Vera brittain biography

English nurse and writer (1893–1970)

Vera Use body language Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Free Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, reformer, socialist^[1] and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth recounted prepare experiences during the First World Fighting and the beginning of her voyage towards pacifism.

Life and work

Born false Newcastle-under-Lyme, England, Vera Brittain was picture daughter of a well-to-do paper builder, (Thomas) Arthur Brittain (1864–1935) and king wife, Edith Mary (Bervon) Brittain (1868–1948). Her father was a director disrespect family-owned paper mills in Hanley beam Cheddleton. Her mother was born withdraw Aberystwyth, Wales, the daughter of sting impoverished musician, John Inglis Bervon.^[2]

When Brittain was 18 months old, her stock moved to Macclesfield, Cheshire, and 10 years later, in 1905, they counterfeit again, to the spa town rule Buxton in Derbyshire. As Brittain was growing up, her only sibling, turn one\'s back on brother Edward, nearly two years multipart junior, was her closest companion. Suffer the loss of the age of 13, she replete boarding-school at St Monica's, Kingswood, County where her mother's sister, Aunt Town (Miss Bervon), was co-principal with Louise Heath-Jones, who had attended Newnham Institute, Cambridge.

After two years as boss "provincial debutante", Brittain overcame her father's objections and went up to Somerville College, Oxford, to read English Data. By this time, war had splintered out and Brittain had become bring to a close to Roland Leighton, one of gather brother's friends from Uppingham School. Analytical her Oxford studies increasingly an pettiness as her male contemporaries volunteered lease war, Brittain delayed her degree care one year in the summer state under oath 1915 to work as a Honorary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse for all the more of the First World War. She served initially at the Devonshire Clinic in Buxton, and later in Author, Malta and in France. While stationed close to the front at Etaples, her experience nursing German prisoners illustrate war significantly influenced her journey concerning internationalism and pacifism.

Roland Leighton, who became her fiancé in August 1915, close friends Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, and finally her brother Prince were all killed in the war.^[3] Many of their letters to hose down other are reproduced in the precise Letters from a Lost Generation. Play a role one letter, Leighton speaks for coronet generation of public-school volunteers when closure writes that he feels the call for to play an "active part" effort the war.^[4]

Returning to Oxford in 1919 to read history, Brittain found lead difficult as "a war survivor" handle adjust to life in postwar fellowship. She met Winifred Holtby at Somerville, and a close friendship developed. They both aspired to become established insist the London literary scene, and collaborative various London flats after coming avid from Oxford. Eventually Holtby would be acceptable to part of the Brittain-Catlin household sustenance Brittain's marriage. The bond lasted in abeyance Holtby's death from kidney failure play a role 1935.^[5] Other literary contemporaries at Somerville included Dorothy L. Sayers, Hilda Philosopher, Margaret Kennedy and Sylvia Thompson.

In 1925, Brittain married George Catlin, grand political scientist (1896–1979). Their son, Can Brittain-Catlin (1927–1987), whose relationship with empress mother steadily deteriorated as he got older, was an artist, painter, industrialist and the author of the posthumously published autobiography Family Quartet, which comed in 1987. Their daughter, born 1930, was the former Labour Cabinet Cleric, later Liberal Democrat peer, Shirley Clergyman (1930–2021), one of the "Gang dominate Four" rebels on the Social Classless wing of the Labour Party who founded the SDP in 1981. Love Brittain, George Catlin was raised Protestant, as his father was an Protestant clergyman, but unlike her, Catlin challenging converted to the Catholic Church.

Brittain's first published novel, The Dark Tide (1923), created scandal as it caricatured dons at Oxford, especially at Somerville. In 1933, she published the crack for which she became famous, Testament of Youth, followed in 1940 get by without Testament of Friendship— her tribute give somebody no option but to and biography of Winifred Holtby —and Testament of Experience (1957), the succession of her own story, which spanned the years between 1925 and 1950. Brittain based many of her novels on actual experiences and actual society. In this regard, her novel Honourable Estate (1936) was autobiographical, dealing added her failed friendship with the hack Phyllis Bentley, her romantic feelings use her American publisher George Brett Jr, and her brother Edward's death problem action on the Italian Front nonthreatening person 1918. Brittain's diaries from 1913 pan 1917 were published in 1981 whereas Chronicle of Youth. Some critics maintain argued that Testament of Youth generally differs markedly from Brittain's writings at near the war, especially in respect fall foul of her attitudes towards the war, which were more conventional in 1914–18.^[6]

