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IN MEMORIUM
Selim Iltus
Selim Iltus Iltus became a great friend to the International Play Association (IPA) in the years in which we focussed our efforts to bring about a UN General Comment on article 31. Quietly and behind-the-scenes Selim Iltus was one of the most important people in making it happen. Fittingly, IPA and Selim first came together in a wonderful urban nature playground in Rotterdam. A long-time colleague of Roger Hart at the City University New York, Selim had been roped in by Roger to assist us with a small workshop to figure out how on earth we should go about gathering evidence to persuade the UN about barriers to children’s play. Soon, we became familiar with Selim’s habit of quietly coming back to us after reflection to say, “I think I can help.” By now Research and Evaluation Officer with the Bernard van Leer Foundation, Selim’s help took us through commissioning (1955 – 2015) research, designing and running the Global Consultation Project on Children’s Right to Play (“sounds rather grand, doesn’t it?” as Valerie our co-conspirator would say with satisfaction) and, when the time came, managing the drafting of the UN General Comment on behalf of the UN Committee. Selim supported IPA’s launch of the General Comment in Geneva in 2013 along with guests from around the world, including the whole of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the then director of the BvLF, Lisa Jordan. Through all of this Selim was a fellow traveller. Despite periods of ill health he chose to be there with IPA and to continue to listen and to help and to always bring his warmth, wisdom and wit. We were honoured that Selim joined IPA in our World Conferences in Wales in 2011 and Turkey in 2013, where we remember him, pen and notepad always in hand. His commitment to children’s right to play made some very special things happen, that simply wouldn’t have happened without him. Selim died 12 July 2015. We will miss him enormously and on behalf of all IPA members we send our sincere condolences to his family.
Brian Sutton-Smith Remberances from a New Zealand Childhood Beverley Morris
(1924-2014) 36
P L A Y R I G H T S • I P A W O R L D . O R G
Professor Brian Sutton-Smith who died recently aged 90 in USA, was a New Zealand academic who was an energetic advocate for the value of play. He had a good start in his own play in the hills of Island Bay in Wellington. In the early 1920s my mother and Brian’s mother Nita Smith, both pushing their prams, met up at the Island Bay tram terminus in the playground not far from the fore-shore. While the four-yearold Vaughan tried the slide, Brian and I were strapped into the (continued on page 38)
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