LIMA UK md Kelvyn Gardner leads the tributes to the licensing agent and children’s author.
When I came into the licensing business more than 30 years ago, there were already a handful of UK licensing agencies pioneering this work.
One of them was Patrick Sinfield, PSL for short. The tragic death of my friend, Helen Bailey, has brought those early licensing days back, sharply in focus.
Chris Patrick and John Sinfield were already well on the way to consolidating their business as a significant player when Helen went to work for them in 1987. At the time Helen was ‘between careers’ I guess she would say, in her winningly self-deprecating style. I reckon she already had ambitions as a writer even then, but she’d previously flirted with science and medicine.
She was, I guess you’d say, a bit of an all-rounder, probably the model for the typical, effective licensing executive of today. Right away Helen fitted the PSL style, especially John’s wry humour. Any meeting with Helen and John would start with an exchange of ironic views about the state of the world and of the licensing business. You simply could not meet Helen or John without a few laughs. Discussions were about business but about so much more besides, Newcastle United and Geordies in general often creeping in.
My business back then, Merlin Publishing, was very new, and in 1990 we submitted a proposal for rights in Nintendo, represented at the time by Helen and team. Against a challenge from more established players, Helen and John licensed us. We were delighted by their faith in our capacity to deliver. We had some fun with what happened next.
Knowing I was an Alien fan (PSL were agent for 20th Century Fox), Helen invited me to a screening of Alien 3 one Friday afternoon. At the end, I gave John and Helen an envelope containing our royalty cheque for the first quarter of Nintendo sticker sales. Neither of them opened it until Saturday morning. Tuesday morning, I got a letter of delight from them: the cheque was for twice the guarantee.
Nowadays that would have been a text message or an email, though Helen loved the formality of a letter, it should be said. You know, I’ve never, ever, received a letter like that again since. It wasn’t just the money, you see, it was Helen and John’s delight that their faith in me had been repaid. We had succeeded together. We’d joked, laughed and worked for that shared outcome. A partnership, a word so rarely invoked with any honesty these days.
Helen’s happy life was struck with a first tragedy when John, by then her husband of more than a decade, drowned on holiday. Helen, already established as a children’s writer, found her soul sparked in another direction, and her blog, Planet Grief, was much respected and admired by others recently bereaved. Last year the blog was published as a book, When Bad Things Happen in Good Bikinis.
I spoke with her and exchanged tweets often last year. She was in great spirits. When I tweeted ‘Just met two of the most uncooperative women you could know’, she fired back, conspiratorially ‘Do tell!’. It was the last message I had from her.
So we’ve lost a true talent, in literature and licensing, a charming, open, honest, witty and simply very human soul. Helen, we all miss you, and hope that you find the peace you deserve.
