John Pudney; Selected Poems

A new collection of poems by the Second World War RAF war poet John Pudney, author of the famous 'For Johnny'. During the Second World War, John Pudney served in the Royal Air Force as an Intelligence Officer. ‘For Johnny’, his poem about a pilot killed in action, caught the imagination of a nation grateful to its courageous young fighter-pilots and won instant acclaim. Laurence Olivier read it on the wireless and Michael Redgrave recited it in the popular and critically-acclaimed 1945 war film The Way to the Stars. "Pudney's strengths remain: a sense of time which his age entitles him to, a sense of place, mainly London, together with his own personal romanticism, keep Pudney writing interesting poems when younger poets have dropped by the wayside." - Martin Bax. This new selection of Pudney’s poems is edited by John Howlett. It includes a Memoir by his daughter, Charlotte Moore, and a Foreword by his grandson, Toby Perkins MP. John Pudney (1909-1977) grew up on a farm in Buckinghamshire and left school at sixteen to train as an estate agent and surveyor. His first book of poems was published in 1933, shortly after which he worked for BBC Radio. At the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the Royal Air Force as an Intelligence Officer. He later became a member of the RAF Creative Writers Unit, in which novelists and poets used their literary skills to aid the war effort. He was part of the force that liberated Paris in 1945 and was the first allied officer to visit Pablo Picasso in his studio. After the war Pudney earned his living from writing. His Collected Poems was published in 1957. He also wrote ten novels and a remarkable autobiography, Thank Goodness for Cake. John Howlett (editor) lectures at Keele University and writes on the history of education and modern poetry. Recent books include Progressive Education: A Critical Introduction (2013) and Selected Poetry and Prose of Edmond Holmes (ed., 2016).