John Pudney
John Sleigh Pudney (19 January 1909 – 10 November 1977) was a British poet, journalist and author. He was known especially for his popular poetry written during the
Early life and career
John Pudney was born at Langley Marish, the only son of Henry William Pudney, a farmer and countryman, and Mabel Sleigh Pudney. He was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, where he first encountered W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, and Humphrey Spender. He left school in 1925 at the age of sixteen, and spent several years working as an estate agent and studying to become a surveyor. However, he also began contributing articles to the News Chronicle while writing short stories and channelling his love of the countryside into verse.[1] At the time he was one of a group of young writers, including Dylan Thomas, George Barker and David Gascoyne, that gathered about the well-known bookshop at No 4, Parton Street near London's Red Lion Square, run by David Archer.[2]
His first published collection of verse, Spring Encounter, came out in 1933 from Methuen and gained the attention of Lady Ottoline Morrell who became a patron. Pudney also wrote for The Listener and worked as a producer at the BBC, where he produced the radio play Hadrian's Wall with text by Auden and music by Britten; it was broadcast from Newcastle on 25 November 1937.[3] While at the BBC he also wrote one of the first plays for television, Edna's Fruit Hat, which was broadcast on 27 January 1939.[4] His first novel, Jacobson's Ladder, describing literary and criminal life in 1930s Soho, appeared in 1938.[5][6]
War poetry
It was the advent of the
Two poems supposedly written by one of the main characters, Squadron Leader David Archdale, are used in The Way to the Stars. Archdale is portrayed reciting Missing to his wife shortly before their marriage, after a close friend is killed in action. Archdale tells his wife that "I try and say things I feel that way sometimes. Sort of hobby" and tells her she's the only one who knows he writes poetry.
Missing
Less said the better.
The bill unpaid, the dead letter,
No roses at the end,
Of Smith, my friend.
Last words don't matter,
And there are none to flatter
Words will not fill the post
Of Smith, the ghost.
For Smith, our brother,
Only son of loving mother,
The ocean lifted, stirred
Leaving no word.
For Johnny is depicted in The Way to the Stars as having been found by a close friend on a piece of paper after David Archdale's death on a raid. He gives it to Archdale's widow, who later in the film gives it to an American flyer to read after another American friend of hers is killed.
For Johnny
Do not despair
For Johnny-head-in-air;
He sleeps as sound
As Johnny underground.
Fetch out no shroud
For Johnny-in-the-cloud;
And keep your tears
For him in after years.
Better by far
For Johnny-the-bright-star,
To keep your head
And see his children fed.
Pudney published several collections of poetry during the war, including Dispersal Point (1942) and South of Forty (1943), the latter describing his experiences in North Africa. Both collections sold over 250,000 copies between them.[10] One contemporary reviewer noted that the poems were "immediately topical and intended to reach a less poetically sophisticated audience", and that they showed "how completely he has succeeded in combining the journalist and the poet. That is no easy matter, for the one usually swamps the other".[11]
Later career
In the general election of July 1945, Pudney stood as the Labour Party candidate for Sevenoaks, polling 14,947 votes, or 36%.[12][13] (The sitting Conservative MP Charles Ponsonby was re-elected, with 46% of the vote.)
After the war, he continued to write and worked as a journalist and editor. He was the book critic for the
More significantly, while at Evans Pudney commissioned the Australian fighter pilot and prisoner-of-war
Of his novels, The Net (1952, set in an aeronautical research station) and Thin Air (1961) were well received.
