Seven Men of Gascony by R.F. Delderfield

In 1929, Delderfield joined the staff of the paper and later succeeded his father as editor.

In 1923, Delderfield's father and a neighbour in Bermondsey bought the Exmouth Chronicle, a local newspaper in Exmouth, and William became the editor. On a family holiday in Swanage when he was young, Delderfield caught scarlet fever and had to spend three months in an isolation hospital.

: 22 Again, in For My Own Amusement, Delderfield divided the nation into city and suburb dwellers, rural dwellers, and those who lived in coastal towns. In his autobiography For My Own Amusement, Delderfield joked that West Buckland could be likened to schools in The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon, The Avenue and A Horseman Riding By, and that it had earned its fees three times over. Once the family moved to Devon, Delderfield first attended a co-educational grammar school and, finally, West Buckland School. This experience was followed by a grammar school whose dedicated teachers inspired several of his characters. : 18 He then went to a council school, which he hated, but which provided him with the prototype for Mr. The Avenue novels were based on Ronald's life in Addiscombe and Shirley Park.ĭelderfield attended an infant school in Bermondsey, then a 'seedy and pretentious' small private school - 'seventy boys and four underpaid ushers, presided over by a jovial gentleman who wore blue serge'. From 1918 to 1923, the family lived at 22 Ashburton Avenue, Addiscombe, near Croydon, Surrey. He was a firm supporter of the temperance movement, and of David Lloyd George until the latter allied himself in government with the Conservative Party. William supported women's suffrage and the Boer cause in the Boer War. His father worked for a meat wholesaler in Smithfield Market, and was the first Liberal to be elected to Bermondsey Council. Ronald Frederick Delderfield was born in Bermondsey, London, in 1912 to Alice and William James Delderfield (c. Ronald Frederick Delderfield (12 February 1912 – 24 June 1972) was an English novelist and dramatist, some of whose works have been adapted for television and film.īiography Childhood in London and Surrey

Seven Men of Gascony by R.F. Delderfield