Edward Blishen
| Edward Blishen | |
|---|---|
| Born |
29 April 1920 Hertfordshire, England |
| Died | 13 December 1996 (aged 76) |
Edward Blishen (29 April 1920 – 13 December 1996) was an English author and broadcaster. He may be known best for the first of two children's novels based on Greek mythology, written with Leon Garfield, illustrated by Charles Keeping, and published by Longman in 1970. For The God Beneath the Sea Blishen and Garfield won the 1970 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.
There is also his series of autobiographical books, including A Cack-Handed War (1972), a story describing his experiences as a conscientious objector, set against the backdrop of the Second World War, and Roaring Boys (1955), an honest account of teaching in a London secondary modern school in the 1950s, a book still valuable to understand teaching in a "rough" part of a city. Its sequel, This Right Soft Lot, was published in 1969. He finished the concluding volume of his autobiographical sequence, Mind How You Go, in 1996, just before his death; it was published posthumously by Constable in 1997.
Edward Blishen was born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, England. He attended Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Barnet, and after failing his exams at the age of 17 he left school to work on a local newspaper.
When the Second World War was declared he registered as a conscientious objector (CO), although he came from a long line of soldier ancestors. His father had served in the First World War, from which he returned wounded, suffering from shell shock and silent about his experiences. As Blishen recalled: "He wasn't sympathetic to pacifists. He felt that if he had fought a war, then I ought to fight a war as well." But having read some of the now-famous books revealing the horrors of the First World War, the younger Blishen realised: "I can't be somebody who does that to someone else." Registering as a CO was an uncomfortable experience: "Everybody was declaring themselves at one counter, and there was this other forlorn counter for you to declare you weren't going to join in. It felt as though you were separating yourself from the rest of the world."
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