b.May 30, 1951 Oxford England
d.Feb 1, 1985 Holloway District, North London, England, United Kingdom Cause: suicide by hanging
½ sister of Penelope Berengaria Durrell {Nancy mother}
Sappho's father was the famous writer Lawrence Durrell; her mother was his second wife, Yvette(Eve) Cohen, a native of Alexandria, Egypt. They married in 1947; Sappho was born in 1951. Yvette had a history of mental illness and an episode of schizophrenia diagnosed in 1953. The parents separated in 1955 and divorced in 1957. Sappho was raised by her mother in London. She affectionately signed her letters to her father as 'Saph', often sent him 'lots of love', frequently lived with him during holidays, and apparently had a'close relationship' with his third wife, Claude‑Marie Vincendon. Lawrence Durrell's second daughter, born on May 30 1951, never really had a chance. Parted from his elder daughter Penny when his first wife, Nancy Myers, left him in 1942, Durrell was determined to keep a grip on this new arrival. He called her Sappho after the ancient Greek lesbian poetess, and told her that she too would be a great poet; she would, he said, be the new Sappho. Apart from the practical problems with the name - she always feared people would think she was a lesbian - the pressure it placed on her was enormous. She was creative as of birthright; it was there in her name.
Her childhood was a difficult one. Born into a home that was practically broken before she got there, she became a pawn in the battles between her parents as their marriage broke up. While her mother, Eve, an Egyptian Jewish woman, was hospitalised suffering from profound post-natal depression, Sappho was looked after on Cyprus by her father and grandmother who allowed her to run wild. Eventually, when Eve returned, she left for England with her. Calm only came to her world when her father, his coffers swelled by the success of The Alexandria Quartet, the last volume of which was published in 1960, was able to afford to send her to Bedales, the public school. She stayed there until she was 18 and it was here that she first began to write.

The events that have led people to believe she had an incestuous affair with her father are said to have taken place one summer when she was 14 in Sommiers in the South of France where the novelist lived. Durrell's third wife, Claude, also a novelist, had just died of cancer. In her diaries Sappho describes how she fell from grace. Before she had been the daughter: 'virgin/wise'. Now Durrell got her to play the role of the 'the whore/stupid/bitch' that he had previously forced upon his wives. Sappho had become a surrogate. It is impossible to be sure exactly of the date. The diaries in which she is said to have made allusions to the incidents were written approximately 15 years later, though some passages were undated. Death has a way of churning up chronology. Four abortions added to her delicate psyche, along with the supposed incestuous relationship with father.
On the morning of February 1, 1985 the body of Sappho Jane Durrell, daughter of the novelist Lawrence and his second wife Eve, was found hanging by the neck in the attic bedroom of her house on Loraine Road, Holloway, North London. She was 33. Primarily, it was said, she was depressed over the break-up of her marriage to Simon Tompsett, with whom she owned the house.What she feared most, being a handmaiden at the celebrity of her father, may have come to pass. Sappho Jane Durrell will now, it seems, forever be a footnote in her father's biography.
Honouring her as I can relate..Thanks to member Iain #46514200 for updates and pictures Apr 30 2017