Bernard Kops (28 November 1926 – 25 February 2024) was a British dramatist, memoirist, poet and novelist.

Early life

Born in 1926 and raised in Stepney Green in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

's East End, the son of Dutch-Jewish immigrants, Bernard Kops was present at the

Battle of Cable Street The Battle of Cable Street was a series of clashes that took place at several locations in the East End of London, most notably Cable Street, on Sunday 4 October 1936. It was a clash between the Metropolitan Police, sent to protect a march ...

in October 1936. He was evacuated from London in 1939, and recounted that experience in episode two of

Thames Television Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992. Thames Television broa ...

's TV series, ''

The World at War ''The World at War'' is a 26-episode British documentary television series that chronicles the events of the Second World War. Produced in 1973 at a cost of around £880,000 (), it was the most expensive factual series ever made at the time. ...

'', first broadcast in 1973.

Career

His first play, ''The Hamlet of Stepney Green'', was produced at the Oxford Playhouse in 1957. It is considered to be one of the keystones of the "New Wave" in British 'kitchen sink' drama. First novel, ''Awake For Mourning'' (1958), followed the next year and has been appraised by critic

Stewart Home Kevin Llewellyn Callan (born 24 March 1962), better known as Stewart Home, is an English artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist. His novels include the non-narrative '' 69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess'' (2002 ...

as "ahead of its time". Ken Worpole has described Kops' first volume of autobiography, ''The World Is A Wedding'' (1963), as "one of the most important post-war English autobiographies". His subsequent plays include ''Enter Solly Gold'' (1962), ''Ezra'' (1981, about

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

), ''Playing Sinatra'' (1991) and ''The Dreams of Anne Frank'' (1992, about

Anne Frank Annelies Marie Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – February or March 1945)Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new li ...

). He also wrote extensively for radio and television. His radio play ''Monster Man'' (1999) is about the creator of "King Kong",

Willis O'Brien Willis Harold O'Brien (March 2, 1886 – November 8, 1962), known as Obie O'Brien, was an American motion picture special effects and stop-motion animation pioneer, who according to ASIFA-Hollywood "was responsible for some of the best-known im ...

. In 1971-2, Kops wrote two series of sitcom '' Alexander the Greatest'' for ATV. Kops wrote the television movie script ''Just One Kid'' for director/producer

John Goldschmidt John Goldschmidt''a British-Austrian film director and producer. Goldschmidt was born in London, but grew up in Vienna leaving at the age of 16 to return to London. Goldschmidt has both Austrian and British nationality. He went to the Gymnasium ...

; the film was broadcast on the ITV Network in 1974, and won a Silver Hugo Award at the

Chicago Film Festival The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...

. Kops then wrote the television film ''It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow'' (1975), about the Bethnal Green tube disaster of 1943, also for John Goldschmidt, and this was nominated for an International Emmy Award for Drama Series. In addition to plays, novels and autobiography, he published volumes of poetry, and also wrote travelogues, including a series of articles about a trip to the United States (1999) and another about a journey to China (2000), both written for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''.

Personal life and death

In 1956 Kops married Erica Eve Gordon; they had four children. The couple were the models for characters Mannie and Miriam Katz in Colin MacInnes' novel '' Absolute Beginners'' (1959). In 1975, suffering from drug addiction, Kops made a suicide attempt; he wrote about the incident and his successful journey to sobriety in his second autobiography, ''Shalom Bomb: Scenes from My Life''. In 2009, Kops was awarded a civil list pension in recognition for services to literature. In 2016 filmmaker Jill Campbell directed a documentary on Bernard Kops, ''The Hamlet of Canfield Gardens'', referencing his first play and longstanding West Hampstead address. Kops died on 25 February 2024, at the age of 97.

Selected bibliography

Novels

* Awake for Mourning (MacGibbon & Kee), 1958) * Motorbike (New English Library, 1962) * Yes from No-Man's Land (MacGibbon & Kee, 1965) * The Dissent of Dominick Shapiro (MacGibbon & Kee, 1966) * By the Waters of Whitechapel (Bodley Head, 1969) * The Passionate Past of Gloria Gaye (Secker and Warburg, 1971) * Settle Down Simon Katz (Secker and Warburg, 1973) * Partners (Secker and Warburg, 1975) * On Margate Sands (Secker and Warburg, 1978) * The Odyssey of Samuel Glass (David Paul, 2012)

Plays

* The Hamlet of Stepney Green (1959) * The Dream Of Peter Mann (1960) * Four Plays (The Hamlet of Stepney Green, Enter Solly Gold, Home Sweet Honeycomb, The Lemmings) (1964) * Playing Sinatra (1992) * Dreams Of Anne Frank (1993) * Plays One (Playing Sinatra, The Hamlet of Stepney Green, Ezra) (Oberon Books, 1999) * Plays Two (Dreams of Anne Frank, On Margate Sands, Call in the Night) (Oberon Books, 2000) * Plays Three (The Dream of Peter Mann, Enter Solly Gold, Who Shall I Be Tomorrow?) (Oberon Books, 2001)

Poetry

* Poems (Bell & Baker Press, 1955) * Poems and Songs (Scorpion Press, 1958) * An Anemone For Antigone (1959) * Erica I Want To Read You Something (1967) * For the Record – Poems (Secker and Warburg, 1971) * Barricades In West Hampstead (1988) * Grandchildren and Other Poems (2000) * Where Do People Go (The Happy Dragons' Press, 2004) * This Room in the Sunlight: Collected Poems (David Paul, 2009) * Anne Frank's Fragments from Nowhere (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2015) * Love, Death and Other Joys (David Paul, 2018)

Autobiography & misc.

* The World is a Wedding (MacGibbon & Kee, 1963; Five Leaves Publications, 2007) * Neither Your Honey Nor Your Sting: An Offbeat History of the Jews (Robson, 1985) * Shalom Bomb: Scenes from My Life (Oberon Books, 2000) * Bernard Kops’ East End (Five Leaves Publications, 2006) nthology

Secondary literature

*William Baker and Jeanette Roberts Shumaker: ''Bernard Kops - fantasist, London Jew, apocalyptic humorist'', Madison .a. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2014, .

Notes

External links

Bernard Kops Papers
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additions
at the

Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center, known as the Humanities Research Center until 1983, is an archive, library, and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe ...

*
List of Bernard Kops theatre plays
at Doollee
Bernard Kops poetry at Jewish Book WeekRooted in PoetryReview of The Odyssey of Samuel GlassReview of This Room in the Sunlight: Collected Poems, Dan Carrier Camden New Journal
*
The Bethnal Green Tube Disaster 3 March 1943
The largest civilian loss of life in the United Kingdom in WWII. 173 died. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kops, Bernard 1926 births 2024 deaths 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British poets British Jews Jewish British writers British male dramatists and playwrights British male poets English people of Dutch-Jewish descent Jewish dramatists and playwrights Poets from London Communist Party of Great Britain members