Shout attended by Green Watch Euston
Safety plea after cycle tragedy
by RICHARD OSLEY and JANE WILD
Tributes paid to 'beautiful., stylish woman' who died in collision with lorry
TOUCHING tributes have been paid to a cyclist who died after she
was knocked off her bike by a lorry in King's Cross.
Friends and colleagues said picture researcher Wendy Gay, 42, was loved for
her enthusiasm, warmth and style.
A regular library user, she was known as the 'Marilyn Monroe of the Reading
Room' because of her striking blonde hair and a love for 1950s-inspired clothes.
Cycling groups have now called for a review of safety around the spot in Euston
Road where she was unseated during the afternoon rush hour on July 21. She died
hours later in the Royal London hospital.
Police investigators are piecing together details of the collision and have
appealed for witnesses to come forward. Officers arrested the lorry driver at
the scene - a 39 year-old man - on suspicion of driving without due care or
attention. He was questioned, released on bail and is due to appear before police
again at the start of next month. His vehicle was a heavy duty lorry, registered
in Hungary and operated as a left-hand drive.
Ms Gay, who lived in Kentish Town, worked alongside many well-know authors,
including Germaine Greer, for her job at book publishers Thames and Hudson,
specialists in texts on art, graphics, architecture and design.
She was also well-known at the Cinema Museum in south London where she
would regularly go to watch films and use the Ronald Grant Archive.
It was during one screening at the specialist museum that she met her partner
Marc Kitchen-Smith, a writer and designer. The pair worked together on several
projects and dreamed of setting up a new home in Cornwall.
Flowers and tributes mark the spot where Ms Gay was knocked over. One card with
a Marilyn Monroe motif, left at the scene by Mr Kitchen-Smith, said: "I
don't know what to say baby, except that I loved you so much and always will.
You are the light of my life. Your time was too soon, we hadn't finished or
even started our plans." Sam Ruston, Ms Gay's manager at Thames and Hudson,
said: "She was a beautiful, stylish woman. Somebody here said she was like
a daily advent calendar, each day you would come in and see what she was wearing.
She was a fabulous person." Ms Gay had previously worked as a
publicist for Metheun children's book publishers and a picture researcher
at the BBC, at one time employed as an assistant to presenter Clive James. She
joined Thames and Hudson in 2000, a move which colleagues
said she relished. Ms Ruston added: "She was passionate about her work.
She was comfortable working with big names like Germaine Greer but she
would also take an interest in junior staff. She would take them under her wing
and help them out."
Julia McKenzie, a book editor at Thames and Hudson, said: "Anybody
who met Wendy was immediately struck by her terrific sense of style, warmth,
enthusiasm and total professionalism."
Martin Humphries, who works at the Cinema Museum in south London said:
"She was a very special and vivacious woman, I think she was deeply
loved by many people. We are a small cinema and the screenings are limited but
she was a regular. It was actually where she met her partner. It was a cinema
romance."
Police hope drinkers in pubs and diners in nearby restaurants - out of work
and enjoying the summer sunshine when the collision happened at around 6pm -
may have crucial information to aid the police investigation.
An inquest has been opened at St Pancras Coroner's Court but will not be resumed
until investigators have collected as much evidence as possible. Sergeant
Don Simpson, from Euston Traffic Garage, said: "We are always looking for
witnesses. You can never have enough witnesses in a case like this."
Meanwhile, cyclists are calling for a review of road safety in the area. Liberal
Democrat councillor Paul Braith-waite, a keen cyclist who passes the spot where
Ms Gay was hit on his way to the Town Hall, said: "Whenever there is a
death of a cyclist there should be a review of safety on the roads. It is dangerous
for cyclists crossing Euston Road." The collision scene is in fact part
of a popular cycle track which runs from King's Cross, through Somers Town and
on to Kentish Town.