Camden New Journal - by ROISIN GADELRAB Published: 20 September 2007
Theo Goldsmith
Student who died in car crash is the face on church painting
Couple donate nativity scene in memory of the son ‘with a great smile’
THE grieving parents of a student killed in a car crash in France have remembered their son by including his face in a painting donated to a Hampstead church. Theo Goldsmith, 23, from Flask Walk, Hampstead, died when a car driven by a friend ploughed into a wall in Armous-et-Cau in August, 2005.
On Saturday a triptych – a nativity scene made up of three panels, one bearing Theo’s image as a shepherd – was presented to Christ Church in Hampstead Square in a moving ceremony.
The painting is the work of artist and designer Christopher Hobbs, who worked on the BBC dramatisation of Mervyn Peake’s Gothic trilogy Gormenghast.
More than 300 friends and family attended the service on Saturday, presided over by the Bishop of Edmonton Peter Wheatley.
Mr Goldsmith’s parents John, a TV and movie screenwriter, and Anthea, a former primary school teacher, spoke this week of the pain of losing a son who was so young. He and two university friends had been staying with his family at their holiday home in Beaumarches, near Toulouse, when the crash happened.
Mrs Goldsmith, 72, said: “It’s the wrong order. You just don’t expect your child to die before you. There’s a Chinese curse which says ‘may you outlive your children’. “What was so difficult was the shock as well as the grief – the physical pain, all sorts of funny things go through your body.”
Mrs Goldsmith said her son, who studied philosophy and physics at King’s College, London, before turning to computer science at Leeds University, was “always quirky”.
She added: “He was a bit of an inventor. He built his own computer. He sang everywhere with Finchley Children’s Music Group. He had a great smile.”
Her son attended St Anthony’s School, in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, then Westminster School. Theo leaves behind two sisters, Joanna and Crssida and brother Alexander.
Mrs Goldsmith said that despite “the nightmare” of her son’s death the family still returned to their French home. “The French were so supportive,” she said. “Every anniversary we wake up and there are flowers on the doorstep.”
Mr Goldsmith, who wrote the screenplay for Danny the Champion of the World, starring Jeremy Irons, added: “Theo lived on the same street all his life. Everybody knew him round here. They all loved him. He was friendly, had a great sense of humour and great potential. He was very much part of the French community as he was of this.”
A St Pancras inquest heard on Thursday how Mr Goldsmith and his friends were returning from lunch when their hire car spun out of control.
Back-seat passenger Nicholas Jupp, who suffered a spine injury in the crash, said: “We had the iPod playing. I remember driving along the road and then that’s it. I don’t remember anything else. I blacked out. “Next thing I recall waking up in the back of the car, looking about, seeing Theo in distress. I could hear him gasping for air.”
Driver Jason Wilson said: “I just assumed I had skidded on some gravel. I lost control and as I was trying to get back it hit the wall.”
Mr Wilson managed to carry Mr Jupp out of the car, before returning to Mr Goldsmith. He said: “I stayed with Theo pretty much the rest of the time until the doctor came.”
A post mortem gave the cause of death as multiple injuries. Verdict: accident.
Comment on this article. (You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)
Theo Goldsmith
