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 English
poet, memoirist, and novelist, best known for his autobiographical
trilogy CIDER WITH ROSIE (1959), AS I WALKED OUT ONE MIDSUMMER MORNING
(1969), and A MOMENT OF WAR (1991). The trilogy depicts Lee's boyhood
in the country, his journey to London to seek his fortune, and his
experiences in the Spanish Civil War.
"But our waking life, and our growing years, were for the
most part spent in the kitchen, and until we married, or ran away,
it was the common room we shared. Here we lived and fed in a family
fug, not minding the little space, trod on each other like birds
in a hole, elbowed our ways without spite, all talking at once
or silent at once, or crying against each other, but never I think
feeling overcrowded, being as separate as notes in a scale."
(from Cider with Rose)
Laurie Lee was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, where the pattern
of life had not changed in centuries. The families lived in overcrowded
cottages, cooked on wood-fires and went to bed by candlelight. Lee
was educated at the village school and at Stroud Central School.
When he was fifteen he left and became an errand-boy. Lee also gave
lectures on the violin.
In his teens Lee had already begun to write poems. He had met two
sisters who encouraged him in his writing aspirations. Both sisters
were passionately involved with him. At the age of twenty Lee left
for London, and worked for a year as a builder's labourer. He then
spent four years travelling in Spain and the eastern Mediterranean.
During these years he met a woman who took him under her wing and
sent him to university to study art.
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). Before
devoting himself entirely to writing in 1951, Lee worked as a journalist
and 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, and from 1950 to 1951 he was
caption-writer-in-chief for the Festival of Britain, for which service
he was awarded the MBE. In 1950 Lee married Catherine Francesca
Polge, a Provençal woman; they had one daughter.
Lee's first poem appeared in Horizon in 1940, and his first
collection, THE SUN MY MONUMENT, was published in 1944. Lee's romantic
poems show the influence of Federico García Lorca. He has noted
that his poems "were written by someone I once was and who is
so distant to me now that I scarcely recognize him anymore."
Several poems written in the early 1940s reflect the atmosphere
of the war, but also capture impressions of the English countryside,
birdsong and the smell of apples and grass.
With A ROSE FOR WINTER (1955) Lee started his autobiographical
production. It tells of Lee's trip to Spain 15 years after his first
visit, finding a country ravaged by war, but enjoying flamenco dancing
and bullfights. Cider with Rosie (1959) focused on the author's
childhood in the Gloucestershire village of Slad. The book presented
a variety of memorable figures, among them Lee's mother. As I
Walked out One Midsummer Morning narrates Lee's first trip to
Civil War Spain in 1936, and his walk across the country from Vigo
to Granada. TWO WOMEN (1983) was an intimate story of Lee's courtship
of his wife Cathy, and the birth and growth of their daughter Jessy.
A Moment of War told about a young man's walk over the Pyrenees
into Spain to join the International Brigades in 1937.
Lee also wrote travel books, essays, a radio play, and short stories.
He received several awards, including Atlantic Award (1944), Society
of Authors travelling award (1951), M.B.E. (Member, Order of the
British Empire), William Foyle Poetry Prize (1956), W.H. Smith and
Son Award (1960). Lee died on May 14, 1997.
Note: Rosie's identity from the novel Cider with Rosie
was kept secret for 25 years. She was in Rose Buckland, Lee's
cousin by marriage - For further information: Laurie Lee:
The Well-Loved Stranger by Valerie Grove (1999); Contemporary
Popular Writers, ed. by David Mote (1997); The Reader's Companion
to Twentieth Century Writers, ed. by Peter Parker (1995); Cider
with Rosie, Laurie Lee by Jon Andrews and Timothy Clark (1991);
Brodie's Notes on Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie by Kenneth Hardacre
(1986)
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