Letter: Jane Bown was kindness itself

I met Jane Bown in the 1990s when she opened her studio in Alton, Hampshire, for charity. As a fan of her photographs in the Observer from the mid 50s, I decided I must not miss it. Jane showed me a series of her photographs with stories of when and how they had come about. I decided that I would like a copy of her photograph of Harold Macmillan and Lady Diana Cooper, and she said she would find the negative and send me the picture. We had a correspondence about my photograph, largely about how delighted she had been to find the negative. She wrote on postcards of her photograph of Nye Bevan and Hugh Gaitskell walking together in Brighton, taken in 1957. A wonderful day, and her last note to me invited me to come again. She was kindness itself.