However, poetry remained the most important to him. His later work, from the collection Spill Out (1967) onward, took on a more ironic stance but was still vernacular, rather than academic, a period reflected in his second Selected Poems collection of 1973. One of his book blurbs describes him as "a poet who just missed being an intellectual".[10] His final two poems appeared in the Times Literary Supplement a few days after his death.[1]
Private life
On 30 October 1934 Pudney married the
John Pudney's daughter Tessa (1942–2004) was an academic best known for her work in media studies at
Works
Poetry
- Spring Encounter (1933)
- Open the Sky (Boriswood 1934)
- Dispersal Point and other Air Poems (1942)
- The Grass Grew All Round (1942)
- Beyond This Disregard (1943)
- South of Forty (1943)
- Ten Summers: Poems 1933–1943 (1944)
- Almanack of Hope: Sonnets (1944)
- Air Force Poetry (1944) (anthology, edited with Henry Treece)
- Flight above Cloud (1944)
- World Still There (1945)
- Selected Poems (1946)
- Low Life (1947)
- Commemorations (1948)
- Sixpenny Songs (1953)
- Collected Poems (1957)
- The Trampoline (1959)
- Spill Out: Poems and Ballads (1967)
- Spandrels: Poems and Ballads (1969)
- Take This Orange: Poems and Ballads (1971)
- Selected Poems 1967–1973 (1973)
- Living in a One-Sided House (1976)
- Writers' Workshop, poetry anthology publication, editor with Norman Hidden and Michael Johnson (from 1967)[22]
Novels
- Jacobson's Ladder (1938)
- Estuary, a Romance (1947)
- Shuffley Wanderers (1948)
- The Accomplice (1950)
- Hero of a Summer's Day (1951)
- The Net (1952)
- A Ring for Luck (1953)
- Trespass in the Sun (1957)
- Thin Air (1961)
- Tunnel to the Sky (1965)
- The Long Time Growing Up (1971)
Short stories
- And Lastly the Fireworks (Boriswood 1935)
- Uncle Arthur and other stories (1939)
- Edna's Fruit Hat (1946)
- It Breathed Down My Neck (1946) (selected short stories)
- The Europeans: Fourteen tales of a Continent (1948)
- The Pick of Today's Short Stories, 14 volumes (1949–1963), anthologies, editor
For Children
- Saturday Adventure (1950) "a story for boys"
- Sunday Adventure (1951)
- Monday Adventure: The Secrets of Blackmead Abbey (1952)
- Tuesday Adventure: The Affray in the Sardanger Fjord (1953)
- Wednesday Adventure (1954)
- Thursday Adventure: The Stolen Airliner (1955)
- Friday Adventure (1956)
- The Grandfather Clock (1957)
- Crossing the Road (1958)
- Spring Adventure (1961)
- Summer Adventure (1962)
- The Hartwarp Light Railway (1962)
- The Hartwarp Balloon (1963)
- The Hartwarp Circus (1963)
- The Hartwarp Bakehouse (1964)
- Autumn Adventure (1964)
- The Hartwarp Explosion (1965)
- Winter Adventure (1965)
- The Hartwarp Jets (1967)
Autobiographical
- The Green Grass Grew All Round (1942)
- Who Only England Know (1943)
- Home & Away – An Autobiographical Gambit (1960)
- Thank Goodness for Cake (1978)
Non fiction
- The Air Battle of Malta (1944) (HMSOInformation Books)
- Atlantic Bridge (1945) (HMSO Information Books)
- World Still There (1945)
- Laboratory of the Air:The Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough (1948) (HMSO)
- Music on the South Bank: An Appreciation of The Royal Festival Hall(1951)
- His Majesty King George VI (1952)
- The Thomas Cook Story (1953)
- The Queen's People (1953), photographs by Izis Bidermanas
- The Smallest Room: a Discreet Survey Through the Ages (1954)
- Six Great Aviators (1955)
- The Book of Leisure (1957) editor
- The Leisure-Hour Companion (1959)
- The Seven Skies (1959), history of B.O.A.C.
- A Pride of Unicorns: Richard and David Atcherley of the R.A.F. (1960)
- Bristol Fashion. Some Account of the Earlier Days of Bristol Aviation (1960)
- The Camel Fighter (1964)
- The Golden Age of Steam (1967)
- Flight and Flying (1968) editor
- Suez: De Lesseps' Canal (1968)
- A Draught of Contentment. The Story of the Courage Group.(1971)
- Crossing London's River: the Bridges, Ferries and Tunnels Crossing the Thames Tideway in London (1972)
- Brunel and His World (1974)
- London's Docks (1975)
- Lewis Carroll and His World (1976)
- John Wesley and His World (1978)
References
- ^ a b c Lubbock, ‘Pudney, John Sleigh (1909–1977)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006
- ^ Goodall, Anna. 'Parton Street Bookshop' in Pen Pusher
- ISBN 978-1-137-02069-7.
- ^ Radio Times Issue 799, 22 January 1939, p 17
- ^ John Pudney Papers at the Harry Ransom Research Center
- ISBN 978-1-4744-2566-7.
- ^ a b The Times obituary, 11 November 1977, p 17
- ^ Davies, Caroline. Collected Poems, John Pudney
- ^ "John Pudney 'For Johnny' and other 'Songs'". WorldWar2poetry. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
- ^ a b c d White, Michael. 'Johnny Head-in-Air', in The Guardian, 6 April 1972, p 10
- ^ The Listener, 23 September 1943, p 357
- ^ The International Who's Who (Europa Publications Limited, 1963) p. 857
- ^ UK General Election results July 1945 at keele.ac.uk, accessed 10 January 2009
- ^ 'John Pudney' in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
- ^ Aces High: Aviation Gallery
- ^ Douglas Relf at Art UK
- ^ Dando-Collins, Stephen. The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill (2016)
- ISBN 0-8-1081-746-2.
- ^ Text based on A Draught of Contentment at Courage & Co
- ^ Crystal Hale obituary in The Guardian, 8 December 1999, p 24
- ^ Tessa Perkins obituary in The Guardian, 4 November 2004
- ^ Durham University. Norman Hidden Collection