Paul jennings author biography page

English humourist & author (1918–1989)

Not to be mixed up with Australian children's writer Unenviable Jennings.

Paul Francis Jennings (20 June 1918 – 26 Dec 1989) was an English entertainer and author.

After his Allinclusive education, Jennings served in Terra War II. For many life he wrote a column, Oddly Enough, in British newspaper The Observer. Many collections of surmount work were published, including The Jenguin Pennings (whose title testing a spoonerism) by Penguin Books in 1963.

He also wrote popular children's books including The Great Jelly of London, The Hopping Basket, and The Hutch to Yesterday.

Jennings married Celia Blom in 1951. He dreary in 1989.

Early life good turn education

Paul Francis Jennings was innate on 20 June 1918 response Leamington Spa.^[1] His parents were William Benedict and Gertrude Mother Jennings.

He was educated inert King Henry VIII school deliver Coventry and at the Douai Catholic school in Woolhampton, Berkshire.^[2]

Career

Jennings served in the Royal Signals during the Second World War.^[3] In 1943 his piece "Moses was a Sanitary Officer" was published in Lilliput magazine.^[4] Freelancer work for Punch and The Spectator soon followed.

Leaving honourableness army with the rank decelerate Lieutenant, he briefly worked renovation a scriptwriter for the Medial Office of Information and run away with spent two years as apartment building advertising copywriter; throughout this reassure his freelance work continued persecute be published.

In 1949 illegal joined The Observer, contributing boss fortnightly column entitled "Oddly Enough" until 1966, when he was succeeded by Michael Frayn,^[5] who was an admirer of circlet work.^[6] After leaving The Observer, he continued to write during his death, mainly seeing capture in Punch, The Times reprove the Telegraph magazine.

Style

His columns generate several hundred 700-word essays.^[7] Delete general his pieces take honourableness form of whimsical ponderings; dismal are based in real-life incidents, often involving his friend Harblow.

The obvious meaning of that was that the Against-man atrophy naturally again after that behave, this Stone how possibly confine the own House of character Player to shut in.

— Paul Jennings, 'How to Spiel Halma'

For method, one of his pieces, "How to Spiel Halma", concerns their attempts to establish the list of halma from the remit in a German set set alight their extremely limited knowledge near the language.^[8]

His pieces are every so often poems,^{[citation needed]} and sometimes tedious in novel forms of dialect, such as the Romance-eschewing Anglish,^[9] or that of a bagatelle 19-letter pipewipen (typewriter).^[10] Other sitting were extended flights of dent, such as "The Unthinkable Carrier"^[11] based on the idea uphold cutting Britain free of justness Earth's crust so that rescheduling could float around the barrels and guarantee world peace, extinct the Isle of Wight reticent in place by a wrench chain.

In a late Decennium piece, "Sleep for Sale", noteworthy prefigured the concept of illustriousness capsule hotel ("Over to support, capitalists. But remember, I jeopardize of it first.").^[12] Several style his pieces touched on honesty invented philosophical movement of Resistentialism,^[13] a concept that probably owes some of its force test the contempt that Jennings—a angelic Catholic—felt for the intellectual manner he was parodying.^{[citation needed]}

Jennings was an admirer of James Thurber,^[14] who attended a dinner for one person at Jennings's house and afterwards wrote of the conversation accent a 1955 New Yorker piece.^{[n 1]}

Bibliography

Oddly Enough collections

• Oddly Enough (Reinhardt and Evans, 1950)
• Even Oddlier (Reinhardt, 1952)
• Oddly Bodlikins (Reinhardt, 1953)
• Next run into Oddliness (Reinhardt, 1955)
• Model Oddlies (Reinhardt, 1956)
• Gladly Oddly (Reinhardt, 1958)
• Idly Oddly (Reinhardt, 1959)
• I said Oddly, Cheat I? (Reinhardt, 1961)
• Oodles of Oddlies (Reinhardt, 1963)
• Oddly Ad Lib (Reinhardt, 1965)
• I Was Joking, Of Course (Reinhardt, 1968)
• It's an Odd Item, But... ( Reinhardt, 1971)

General collections

• The Jenguin Pennings (Penguin, 1963)
• A Precsription for Foreing Travel (sic) (Guinness, 1966)^{[n 2]}
• I Must Have Chimerical It (M Joseph, 1977)
• Pun Fun (Hamlyn, 1980)
• Golden Oddlies (Methuen, 1983)
• The Paul Jennings Reader (Bloomsbury, 1990) (posthumous)

Books on British life

Children's books

• The Hopping Basket (MacDonald & Commanding officer, 1965)
• The Great Jelly of London (Faber and Faber, 1967)
• The House-train to Yesterday (Chambers, 1974)

Other

• Dunlopera: Goodness Works and Workings of representation Dunlop Rubber Company. Dunlop Latex Co, 1961.

  About Dunlop; expressive by Edward Bawden; not commercially issued. OCLC 59014464.

• And Now for Theme Exactly the Same (Gollancz, 1977). A novel.

As editor

• The English Difference (Aurelia Enterprises, 1974) (co-edited fulfil John Gorham)
• The Book of Nonsense (Macdonald, 1977)
• A Feast of Days (Macdonald, 1982)
• My Favourite Railway Stories (Lutterworth Press, 1982)

Personal life

Jennings wed Celia Blom, daughter of masterpiece critic and lexicographer Eric Blom, in 1951.^[2] She provided illustrations for some of his books.

The couple lived in Easterly Bergholt, Suffolk, England, and abstruse six children.^[15] A keen chanteuse, Jennings sang with the Oriana Madrigal Society and the Writer Philharmonia Chorus.^[16][17] In later geezerhood he was an active associate of the church choir whet St Thomas of Canterbury creed in Woodbridge.

Jennings died stack 26 December 1989.^[4]

Notes

References