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Phyllis Allfrey
Phyllis Byam Shand Allfrey (24 October 1908 – 4 February 1986) was a West Indian writer, socialist activist, newspaper editor and politician of the island of Dominica in the Caribbean. She is best known for her first novel, '' The Orchid House'' (1953), based on her own early life, which in 1991 was turned into a Channel 4 television miniseries of the same name in the United Kingdom. Early life and family background Born in Roseau, Dominica, West Indies, in 1908, she was the daughter of Francis Byam Berkeley Shand and Elfreda (daughter of Henry Alfred Alford Nicholls), and was baptized Phyllis Byam. Her father's settler family was long established in Roseau. With roots in the West Indies going back to the 17th century, Phyllis later described herself as "a West Indian of over 300 years' standing, despite my pale face." Her earliest ancestor in the West Indies was Lieutenant General William Byam, a Royalist officer who in 1644 defended Bridgwater in Somerset against a parli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roseau
Roseau (Dominican Creole French, Dominican Creole: ''Wozo'') is the capital and largest city of Dominica, with a population of 14,725 as of 2011. It is a small and compact urban settlement, in the Saint George Parish, Dominica, Saint George Parishes of Dominica, parish and surrounded by the Caribbean Sea, the Roseau River (Dominica), Roseau River and Morne Bruce. Built on the site of the ancient Island Caribs, Island Carib village of Sairi, it is the oldest and most important urban settlement on the island of Dominica. It is on the west (Windward and leeward, leeward) coast of Dominica and has a combination of modern and colonial French architecture. Roseau is Dominica's most important port for foreign trade. Some exports include bananas, West Indian Bay tree, bay oil, vegetables, grapefruit, oranges, and Cocoa bean, cocoa. The service sector is also a large part of the local economy. There are several private institutions registered in Dominica, like Ross University, Internat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dominica Labour Party
The Dominica Labour Party is a centre-left social-democratic political party in Dominica. History Founded in 1955 by Phyllis Shand Allfrey and Emmanuel Christopher Loblack, the Dominica Labour Party is the oldest political party in Dominica. Nohlen, D (2005) ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p225 It first contested general elections in 1961, winning seven of the eleven seats, and party leader Edward Leblanc became Premier of Dominica. In the next elections in 1966 it won all but one of the seats. The party split and former leader Leblanc won the 1970 elections under the banner of Leblanc Labour Party. Leblanc retired in 1974, and he was succeeded by Patrick John. A fourth consecutive victory was achieved in the 1975 elections when it won 16 of the 21 seats. John was ousted as Prime Minister in summer 1979. In 1980 the party led by John suffered a major defeat, seeing its vote share reduced from 50% to 17%, and losing all its seats as the Dominic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vita Sackville-West
Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer. Sackville-West was a successful novelist, poet and journalist, as well as a prolific letter writer and diarist. She published more than a dozen collections of poetry and 13 novels during her life. She was twice awarded the Hawthornden Prize, Hawthornden Prize for Imaginative Literature: in 1927 for her pastoral epic, ''The Land (poem), The Land'', and in 1933 for her ''Collected Poems''. She was the inspiration for the protagonist of ''Orlando: A Biography'', by her friend and lover Virginia Woolf. She wrote a column in ''The Observer'' from 1946 to 1961 and is remembered for the celebrated garden at Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Sissinghurst in Kent, created with her husband, Harold Nicolson, Sir Harold Nicolson. Biography Antecedents Victoria Mary Sackville-West — ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both authoritarian communism and fascism), and support of democratic socialism. Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella ''Animal Farm'' (1945) and the Utopian and dystopian fiction, dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and ''Homage to Catalonia'' (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as George Orwell bibliograph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inez Holden
Beatrice Inez Lisette (Paget) Holden (21 November 1903 – 30 May 1974) was a British writer and Bohemian social figure and journalist, also known for her association with George Orwell. Born at Wellesbourne, Warwickshire to Wilfred Millington Holden (of the family listed in Burke's Landed Gentry 1952 edition as 'Holden of Bromson', a branch of the family of 'Holden of Hawton and Sibdon'; he served as a Lieutenant in the Bihar Light Horse and 15th Hussars) and Beatrice Mary Byng Paget (the daughter of Herbert Byng Paget, of Darley House, Darley Dale, Derbyshire, of the family listed in Burke's Landed Gentry as 'Paget of Loughborough'), with an elder brother, Wilfred Herbert, born in 1902, she was a cousin of the twins Celia Mary and Mamaine, who became Arthur Koestler's second wife. Her first memory was her father shooting at – and missing – her mother; their relationship was a fraught one, as was Holden's own relationship with her mother, who was considered to be the seco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was an English and American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. She then became the world's highest-paid movie star in the 1960s, remaining a well-known public figure for the rest of her life. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her seventh on its AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, greatest female screen legends list. Born in London to socially prominent American parents, Taylor moved with her family to Los Angeles in 1939 at the age of 7. She made her acting debut with a minor role in the Universal Pictures film ''There's One Born Every Minute'' (1942), but the studio ended her contract after a year. She was then signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and became a popular teen star after appearing in ''National Velvet (film), National Velvet'' (1944). She transitioned to mature roles in the 1950s, when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian Symons
