My friend Barbara Cavanagh, who has died aged 86, was an antiquarian theatrical bookseller dealing in manuscripts, ballet ephemera and opera materials. Self-taught, steeped in the arts, pre-cinema optics and 19th-century theatre, she researched, classified and catalogued many collections, from costume designs collected by the Russian ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev to a 25,000-strong archive of theatre programmes.
Barbara was born in Mumbles, Swansea, to Fred Davies and his wife, Edna (nee Annetts), who ran a bakery. They lived on a hill above Mumbles lifeboat station, stricken by the 1947 Samtampa steamship disaster when Barbara was six. At primary school she would run home for lunch for a large bowl of golden ham soup, usually ducking into Oystermouth library. In 1950 she attended Brynmawr secondary modern school, and for the rest of her life would return regularly to walk the cliffs of the area and swim in the Gower bays.
