J. B. Morton

John Cameron Andrieu Bingham Michael Morton, better known by his preferred abbreviation J. B. Morton (7 June 1893 – 10 May 1979) was an English humorous writer noted for authoring a column called "By the Way" under the pen name 'Beachcomber' in the Daily Express from 1924 to 1975.

G. K. Chesterton described Morton as "a huge thunderous wind of elemental and essential laughter"; according to Evelyn Waugh, he had "the greatest comic fertility of any Englishman".

Morton was born at Park Lodge, Mitcham Road, Tooting. He was an only child, and his father, Edward Morton, was a serious journalist and dramatic critic. He introduced Morton junior to (watered-down) wine before he went to school, and to the sons of his friend Leslie Stuart. His mother, Rosamond Bingham, died when he was 12.

From the age of eight Morton attended Park House prep school in Southborough, London. In 1907 he moved on to Harrow School and hated it. Harrow later provided the inspiration for the fictional Narkover, a school full of theft, gambling, drinking, and corruption. Morton was admitted to Worcester College, Oxford but failed to win a scholarship, and had to leave after a year to support his father after a stroke.

Morton did not have an outstanding academic career, and left Oxford wanting to be a poet.

Quickly realising that he could not make a living from poetry, Morton found a job writing for a musical revue, until he was interrupted by the outbreak of war in 1914. He enlisted as a private in the Royal Fusiliers and was sent to the trenches the following year. The battalion was disbanded in 1916 and Morton was commissioned in the Suffolk Regiment. After fighting in the Somme he was sent home with shell shock and spent the rest of the war in the intelligence service.

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