Anthony Gimpel

Anthony Gimpel

I was brought up as an atheist, something I still have a fondness for, but now I’ve been a Quaker for over 40 years. I’m also Jewish and coming to terms with the Holocaust and accepting my inheritance have been ongoing refrains throughout my life. To add some spice I’ve been very active in inter-faith engagement, conversation and activity for many years.

I’ve been writing since I was young: poems and short essays, then the true story of how my grandfather, Alfred, survived WWII with a false identity. My novel Emil Finch is newly published in 2021. For many years I’ve been a volunteer printer at Teamprint, printing magazines for church and community groups. I love improvised dance, and theatre as an actor, backstage and in the audience. The best is opera. I’ve been influenced by Greek myths, James Joyce Ulysses, and the poems of Jacques Prévert and Catullus, the music of Prokofiev and Beethoven, the paintings of Claude Monet and the German Expressionists. I paint mostly in pastels, sometimes in watercolour according to the practice of Rudolf Steiner. I’ve made quite a bit of the furniture at home. My working career has been diverse, a euphemism: civil engineer – probably one of the worst ever – then a land surveyor which was good. In 1989 I made a right angled turn to become a teacher of drama and movement. Finally I worked at Charnwood Borough Council looking after listed buildings. And that must be a contradiction because I’m far too much an anarchist to be a bureaucrat!

Life is more enjoyable now I’m retired. I go to the gym to keep fit, I belong to a couple of singing groups and I practice Tai Chi. I’ve travelled a fair bit in Europe, India, USA and South Africa but those days are mostly at an end because I don’t want to fly any more, even though my extended Jewish family is scattered across the globe. So, now, born a Londoner, I live happily in Loughborough town. I’m married to Ann but we have no children.