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 Allan Chappelow |
Murdered recluse ‘quiet, determined and forthright’
AS the body of Allan Chappelow was laid to rest at the Golders Green crematorium on Friday Swiss police officers were arresting a man believed responsible for his death.
Mr Chappelow, 86, was found dead in May in his run down £3m Georgian town house in Downshire Hill, Hampstead.
A low-key service was attended by 25 people including distant relatives from Denmark, and handful of neighbours and three murder squad detectives.
Mr Chappelow had written two books on George Bernard Shaw, and the Shaw Society was represented by its chairwoman Barbara Smoker and secretary Evelyn Ellis.
Mrs Ellis, despite living near Mr Chappelow’s Hampstead home, admitted she knew little of his life, while Mrs Smoker said she had helped Alan with his work on Shaw in the 1950s – but had virtually no contact with him since.
Mr Chappelow inherited his home from his father, an antiques dealer. He had lived there since he was 14. The recluse’s body was found there in a room piled high with rotting furniture.
Perhaps those who knew Allan best were husband and wife Johnnie and Peggy Sparrow, from Dartmouth Park. They recalled a quiet man with forthright views who could be very determined to get his own way.
Mr Sparrow described how, after his father had bought him a top-of-the-range Hasselblatt camera, Mr Chappelow wrote to George Bernard Shaw, then 94, and asked if he could take his photograph. Mr Sparrow said: “He received a postcard back, which made the usual excuses Shaw gave when he did not want to see someone. But Allan kept on trying, writing back and insisting he visit. In the end Shaw gave in, and said to Allan, if you must take this picture, I suppose you must.”
Mr Sparrow met him while working in the post office in Crowndale Road, Camden Town, earning holiday cash by helping out with the Christmas rush. “Allan invested in stocks and shares,” he said. “I never discussed if he was successful but he never seemed to have much money.”
Mr Chappelow died without marrying – and according to friends, never had a girlfriend.
Mrs Sparrow recalled: “He was naïve. He used to say to me how terribly clever I was to have had four children. To Alan, it was like a miracle.
“But he did occasionally have his eye on people. He once tried to get my sister to go on a holiday to Albania on his motorbike. She politely declined.” Motorbikes were a passion for Allan through out his life. When he died police found the rusting hulk of a large Yamaha bike in the front garden, which Allan had ridden almost up to his death.
Mrs Sparrow recalls: “He would persuade a girl to go for a ride – and then he would frighten the life out of them by driving at 100 mph. He would often say: ‘I am thinking of getting married, I haven’t given up yet’. This went on into his 80s – but he didn’t have anyone in mind.”
“In April we had a card from America. He said he had gone to see a long lost cousin and was having a lovely time.” |
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