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Phillida
(Phil) Salmon, 1933—2005
SAGE Publications, Inc.200510.1191/0967550705ab036XX
PhilSalmon
It is
with great sadness that we report that Phil Salmon died on 13 May 2005. Phil
was a long-time member of the Auto/Biography Study Group and a real and lovely
friend to many of us. Phil, as is well known, had a distinguished academic
career during which she remained a keen advocate of the life story as a method
of insight and understanding within psycho- logy and the social sciences.
Phil wore her learning with lightness, gentle- ness and humour and was greatly
encouraging of those who sought her advice. Phil will be greatly missed but
her life will be a reminder to us all of the importance of the integrity of
genuine modesty both in our contact with others and in the manner in which
we develop and practise our intellectual endeavours. The convenors of the
Auto/Biography Study Group will establish a Phil Salmon Memorial Lecture as
a feature of its annual summer conference. To create a life story which is
credible, which allows development as well as continuity, which tells a tale
worth telling – this is the task that, as human beings, we must all
attempt. It is a task which, essentially, demands imagination. If we are to
construct a coherent account – an account which encompasses, rather
than denies, all the phases we have lived through, the vicissitudes, the pain
as well as the joy – then we must approach our experience, and that
of others, with the greatest possible imagination. It is only through our
imaginative construction that we shall be able to own the full heritage of
the experience we have acquired through living in time. And if we are to affirm
the meaning, the value, of our own story, we must make an act of personal
faith. In the end, it is the storyteller who, like any novelist, commands
the audience. Our sense of the meaning of our story – that is our contribution
to life.