Background

Laurie Lee was born on June 26, 1914, in Stroud, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom, and was brought up in the small village of Slad in Gloucestershire. He was a son of Reginald Joseph Lee and Annie Emily Light.

Also, Laurie had several sisters and brothers, the most notable of which was Jack Lee, who was a film director.

Education

At the age of twelve, Lee started to attend the Central Boys' School in Stroud, where he remained until the age of fifteen when he became an errand boy at a Chartered Accountants in Stroud.

Career

In 1934, Laurie started to work as an office clerk and a builder's labourer in London. In 1935, he left for Vigo, from where he travelled across Spain as far as Almuñecar on the coast of Andalusia. While in Spain, Lee initially earned money by working in a hotel kitchen and then by playing his violin in the evening.

After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, Lee was picked up by HMS Blanche, a British destroyer from Gibraltar, that was collecting marooned British subjects on the southern Spanish coast. In 1937, Laurie returned to Spain and became an International Brigade volunteer. However, his service in the Brigade was cut short because of his epilepsy.

In late 1930's, Lee left for the United Kingdom, where, during the period from 1940 till 1943, he worked as a film scriptwriter. Also, at that time, Laurie produced documentary films for the GPO Film Unit and the Crown Film Unit. Between 1944-1946, he acted as an editor for the Ministry of Information of the United Kingdom. From 1950 till 1951, he held a post of a caption-writer-in-chief at the Festival of Britain.

In the 1940's and 1950's, Lee published several volumes of poetry, but he achieved little recognition until his autobiographical book "Cider with Rosie" was published by Leonard Woolf in 1959. "Cider with Rosie" became an instant classic and was widely read in British schools. Moreover, the book allowed Lee to become a full-time independent writer.

In the 1960's, Laurie Lee and his wife Catherine Francesca Polge settled down in Slad, where Laurie continued to work and live till the end of his life.

Achievements

• Laurie Lee gained prominence for his autobiographical trilogy "Cider with Rosie" (1959), "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" (1969) and "A Moment of War" (1991).
  
  During his lifetime, Lee received several awards, including Atlantic Book Award in 1944, Society of Authors Travelling Award in 1951, W.H. Smith and Son Award in 1960 and others. In 1952, he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire.
  
  In 1988, the citizens of Almuñécar erected a statue in Lee's honour. Moreover, in 1993, his book "A Moment of War" was chosen as a Notable Book of the Year by the editors of the New York Times Book Review.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Moment of War

    (This is the third volume in Laurie Lee's trilogy of his y...)

    1991
  • Cider with Rosie

    (An account of Lee’s happy childhood in a secluded village...)

    1959
  • I Can't Stay Long

    (In Part One, Lee revisits his idyllic boyhood in the Cots...)

    1975
  • As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

    (It was 1934 and a young man walked to London from the sec...)

    1969
  • A Rose for Winter: Travels in Andalusia

    (This is a passionate ode to the magic of Spain, composed ...)

    1955
  • The firstborn

    (This book describes the thrill of a mother as she views w...)

    1964
  • Two Women: A Book of Words and Pictures

    (This book includes colour and black and white photographs...)

    1983
  • Village Christmas: and other notes on the English year
  • Laurie Lee: Selected Poems 1960
  • To War in Spain 1996
  • My many-coated man 1955
  • The wonderful world of transport 1969

Views

Quotations: "For the first time I was learning how much easier it was to leave than to stay behind and love."

"At best, love is simply the slipping of a hand in another's, of knowing you are where you belong at last, and of exchanging through the eyes that all-consuming regard which ignores everybody else on earth."

"Such a morning it is when love leans through geranium windows and calls with a cockerel's tongue. When red-haired girls scamper like roses over the rain-green grass, and the sun drips honey."

"It was a world that I wanted to record because it was such a miracle visitation to me."

"I wanted to communicate what I had seen, so that others could see it."

"In London, Man is the most secret animal on earth."

"I expected to be shot at any moment and if they had done I would have understood, that they couldn't take risks with someone foolhardy or so unpredictable."

Membership

During his lifetime, Lee supported the Brotherhood of Ruralists, a British art group, in their attempts to establish themselves in the 1970's, and he continued to do so until his death.

Connections

Laurie met Lorna Wishart in 1937, with whom he had an affair. Moreover, their relationships produced one daughter, Yasmin David, who would later become an artist. In 1943, Lee's life-partner Lorna left him for Lucian Freud, who agreed to raise Yasmin as his own child.

In 1950, Lee married Catherine Francesca Polge. Their marriage produced one daughter — Jessie.

Father:

Reginald Joseph Lee

Mother:

Annie Emily Light

child:

Yasmin David Lee

child:

Jessie Lee

Brother:

Jack Lee

life partner:

Lorna Wishart

Wife:

Catherine Francesca Polge

Acquaintance:

Roy Campbell

References

• Lives and Loves of Laurie Lee Laurie Lee is loved by generations of readers for the stories he wove from his life, from the rural idyll of "Cider With Rosie" to his dramatic experiences fighting Franco in "A Moment of War". But there was much he kept secret. Delving into letters and diaries hidden from the world, this sympathetic yet searching biography reveals the many women he loved, bringing this romantic enigma to full, rounded life.
  2014
• Laurie Lee the Well-Loved Stranger This is the authorized, first major biography of British writer Laurie Lee, author of the beloved novel "Cider with Rosie".
  1999