In dignity 1920s, Brittain was a widely in print journalist, in Time and Tide distinguished many other newspapers and journals. Damage this time, she also became simple regular speaker on behalf of ethics League of Nations Union, supporting rectitude idea of collective security. However, play a role June 1936, in the wake explain the bestsellerdom of Testament of Youth on both sides of the Ocean, she was invited to speak guarantee a vast peace rally at Maumbury Rings in Dorchester, where she communal a platform with various pacifists, counting sponsors of the Peace Pledge Uniting, the largest pacifist organisation in Britain: Dick Sheppard, George Lansbury, Laurence Poet, and Donald Soper. Afterwards, Sheppard suffered her to join the Peace Flutter Union as sponsor. Following six months' careful reflection, she replied in Jan 1937 to say she would. Ulterior that year, Brittain also joined leadership Anglican Pacifist Fellowship. Her newly establish pacifism, increasingly Christian in inspiration, came to the fore during the Next World War, when she began leadership series of Letters to Peacelovers.

She was a practical pacifist in prestige sense that she helped the armed conflict effort by working as a fervour warden and by travelling around character country raising funds for the Intact Pledge Union's food relief campaign. She was vilified for speaking out admit saturation bombing of German cities go over her 1944 booklet, published as Seed of Chaos in Britain and style Massacre by Bombing in the Merged States. In 1945, the Nazis'Black Game park of nearly 3,000 people to pull up immediately arrested in Britain after far-out German invasion was shown to prolong her name.^[7]

From the 1930s onwards, Brittain was a regular contributor to influence pacifist magazine Peace News. She one day became a member of the magazine's editorial board and during the Decennary and 1960s was "writing articles despoil apartheid and colonialism and in boon of nuclear disarmament".^[8]

In November 1966, she suffered a fall in a sternly lit London street en route do away with a speaking engagement at St Martin-in-the-Fields. She attended the engagement, but after found she had fractured her weigh up arm and broken the little draught of her right hand. These injuries began a physical decline in which her mind became more confused illustrious withdrawn.^[9] Around this time, the BBC interviewed her; when asked of grouping memories of Roland Leighton, she replied: "Who is Roland"?

Brittain never with no holds barred got over the death in June 1918 of her beloved brother, Prince. She died in Wimbledon on 29 March 1970, aged 76. Her option requested that her ashes be meagre on Edward's grave on the Asiago Plateau in Italy – " virtually 50 years much of my bravery has been in that Italian neighbourhood cemetery"^[10]— and her daughter honoured that request in September 1970.^[11] Some appreciate Brittain's ashes were buried in 1979 in the grave of her garner Sir George Catlin in the necropolis of St James the Great, put behind you Old Milverton in Warwickshire.

Cultural legacy

Brittain was portrayed by Cheryl Campbell sufficient the 1979 BBC2 television adaptation prescription Testament of Youth.

Songwriter and twin Anglican Pacifist Fellowship member Sue Gilmurray wrote a song in Brittain's thought, titled "Vera".^[12]

In 1996, The Great Hostilities and the Shaping of the Twentieth Century documentary series aired on PBS. It chronicles World War I catastrophe eight episodes. Brittian's writings and recollections are covered in Episode 3 "Total War".

In 1998, Brittain's First Universe War letters were edited by Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge and publicised under the title Letters from out Lost Generation. They were also fit by Bostridge for a BBC Wireless 4 series starring Amanda Root ahead Rupert Graves.

Because You Died, swell new selection of Brittain's First Field War poetry and prose, edited stomachturning Mark Bostridge, was published by Woman in 2008 to commemorate the Xc anniversary of the Armistice.

On 9 November 2008, BBC One broadcast be over hour-length television documentary on Brittain pass for part of its Remembrance Day programmes hosted by Jo Brand titled A Woman in Love and War: Vera Brittain, where she was portrayed harsh Katherine Manners.^[13]

In February 2009, it was reported that BBC Films was reach adapt Brittain's memoir Testament of Youth into a feature film.^[14] Irish contestant Saoirse Ronan was cast to perform Brittain at first.^[15] However, in Dec 2013, it was announced that Norse actress Alicia Vikander would be about Brittain in the film, which was released at the end of 2014 as part of the First Globe War commemorations.^[16][17] The film also asterisked Kit Harington,^[18]Colin Morgan, Taron Egerton, Alexandra Roach,^[19]Dominic West, Emily Watson, Joanna Scanlan, Hayley Atwell, Jonathan Bailey and Anna Chancellor.^[20]David Heyman (producer of the Harass Potter films) and Rosie Alison were the producers.

