Roger Arscott
Fen 1969-73
Roger was born on 17 September 1955 and grew up in Bexhill on sea, Sussex.
As the playwright David Hare said – “It’s a wonderful fortune … to be born somewhere boring. … Tedium is hugely stimulating for a child’s imagination. … For the rest of your life everywhere you go is intensely interesting, because it’s not Bexhill.”
Roger left The Leys for the University of Liverpool which he found ‘intensely interesting’ and he stayed on after university working with the ground-breaking Everyman Theatre in Hope Street (an area of Liverpool noted for its bohemian environment and political edge).
From here he had a few years in Friesland, Holland with the theatre company Kiss in Leeuwarden. This was where he met his wife Elise and they married in 1983. When the couple returned to the UK, they lived in London and Roger got a job at the BBC. Daughter Nynke arrived in 1991 and Anna was born in 1992. Shortly after the family moved out to Shrivenham, Wiltshire. Some years later they relocated to Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire to take advantage of the European School where the girls went from nursery through to the European Baccalaureat. Roger took on a portfolio of freelance work as a location manager – he had several treasured projects in his beloved Liverpool and he enjoyed (and was good at) the living on the edge and the creative problem-solving that the Location Manager job required.
In recent years, attending pub quizzes and hosting chess and music sessions at home, Roger became part of the Abingdon local scene – also often to be seen sitting in his front door enjoying the sunshine and watching the world go by.
Words by Roger’s sister, Ann Arscott