J. L. Carr

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J. L. Carr
BornJoseph Lloyd Carr
(1912-05-20)20 May 1912
Carlton Miniott, North Riding of Yorkshire, England
Died26 February 1994(1994-02-26) (aged 81)
Kettering, Northamptonshire, England
OccupationTeacher, publisher, author
EducationCastleford Secondary School, Dudley Training College for Teachers
Notable workA Month in the Country
SpouseSally Sexton (1918–1981)
ChildrenRobert Carr

Joseph Lloyd Carr (20 May 1912 – 26 February 1994), who called himself "Jim" or "James", was an English novelist, publisher, teacher and eccentric.

Biography

A literary map of Yorkshire by Carr

Carr was born in

North Eastern Railway.[2] Carr was given the same Christian name as his father and the middle name Lloyd, after David Lloyd George, the Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer and subsequent Prime Minister.[3] He adopted the names Jim and James in adulthood. His brother Raymond, who was also a station master, and other members of his family called him Lloyd.[1]

Carr attended the village school at Carlton Miniott where there was an innovative headmaster named James Milner,

Goldsmiths' College, London, he was asked why he wanted to be a teacher. Carr answered: "Because it leaves so much time for other pursuits." He was not accepted. Over forty years later, after his novel The Harpole Report had become a critical and popular success, he was invited to give a talk at Goldsmiths'. He replied that the college had had its chance of being addressed by him.[2]

He worked for a school year in 1930-31 as a supernumerary teacher at South Milford Primary School, where he played football for South Milford White Rose, a team which got to the semi-final of the Barkston Ash Cup and won the local league. He developed this experience into his novel How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup,[5] taken to an extreme as the title implies. He then successfully applied to Dudley Training College for Teachers and graduated after two years in 1933 with a Certificate in Education. Carr spent his first two years as a teacher at a school in Bitterne, Hampshire before returning to the Midlands to teach in Birmingham. In 1938 he spent a school year as an exchange teacher in Huron, South Dakota, in the Great Plains. Much of the year was a struggle to survive in a strangely different culture; his British salary converted into dollars was pitifully inadequate to meet the American cost of living.[2] This experience gave rise to his novel The Battle of Pollocks Crossing.

After his year in the United States Carr travelled back to England across the Pacific, visiting Japan, China, Malaya (now Malaysia), Burma (now Myanmar), India and Iraq, where he learned that War had been declared, so he hastened back to England, arriving home in September 1939. He volunteered for service in the Royal Air Force in October 1940.[2] After spending a year in a salvage unit in Devon, he was trained as an aerial photography technician at RAF Farnborough and was posted to West Africa, where he served at RAF bases in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the Gambia, experiences that he used in A Season in Sinji. He was commissioned as an officer in October 1943[6] and served as an intelligence officer for squadrons at RAF bases in Kent, Norfolk and Scotland, experiences that he used in his novel A Day in Summer.

In March 1945 he married Sally (Hilda Gladys Sexton), a Red Cross nurse, and after leaving the RAF in about January 1946 and taking three months'

Beadle County
based on the records of the County Historical Society which he had attended in 1938.

In 1967, having written two novels, he retired from teaching to devote himself to publishing and writing.[2] He produced and published from his own house a series of small books designed to fit into a pocket. Some of them were selections from the works of English poets, while others were brief monographs about historical events or works of reference. To encourage children to read each of these small books was given two prices, the lower of which applied only to children. As a result, Carr received several letters from adults using childish writing in an attempt to secure the discount.[2]

He also carried on a campaign with his wife, Sally, to preserve and restore the redundant parish church of St Faith at Newton in the Willows, which had been vandalised and was threatened with demolition. Carr came into conflict with the vicar of the benefice and the higher church authorities in his campaign. The building was saved, but was converted into a scientific study centre.[2] This is now closed.

In 1986 Carr was interviewed by

Vogue magazine and, as a writer of dictionaries, was asked for a dictionary definition of himself. He answered: "James Lloyd Carr, a back-bedroom publisher of large maps and small books who, in old age, unexpectedly wrote six novels, which, although highly thought of by a small band of literary supporters and by himself, were properly disregarded by the Literary World".[3]

Carr died of

leukaemia in Kettering on 26 February 1994, aged 81.[2]

Works

The house in Kettering where J. L. Carr established The Quince Tree Press

When Carr gave up teaching in 1967 his aim was to try to make his living by publishing small books and a series of maps of English counties to be read and discussed, rather than to provide navigational information. These he published himself under the imprint The Quince Tree Press,[7] The original printing plates from several of his maps were mounted on sheets of plywood and used by Carr as stepping stones in his garden. The garden also contained statues he had carved himself, many of which had mirrors set into the stone at such angles that the sun shone through the windows on his birthday.[2]

Carr wrote eight short novels that contain elements of comedy and fantasy, as well as darker passages, based on his varied experiences of life as teacher, traveller, cricketer, footballer, publisher and restorer of English heritage. Six of the eight were published by different publishers, but he published the last two himself through the Quince Tree Press. Many of the characters and incidents, and even much of the dialogue, are drawn from life.

His novel A Month in the Country was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1980, when it won the Guardian Fiction Prize. In 1985 he was shortlisted again for the Booker Prize for The Battle of Pollocks Crossing.

Two of his novels have been filmed: A Month in the Country (1987) and A Day in Summer (1989).

Carr wrote several non-fiction works and published them at his Quince Tree Press. They include a dictionary of cricketers, a dictionary of parsons, and dictionaries of English kings and queens. He also provided the text for several school textbooks published by Macmillan Publishers and Longman, and designed to develop children's English language skills.

Novels

Social history

  • The Old Timers: A Social History of the Homesteading Pioneers in the Prairie States During the First Few Years of Settlement, as Shown by a Typical Community, the "Old-Timers" of Beadle County in South Dakota (1957). Huron, South Dakota: privately printed.

Children's language books

Dictionaries

Other writings

Biography

References

  1. ^ a b R. W. Carr (2007). Visions Afar. The Journal of RW Carr 1905–2005. Compiled by J. D. Bramley and A. R. Gamble. Sherburn-in-Elmet, Leeds: Home Farm Productions.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Rogers, Byron (2003) The Last Englishman: The Life of J. L. Carr. London: Aurum Press
  3. ^ a b Simpson, Helen (1986) The Mysterious J. L. Carr. A twenty-first anniversary portrait. Vogue May 1986, Vol. 143, No. 2268, pp. 84–88
  4. ^ Carr, J.L. (1987). James Milner, Headmaster. In: Thirsk Miscellany, ed. Ralph Brook. Carlton Miniott, Thirsk, North Yorkshire: Clent Books.
  5. ^ J. D. Bramley (2003). In them days. A scrapbook of friends and happenings and ... an alternative enterprise. Home Farm, Sherburn-in-Elmet, Leeds.
  6. ^ "No. 36451". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 March 1944. p. 1543.
  7. ^ Carr, J. L. (1987) An Inventory and a History of the Quince Tree Press to Mark Its 21st Year and the Sale of Its 500,000th Small Book. Kettering: The Quince Tree Press

External links