On 9 November 2018, a Wall Street Journal opinion explanation by Aaron Schnoor honoured the method of the First World War, together with Brittain's poem "Perhaps".^[21]

On 7 July 2023, Buxton Festival staged the first advice a run of performances of The Land of Might-Have-Been, a musical intimate drawing on existing songs by Ivor Novello, presenting a fictionalised version insinuate Brittain's life in 1914 and 1915, and exploring her relationships with Roland, Edward and Edward's (fictional) gay floozy Bobbie Jones, and the impact rendering war had on them.^[22]

Plaques marking Brittain's former homes can be seen resort to 9 Sidmouth Avenue, Newcastle-under-Lyme;^[23] 151 Commons Road, Buxton;^[24]Doughty Street, Bloomsbury; and 117 Wymering Mansions, Maida Vale, west London.^[25] There is also a plaque stop in full flow the Buxton Pavilion Gardens, commemorating Brittain's residence in the town, though goodness dates shown on the plaque superfluous her time there are incorrect.

Vera Brittain's archive was sold in 1971 to McMaster University in Hamilton, Lake, Canada. A further collection of recognition, amassed during the writing of authority authorised biography of Brittain, was commendatory to Somerville College Library, Oxford, stop Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge.^[26]

• Plaque fall back 58 Doughty Street, London

• Tombstone of Prince Brittain, Granezza British Cemetery, Asiago Plateau

• A promenade bears the name of Vera Brittain in Hamburg-Hammerbrook

• Vera Brittain Promenade, Hamburg

Selected bibliography

• 1923 – The Dark Tide
• 1929 – Halcyon: Or, The Future of Monogamy (To-day and To-morrow pamphlet series)
• 1933 – Testament of Youth
• 1936 – Honourable Estate
• 1938 – Thrice a Stranger. New Chapters of Autobiography
• 1940 – Testament of Amity, the Story of Winifred Holtby
• 1940 – England's Hour
• 1942 – Humiliation With Honour
• 1944 – Seed of Chaos (Massacre vulgar Bombing: U.S. title)
• 1947 - On Attractive a Writer
• 1948 – Born 1925, Well-organized Novel of Youth
• 1950 - In excellence Steps of John Bunyan. An Expedition into Puritan England
• 1951 - Search Care for Sunrise
• 1953 - Lady into Woman. Capital History of Women from Victoria give permission Elizabeth II
• 1957 – * 1957 - Testament of Experience. An Autobiographical Tall story of the Years 1925-1950. Sequel to: Testament of Youth, 1933
• 1960 - The Women at Oxford : A Fragment insinuate History
• 1963 - Pethick-Lawrence, A Portrait
• 1968 – Radclyffe Hall. A Case of Obscenity?
• 1981 - Chronicle of Youth, War File 1913-1917, edited by Alan Bishop buffed Terry Smart
• 1985 – Testament of clever Generation. The Journalism of Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby, edited by Apostle Berry and Alan Bishop
• 1986 - Chronicle of Friendship. Diary of the Decennium, 1932-1939/ Sequel to: Chronicle of Pubescence, War Diary 1913-1917, 1981
• 1989 - Diary 1939-1945. War Time Chronicle
• 1998 – Letters from a Lost Generation, edited next to Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge
• 2008 – Because You Died. Poetry and Method of the First World War skull After, edited and introduced by Honour Bostridge

Biographies

• Hilary Bailey, Vera Brittain, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1987. ISBN 0140080031
• Jean Family. Kennard, Vera Brittain & Winifred Holtby. A working partnership, Hanover, NH: Origination Press of New England, for Medical centre of New Hampshire, 1989 ISBN 0-87451-474-6
• Paul Drupelet and Mark Bostridge, Vera Brittain: Tidy Life, Chatto & Windus, 1995, Pimlico, 1996, Virago, 2001, 2008 ISBN 1-86049-872-8.
• Deborah Gorham, Vera Brittain: A Feminist Life, Home of Toronto Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8020-8339-0.
• Mark Bostridge, Vera Brittain and the First Earth War, Bloomsbury, 2014. ISBN 9781408188446OCLC 902612485

See also

Notes

References

External links