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Accident victim Emma Foa |
Mum of two dies in bike horror
Family mourns daughter of typewriter magnate who became expert on gems
A HAMPSTEAD writer, jeweller and mother-of-two was killed in a cycling accident outside the King’s Cross development on Thursday.
Emma Foa, 56, daughter of typewriter magnate Adriano Olivetti, died instantly when she was trapped under a 20-tonne cement mixer in Camley Street at 9.20am.
Mrs Foa, who had a lifetime’s fascination with gems and metalwork, created rare designs for her Emma Foa Jewellery company.
She was the author of a series of books on gemstones and art, including a guide to the life of American realist painter Edward Hopper. She had divided her time between Florence, New York and London since the loss of her industrialist father, the chairman of the great Olivetti company, when she was 11.
In a description of the inspiration for her jewellery designs, she wrote that the “gems, stones and precious metals glinting in the windows of antique shops in Kensington, and in Florence, where my grandmother lived, caught my eyes and imagination. From as early as I can remember I was fashioning my own jewels.”
Her daughters, Maya and Lia, and husband Reg Wright, all passionate cyclists, were in mourning at the family home in South Hill Park this week.
The family await the findings of an inquest into Mrs Foa’s death, due to open at St Pancras Coroner’s Court in the new year. They are at a loss to explain how a “very careful” cyclist could have had such an accident.
She was wearing a helmet and a high visibility vest. Hundreds of mourners are expected to fly to London for the funeral, planned for the first week of January.
Police at the scene on Thursday said witnesses believed Mrs Foa had hit the truck’s rear wheels as it turned left into Goods Way at the crossroads with Camley Street.
Railings on the pavement near the junction may have created a narrowing channel to the left of the truck once it began to turn.
A CCTV camera trained on the junction captured pictures of the accident despite the presence of fog.
A senior police officer said the cyclist had been caught “inside” the truck as they both travelled downhill.
“She would have been killed instantly,” he added.
He said neither visibility nor road surface appeared to have contributed to the accident, and described the cement mixer’s driver as emotionally “cut up”.
Police officers from the Euston-based collision investigation unit spent two hours examining the scene after cordoning off St Pancras Way and York Way. |
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