25th November 2025

                                        REMEMBERING SIMON DEEFHOLTS

We were saddened to learn of the death earlier this year of Simon Deefholts. Here his friend and contemporary Simon Matthews recalls him.

I met Simon Deefholts at St Mary’s RC School in September 1969. We were in the same class and he was one of a small minority of boys with Anglo-Indian connections. Unlike the rest of us – who tore around playing football every spare moment we had – he was not sporty, and in an early sign of his deadpan humour told those who wanted to know that he supported Bristol Rovers! Quietly intellectual, bright, studious even, it quickly became apparent that he was excellent at languages racking up qualifications in French, Italian and Spanish with ease.

We went through the usual adolescent rites of passage – smoking, reading, drinking, comparing notes on music and books – before going our separate ways in July 1976. He took tertiary education a lot more seriously than I did but we kept in touch and like me he eventually ended up living in Hackney. Eventually my combination of shift-work, political commitments and the need to raise young children kicked in and we didn’t see each other for almost three decades.

The internet brought us back in contact. Thereafter we met for an evening drink every so often at the end of my day’s work. It transpired that in the years that had passed he had done very well indeed. As he said to me on a visit to Sheerness-on-Sea when I was going through a bad patch “the last time I was here, I was naming a container ship.” We had a lot of catching up to do, and bonded once more on literature.

With me it was about becoming an author, with him, becoming a publisher. Finding himself in the fortunate position of being able to retire early, he set up the Clapton Press with his life-long partner Kathryn in 2018. A glance at their Wikipedia page gives an indication of their impressive output: books about Spain, Latin America, English language versions of overlooked contemporary fiction, essays and many accounts of the Spanish Civil War. They were welcome additions to one’s library and attracted literary and academic praise. On top of that Simon, and Kathryn, also did a lot of work as translators.

During lockdown we managed to meet up with a couple of old friends, Patrick Hickey and Tony Linnett, for an enjoyable late lunch in Bethnal Green. Sadly, Tony is now departed too. Simon was easy to speak to, well informed and very well read. His most impressive trait, though, was the fortitude with which he met the illness that brought his time with us to an end. I miss him.