Jack Beeching (8 May 1922 – 27 December 2001), born John Charles Stuart Beeching, was an English

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

, novelist and nonfiction writer.

Life

Beeching was born in

Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...

, Sussex, England, on 8 May 1922 and died in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on 27 December 2001. He served in the

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. He married Gwendoline (Inez) Mathews in the early 1940s. This marriage produced one son, Matthew (1947). The couple was divorced in 1948. He married author and translator Amy Brown in 1950 and had a son, John, and a daughter, Laura. The couple was divorced in 1970, and he shared the rest of his life with his third wife Charlotte Mensforth, the painter. He had four children. In 1956, he suffered serious chest injuries in an automobile accident. As a result, he had severe

respiratory The respiratory system (also respiratory apparatus, ventilatory system) is a biological system consisting of specific organs and structures used for gas exchange in animals and plants. The anatomy and physiology that make this happen varies gre ...

problems that forced him to live in warmer climates.

Career

Beeching's poetry is considered moving, original, clear-sighted, compressed, and funny. This was a view expressed by the editor of Qualm in 2003, a high opinion shared by the editors at Penguin circa 1970, and reflected in his obituary in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' thirty years later, whose author speaks also of Beeching's 'disciplined metre, subtle half-rhyme and a luxuriant syntax which expressed at times distinctly "difficult" metaphysical concerns'.Mary Corbett, ''The Independent'', 2002 His writing in old age was perhaps at least as strong and trenchant as that of any of his peers of a similar age. Although he continued to write until his death, during the second half of his life his work fell into neglect. This neglect was partly attributable to his having to live, because of his damaged lung, abroad in drier climates, including

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, Guatemala,

Lucca Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as one ...

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Menton Menton (; , written ''Menton'' in classical norm or ''Mentan'' in Mistralian norm; it, Mentone ) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera, close to the Italian border. Me ...

, and Majorca. It was a life of near-poverty in tiny apartments. He was published in Penguin Modern Poets No. 16 in 1970, and near the end of his life brought out a collection, ''Poems 1940-2000'' (Art Ojo Nuevo). He was a novelist and writer of historical books, but stated "Poetry is my

avocation An avocation is an activity that someone engages in as a hobby outside their main occupation. There are many examples of people whose professions were the ways that they made their livings, but for whom their activities outside their workplaces ...

; the other forms of writing are a means of livelihood". Beeching translated poetry from French and Spanish, and wrote several plays for the London stage. He contributed to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' and ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

''. The Arts Council of Great Britain gave him their Award to a Living Artist in 1967, and he was later granted a Civil List pension for "services to literature".

Works

*''Personal and Partisan Poems'' (poetry), Fred Ball, 1940. *''Aspects of Love'' (poetry), A. Swallow, 1950. *''Paper Doll'' (novel), Heinemann, 1950. *''Truth Is a Naked Lady'' (poetry), Myriad, 1957. *''Let Me See Your Face'' (novel), Heinemann, 1959. *''The Dakota Project'', Delacorte, 1968. *''Penguin Modern Poets 16'' (1970). Jack Beeching, Harry Guest and Matthew Mead. *''The Polythene Maidenhead'' (poetry), Penguin, 1970. *(Editor and author of introduction) R. Hakluyt, ''Voyages and Discoveries: The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation'', Penguin, 1972. *''The Chinese Opium Wars'', Hutchinson, 1975, Harcourt, 1976. *''An Open Path: Christian Missionaries'', 1515-1914, Hutchinson, 1979, Ross-Erikson, 1982. *(With Dominique Grandmont) ''Images au Miroir: Mirror Images'' (in French and English), Piccolo Press, 1979. *''Death of a Terrorist'' (novel), Constable, 1981. *''The Galleys at Lepanto'', Hutchinson, 1982, Scribner, 1983. *''Twenty-five Short Poems'', Piccolo Press, 1982. * ''Tides of Fortune'', Hutchinson,1988 *''The View from the Balloon'', with drawings by Charlotte Mensforth, Piccolo, 1990. *''Poems (1940-2000)'', Art Ojo Nuevo, 2001.

References

*''

Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to '' The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

'', 10 September 1982 *Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002
Obituary
in ''

'' 9 January 2002 *Paul Gillen, 'Now shut your eyes: talking with Jack Beeching', Overland 2006.

External links

Poems in QualmGillen, 'Talking with Jack Beeching'
*Luckin, Bill, and Barry Wood

''Jacket'' 26, October 2004. *Luckin, Bill
Obituary
''The Guardian'', 18 January 2002. {{DEFAULTSORT:Beeching, Jack 1922 births 2001 deaths People from Hastings English male poets 20th-century English poets 20th-century English male writers Fleet Air Arm personnel of World War II