a newspaper publishing company.

She worked on many innovative projects before moving to Haymarket publishing, where she became the first female director. In 1972, she married director, Paul Buckley, and gave birth to a son, named Adam. The marriage ended in divorce seven years later, and Josephine later met the love of her life, Maurice Saatchi.

Josephine and Maurice married in 1984 and in 1985 they had a son, Edward. Maurice was the director of the successful advertising company, Saatchi and Saatchi. For both of them, there was a great meeting of minds. He recognised her extraordinary ability for literature and business; she admired him for his business sense and progressive ideas.

They were wealthy members of London society. Josephine was able to combine her love for the theatre with her business skills. Her love of poetry had remained with her from her school days at St Louis convent in Carrickmacross. There, encouraged by the nuns, she won numerous prizes for verse speaking.

In London, and encouraged by Maurice, she took poetry to a wider audience. She had major success with a London theatrical production of the work of TS Eliot, her favourite poet. She earned a significant reputation in the London cultural scene, raising money for charitable events.

She spoke with perfect elocution diction and her charming manner drew people to her. Famous names such as Roger Moore, Edward Fox, Ralph Fiennes, Bono and Bob Geldof were happy to do readings (without payment).

She founded the Gallery Poets group to read aloud the words of WH Auden, Sylvia Plath, Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson, et al. That formed the basis of Poetry Hour at the British Library, the National Theatre in London and the New York public library.

She produced a number of well known West End plays, including the award winning, House of Bernardo Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca.

Her greatest success came in 1991 with her novel ‘Damage’. Her incandescent exploration of erotic compulsion was an instant success. It sold millions of copies and was translated into 30 languages. ‘Damage’ is a psychological study of the obsession developed by a prominent politician for his son’s girlfriend. The affair finally destroys his life. It was adapted for film by director, Louis Malle and starred Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche.

Josephine wrote several other novels. She said all of her work touches on the personally dangerous, on aspects of human emotion that fascinate her because of her own experiences. She once stated, ‘When you live through extreme situations, you come to know yourself very well and I think one of the advantages of a convent education that forced examination of the conscience is not far from psychoanalysis, you become highly attuned to your behaviour patterns and those of others’.

In 1996, Maurice was made a life peer, giving him the title, Lord Saatchi; she became Lady Saatchi, a title, through her modesty, she rarely used.

After her parents passed away, she rarely made trips to Ireland.

In 2006, I was lucky to meet her on one, when she read from her poetry anthology, ‘In Catching Life by the Throat’ at an event in Dun Laoghaire in 2006. On that occasion, she stated, ‘Poetry has never let me down, without poetry, I would have found life less comprehensible, less bearable and infinitely less enjoyable’.

Sadly her life was cut short. In 2009, she was diagnosed with an aggressive and inoperable form of ovarian cancer. She kept her illness a secret and kept working to the end.

But the most mesmerising thing about the girl from Mullingar is that she loved and laughed and lived her passion for poetry until her last breath.

Josephine passed away in London on June 2, 2011.