I love writing and learning new things in order to better educate those in need. I also enjoy hackathons and adventures around the world.
John Pudney
Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share
Sign in
Name
John Pudney
Role
Journalist
Died
November 10, 1977
Movies
The Way to the Stars, Conflict of Wings
Spouse
Monica Forbes Curtis (m. 1955–1977), Crystal Herbert (m. 1943–1955)
Books
For Johnny, Lewis Carroll and his world
Parents
Mabel Sleigh Pudney, Henry William Pudney
Similar People
A P Herbert, Anthony Asquith, Terence Rattigan, Don Sharp, Anatole de Grunwald
Sir John Mills reads 'For Johnny' by John Pudney
John Sleigh Pudney (19 January 1909 – 10 November 1977) was a British journalist and writer. He was known for short stories, poetry, non-fiction, and children's fiction (including the Hartwarp books).
He was born at Langley Marish and educated at Gresham's School, Holt, where he was a friend of W. H. Auden, leaving school at the age of sixteen in 1925. He later lived in Buckinghamshire.
Career
After leaving school, Pudney worked for an estate agent, for the BBC and for the News Chronicle newspaper. In the 1930s he moved on from journalism and poetry to publishing novels and collections of short stories. In 1940, during World War II, Pudney was commissioned into the Royal Air Force as an intelligence officer and as a member of the Air Ministry's Creative Writers Unit.
It was while he was serving as squadron intelligence officer at St Eval in Cornwall that Pudney wrote one of the best-known poems of the war. For Johnny evoked popular fellow-feeling in the London of 1941. Written during an air raid, it was published first in the Daily Chronicle, and featured significantly in the film The Way to the Stars:
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.
In the UK General Election of July 1945, Pudney stood as the Labour Party candidate for Sevenoaks, polling 14,947 votes, or 36 per cent.
After the war he continued to write and worked as an editor and as a director of magazines and publishing companies. He was with the News Review from 1948 to 1950, Evans Brothers, Ltd. (1950-1953), and Putnam & Co. Ltd (1953-1963). In 1953 he wrote the documentary ' Elizabeth is Queen' that received a BAFTA award.
Between 1949 and 1963 he edited an annual anthology called Pick of Today's Short Stories.
Family
Pudney was the only son of Henry William Pudney and Mabel Sleigh Pudney. In 1943, he married Crystal Herbert, the daughter of A. P. Herbert, the Independent Member of Parliament. They had two daughters and a son, but were divorced. In 1955 he married his second wife, Monica Forbes Curtis.
His grandson Toby Perkins is the Labour Member of Parliament for Chesterfield.
Works
Spring Encounter (1933)
Open the Sky. Poems (Boriswood 1934)
And Lastly the Fireworks (Boriswood 1935) stories
Jacobson's Ladder (1938)
Uncle Arthur and other stories (1939)
Dispersal Point and other Air Poems (1942)
The Grass Grew All Round (1942)
Beyond This Disregard (1943) poems
South of Forty (1943) poems
Who Only England Know (1943)
Ten Summers: Poems 1933-1943 (1944)
Almanack of Hope: Sonnets (1944)
Air Force Poetry (1944) editor with Henry Treece
Flight above Cloud (1944)
The Air Battle of Malta (1944)
Atlantic Bridge (1945) anonymously
World Still There (1945)
Edna's Fruit Hat (1946) stories
It Breathed Down My Neck (1946) stories
Selected Poems (1946)
Estuary, a Romance (1947)
Low Life (1947) poems
Commemorations (1948) poems
Shuffley Wanderers (1948) novel
The Europeans (1948)
The Pick of Today's Short Stories (1949) editor
The Accomplice (1950)
The Pick of Today's Short Stories 2 (1950) editor
Saturday Adventure (1950) "a story for boys"
Hero of a Summer's Day (1951) novel
Music on the South Bank : An Appreciation of The Royal Festival Hall.(1951)
Sunday Adventure (1951)
Pick of Today's Short Stories 3 (1952) editor
His Majesty King George VI (1952)
Monday Adventure: The Secrets of Blackmead Abbey (1952)
The Net (1952)
A Ring for Luck (1953)
Sixpenny Songs (1953)
Pick of Today's Short Stories 4 (1953) editor
The Thomas Cook Story (1953)
The Queen's People (1953) with Izis Bidermanas
Tuesday Adventure (1953)
Wednesday Adventure (1954)
The Smallest Room: a Discreet Survey Through the Ages (1954)
Pick of Today's Short Stories 5 (1954) editor
Pick of Today's Short Stories 6 (1955) editor
Thursday Adventure (1955)
Pick of Today's Short Stories 7 (1956) editor
Friday Adventure (1956)
Collected Poems (1957)
The Book of Leisure (1957) editor
Trespass in the Sun (1957)
Pick of Today's Short Stories 9 (1958) editor
Pick of Today's Short Stories 10 (1959) editor
The Leisure-Hour Companion (1959)
The Seven Skies (1959) BOAC
The Trampoline (1959)
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)
Home & Away - An Autobiographical Gambit. (1960)
Pick of Today's Short Stories 11 (1960) editor
Pick of Today's Short Stories 12 (1961) editor
Spring Adventure (1961) children's fiction
Thin Air (1961)
Summer Adventure (1962)
Pick of Today's Short Stories 13 (1962) editor
The Hartwarp Light Railway (1962) children's fiction
Pick of Today's Short Stories 14 (1963) editor
The Hartwarp Balloon (1963)
The Hartwarp Circus (1963)
The Hartwarp Bakehouse (1964)
The Camel Fighter (1964)
Autumn Adventure (1964)
The Hartwarp Explosion (1965)
Winter Adventure (1965)
Tunnel to the Sky (1965)
The Grandfather Clock (1966)
The Golden Age of Steam (1967)
Spill Out: Poems and Ballads (1967)
The Hartwarp Jets (1967)
Flight and Flying (1968) editor
Suez: De Lesseps' Canal (1968)
Spandrels : Poems and Ballads (1969)
Take This Orange: Poems and Ballads (1971)
A Draught of Contentment. The Story of the Courage Group.(1971)
The Long Time Growing Up (1971) novel
Crossing London's River, the Bridges, Ferries and Tunnels Crossing the Thames Tideway in London (1972)
Selected Poems 1967-1973 (1973)
Brunel and His World (1974)
London's Docks (1975)
Lewis Carroll and His World (1976)
Living in a One-Sided House (1976) poems
John Wesley and His World (1978)
Thank Goodness for Cake (1978) autobiography
Writers' Workshop, poetry anthology, editor with Norman Hidden and Michael Johnson