LIDIA VIANU

Alan Brownjohn and the Desperado Age

CHRONOLOGY

 

1931 (28 July). Born, in Catford, south-east London, son of Charles Henry Brownjohn (printer's manager) and Dorothy Brownjohn (nee Mulligan, telephonist). Only child.

 

1936. Entered Brownhill Road School, Infants and Junior Mixed, a local authority school. Taught in infants' class by the same teacher who taught his father at the age of five.

 

1937, 1938, 1939. Remembers clearly the gathering crisis in Europe, Prime Minister Chamberlain's negotiations with Hitler, etc.

 

1939. September. Clearly recalls declaration of war in Chamberlain's radio broadcast, the preparations for air raids.

 

1940. June. Evacuated to Callington, Cornwall, with his school, for safety from bombing. Lived for two years with a family keeping a small farm.

 

1942. May. Returned to London and stayed there through intermittent air raids for the rest of the war, but spending some time away from London during the flying bomb raids.

 

1944. Now entered on secondary education (from age 11), first at an Emergency Secondary School (the South-east London Emergency Secondary School for Boys) and then at Brockley County School.

 

1945. In London during the V2 rocket raids. End of the war and election of the post-war Labour government under Prime Minister Attlee.

 

1950. Won a scholarship (an 'exhibition') to Merton College, Oxford, where he read Modern History and began seriously to write poetry. Many student poet friends, including Anthony Thwaite, Geoffrey Hill, Alistair Elliot, Jenny Joseph, A. Alvarez, Adrian Mitchell, George MacBeth, all of whom made reputations later as poets.

 

1953. Left Oxford with Class II degree in Modern History and began teaching.

 

1954. Travellers Alone, Heron Press.

 

1955. Taught at various kinds of school, including comprehensive, boys' grammar, junior, until 1965, principally Beckenham and Penge Boys' Grammar School, 1958-1965.

 

1960. Married (Kathleen) Shirley Toulson, acquiring two stepchildren and later one son of his own (Stephen Charles Cunninghame, b.1961).

 

1961. The Railings, Digby Press.

 

1961. The Lions’ Mouths, Digby Press.

1962. Elected (staying for three years) a Labour Councillor in the borough of Wandsworth, London.

 

1964. Stood (unsuccessfully) for parliament, in Richmond, Surrey, as a Labour candidate.

 

1964. To Clear the River, (as John Berrington), Heinemann.

 

1965. Became Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, in a College of Education, Battersea College, later amalgamated with the Polytechnic of the South Bank (which is now South Bank University).

 

1969. Marriage dissolved.

 

1969. Sandgrains on a Tray, Macmillan.

 

1969. Warrior’s Career, Macmillan.

 

1969. First I Say This: A Selection of Poems for Reading Aloud (editor), Hutchinson.

 

1969. Penguin Modern Poets 14 (Alan Brownjohn, Michael Hamburger and Charles Tomlinson), Penguin.

 

1970. Brownjohn's Beasts, Secker & Warburg.

 

1971. New Poems 1970-1971 (with Seamus Heaney and Jon Stallworthy), Hutchinson.

 

1972. Married Sandra Lesley Willingham.

 

1972. The Little Red Bus Book, Inter-Action.

 

1975. A Song of Good Life, Secker & Warburg.

 

1975. Philip Larkin, Longman.

 

1976. Death of mother.

 

1979. Left teaching (after a severe reduction of teaching staff in south Bank Polytechnic) and became a freelance writer, concentrating on poetry but later writing novels. From 1964 had been contributing articles and reviews to many different journals, large and small.

 

1980. A Night in the Gazebo, Secker & Warburg.

 

1983. Collected Poems, (re-issued 1988), Hutchinson.

 

1985. Death of father.

 

1985. Goethe's Torquato Tasso (adaptation by Alan Brownjohn), Angel. Staged at the National Theatre and by BBC Radio 3, with Michael Rennington playing Tasso.

 

1987. The Old Flea-Pit, Hutchinson.

 

1985-1987. Meet and Write: A Teaching Anthology of Contemporary Poetry – three volumes (edited with Sandy Brownjohn), Hodder & Stoughton.

 

1990. The Observation Car, Hutchinson.

 

1990. The Way You Tell Them: A Yarn of the Nineties, André Deutsch.

 

1990. The Gregory Anthology 1987-1990 (co-editor with K.W. Gransden), Hutchinson.

 

1994. In the Cruel Arcade, Sinclair-Stevenson.

 

1996. Pierre Corneille's Horace (translator), Angel. Staged at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London.

 

1997. The Long Shadows, Dewi Lewis.

 

2001. The Cat without E-Mail, Enitharmon Press, London.

 

2001. A Funny Old Year, Dewi Lewis.

 

Awards include Travelling Scholarship from the Society of Authors and a Cholmondeley Award.

 

 

Literary memberships

● The Poetry Society : member of its General Council (1965-1993), Chairman (1982-1988). Also on the General Council were poets like John Cotton, John Heath-Stubbs, Dannie Abse and many other literary figures like Eddie Linden

● The Literature Panel Of the Arts Council of Great Britain (1969-1974). Also on the Literature Panel of Arts: Angus Wilson (chairman), Prof. Stuart Hampshire – philosopher (chairman), Melvyn Bragg (novelist and TV arts presenter), Karl Miller (editor and Professor at London University), Redmond O’Hanlon (travel writer)

● The Poetry Book Society: member of the Board. Also on the Board: Philip Larkin, Peter Porter, Denis O’Donoghue

● The Arvon Foundation : long-term member of the General Council

● Is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (from 1997)

Principal literary friendships: Anthony Thwaite, Peter Porter, Ian Hamilton, Gavin Ewart.

Archives

London Borough of Lewisham Library Service (archive)

Penn State University, State College, Pattee Library, USA