Julian Gustave Symons (originally Gustave Julian Symons, pronounced ''SIMM-ons''; 30 May 1912 – 19 November 1994) was a British crime writer and poet. He also wrote social and military history, biography and studies of literature. He was born in Clapham, London, and died in Walmer, Kent. Life and work Julian Symons was born in London to auctioneer Morris Albert Symons (died 1929), of Russian-Polish Jewish immigrant parentage, and Minnie Louise (died 1964), née Bull. He was a younger brother, and later the biographer, of writer A. J. A. Symons. Like his brother, due to the family's straitened financial circumstances, he left school at 14, having attended a "school for backward children" owing to his severe stutter. He was subsequently mainly self-educated, whilst working as a typist and clerk for an engineering firm. He founded the poetry magazine ''Twentieth Century Verse'' in 1937, editing it for two years. His crime writing in the 1930s was incidental; later he became a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stevie Smith
Florence Margaret Smith (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971), known as Stevie Smith, was an English poet and novelist. She won the Cholmondeley Award and was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. A play, '' Stevie'' by Hugh Whitemore, based on her life, was adapted into a film starring Glenda Jackson. Life Stevie Smith, born Florence Margaret Smith at number 34 De La Pole Avenue in Kingston upon Hull, she was the second daughter of Charles Ward Smith (1872–1949) and Ethel Rahel (1876–1919), daughter of successful maritime engineer John Spear.Smith, Florence Margaret (Stevie) (1902–1971) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Retrieved 28 July 2023(Couzyn, Jeni 1985) ''Contemporary Women Poets''. Bloodaxe, p. 32. She was called "Peggy" within her family, but acqui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naomi Mitchison
Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison (; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a List of Scottish novelists, Scottish novelist and poet. Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote more than 90 books of historical and science fiction, travel writing and autobiography. Her husband Dick Mitchison, Baron Mitchison, Dick Mitchison's life peerage in 1964 entitled her to call herself Lady Mitchison, but she never did. Her 1931 work, ''The Corn King and the Spring Queen'', is seen by some as the prime 20th-century historical novel. Childhood, family background and early career Naomi Mary Margaret Haldane was born in Edinburgh, the daughter and younger child of the physiologist John Scott Haldane and his wife (Louisa) Kathleen Trotter. Naomi's parents came from different political backgrounds, her father being a Liberal Party (UK), Liberal and her mother from a Conservative Party (UK), Conservative, pro-imperialist family. However, both were of landed stock; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Labour Party
The Labour Party, often referred to as Labour, is a List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom that sits on the Centre-left politics, centre-left of the political spectrum. The party has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. It is one of the Two-party system, two dominant political parties in the United Kingdom; the other being the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party. Labour has been led by Keir Starmer since 2020 Labour Party leadership election (UK), 2020, who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the 2024 United Kingdom general election, 2024 general election. To date, there have been 12 Labour governments and seven different Labour Prime Ministers – Ramsay MacDonald, MacDonald, Clement Attlee, Attlee, Harold Wilson, Wilson, James Callaghan, Callaghan, Tony Blair, Blair, Gordon Brown, Brown and Starmer. The Labour Party was founded in 1900, having e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tribune (magazine)
''Tribune'' is a democratic socialist political magazine founded in 1937 and published in London, initially as a newspaper, then converting to a magazine in 2001. While it is independent, it has usually supported the Labour Party from the left. Previous editors at the magazine have included Aneurin Bevan, the minister of health who spearheaded the establishment of the National Health Service, former Labour leader Michael Foot, and writer George Orwell, who served as literary editor. From 2008 it faced serious financial difficulties until it was purchased by ''Jacobin'' in late 2018, shifting to a quarterly publication model. Since its relaunch the number of paying subscribers has passed 15,000, with columns from high-profile socialist politicians such as former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, former Second Deputy Prime Minister of Spain Pablo Iglesias and former Bolivian President Evo Morales. In January 2020, it was used as the platform on which Rebecca Long-B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grantley Adams
Sir Grantley Herbert Adams, CMG, QC (28 April 1898 – 28 November 1971) was a Barbadian politician. He served as the inaugural premier of Barbados from 1954 to 1958 and then became the first and only prime minister of the West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962. He was a founder of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), and he was named in 1998 as one of the National Heroes of Barbados. Early life Adams was born at Colliston, Government Hill, St. Michael, on 28 April 1898. He was the third child of seven born to Fitzherbert Adams and the former Rosa Frances Turney. Adams was educated at St. Giles and at Harrison College in Barbados. In 1918, he won the scholarship and departed the following year for his undergraduate studies at Oxford University. Adams played a single match of first-class cricket for Barbados during the 1925–26 season, as a wicket-keeper against British Guiana in the Inter-Colonial Tournament. Political career Adams' political interest began when he was s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
