Laurie Lee

Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE (June 26 1914 – May 13, 1997) was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter, raised in the village of Slad, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie (1959), As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) and A Moment of War (1991). While the first volume famously recounts his childhood in the idyllic Slad Valley, the second deals with his leaving home for London and his first visit to Spain in 1934, and the third with his return in December 1937 to join the Republican International Brigades.

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Early life and works

Lee attended Stroud Central School, leaving at fifteen to become an errand boy. At twenty he worked as an office clerk and a builder's labourer, and lived in London for a year before spending four years travelling around Spain and the Mediterranean. Walking more often than not, he eked out a living by playing his violin. He started to study for an art degree (during these years he met a woman who helped him financially) but returned to Spain in 1937 as an International Brigade volunteer. His service in the Spanish Civil War was cut short by his epilepsy. These experiences were recounted in the pre-Civil War book As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) and A Moment of War (1991), an austere memoir of his experience as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. According to many biographical sources, Lee fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) in the Republican army against Franco's Nationalists. However, there have been controversial claims that Lee's involvement in the war was a fantasy; for further information, see Valerie Grove's biography Laurie Lee: The Well-Loved Stranger, [1999].^[1]

Before devoting himself entirely to writing in 1951, Lee worked as a journalist and as a scriptwriter. During World War II he made documentary films for the General Post Office film unit (1939-40), and the Crown Film Unit (1941-43). From 1944 to 1946 he worked as an editor at the Ministry of Information Publications. In 1950 Lee married Catherine Francesca Polge, a Provençal woman; they had one daughter. From 1950 to 1951 he was caption-writer-in-chief for the Festival of Britain, for which service he was awarded the decoration of the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1952.

Cider with Rosie continues to be one of the UK's most popular books, and is sometimes used as a set English Literature text for schoolchildren. It captured images of village life from a bygone era of innocence and simplicity. With the proceeds Lee was able to buy his childhood home in Slad.

Poetry

His first love was always poetry, though he was only moderately successful as a poet. Lee's first poem appeared in Cyril Connolly's Horizon review in 1940 and he published his first volume of poems, The Sun My Monument in 1944. This was followed by The Bloom of Candles (1947) and My Many Coated Man (1955). Several poems written in the early 1940s reflect the atmosphere of the war, but also capture the beauty of the English countryside.

Other works have included A Rose for Winter, about a trip he made to Andalusia fifteen years after the Civil War, and Two Women (1983) was a story of Lee's courtship and marriage with Kathy, daughter of Helen Garman, and the birth and growth of daughter Jesse.

Other work and awards

Lee also wrote travel books, essays, a radio play, and short stories. He received several awards, including the Atlantic Award (1944), Society of Authors travelling award (1951), William Foyle Poetry Prize (1956), and the W.H. Smith and Son Award (1960). Other works include I Can't Stay Long (1975), a collection of occasional writing and The Edge of Day an autobiography or rather his love story for life.

Lee provided a great deal of valuable support to the Brotherhood of Ruralists in their attempts to establish themselves in the 1970s, and he continued to do so until his death; his essay Understanding the Ruralists opened the Brotherhood's major 1993 retrospective book. Indeed, it was Lee who is said to have given them the name of 'Ruralists' ([2]).

Final years

Laurie Lee and his wife returned to Slad to live in his childhood home in the early 1960s where he remained until his death on May 14 1997, aged 83. He is buried in the local churchyard.

Source

1. ^ Books and Writers, Laurie Lee (1914-1997)[1]