John Barclay Pick (26 December 1921 – 25 January 2015), often credited as J.B. Pick, was an English poet, novelist, and biographer. He was a Quaker and a conscientious objector during the

Second World War 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 opposi ...

, serving in the

Friends' Ambulance Unit The Friends' Ambulance Unit (FAU) was a volunteer ambulance service, founded by individual members of the British Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), in line with their Peace Testimony. The FAU operated from 1914–1919, 1939–1946 and 19 ...

and then as a

coalminer Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron fro ...

. Pick was born in Leicester. He was married to Gene Pick (died 2019) with two children, both sons (Peter Pick and David Pick). Pick received his education at

Sidcot School Sidcot School is a British co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils, associated with the Religious Society of Friends. It is one of seven Quaker schools in England. The school is based in the Mendip Hills near the village of ...

, a Quaker institution in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. He attended

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

for a year but left at the outbreak of

to join the

. In the 1980s he moved to live in

Balmaclellan Balmaclellan ( Scottish Gaelic: ''Baile MhicIllFhaolain'', meaning town of the MacLellans) is a small hillside village of stone houses with slate roofs in a fold of the Galloway hills in south-west Scotland. To the west, across the Ken River, ...

Galloway Galloway ( ; sco, Gallowa; la, Gallovidia) is a region in southwestern Scotland comprising the historic counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. It is administered as part of the council area of Dumfries and Galloway. A native or ...

. Pick was the author of the novels ''Out of the Pit'', ''The Lonely Aren't Alone'', ''Under the Crust'' and ''A Land Fit for Eros'', the last co-authored with John Atkins. He also wrote a number of short stories, articles, poetry, and nonfiction works. ''The Last Valley'' (originally published in the UK in 1959 as ''The Fat Valley'') was his first book to be published in the United States. It was later made into a film starring Omar Sharif and

Michael Caine Sir Michael Caine (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite; 14 March 1933) is an English actor. Known for his distinctive Cockney accent, he has appeared in more than 160 films in a career spanning seven decades, and is considered a British film ico ...

.Pick, ''The Last Valley'', Sphere paperback, 1970, front cover.

Works

*'' The Last Valley'' Little, Brown & Co, 1959 *''The Strange Genius of David Lindsay: An Appreciation'' (1970) with E. H. Visiak and

Colin Wilson Colin Henry Wilson (26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013) was an English writer, philosopher and novelist. He also wrote widely on true crime, mysticism and the paranormal, eventually writing more than a hundred books. Wilson called his phil ...

*''David Lindsay and the Sublime'', in ''

Cencrastus ''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...

'' No. 2, Spring 1980, pp. 15 – 17 *''Neil M. Gunn: selected letters'' (editor), Edinburgh, Polygon, 1987

References

1921 births 2015 deaths Writers from Leicester English Quakers British conscientious objectors People associated with the Friends' Ambulance Unit English biographers 20th-century English poets 20th-century English novelists 20th-century British biographers {{UK-writer-stub