Alan Jackson

Alan Jackson was born in Georgia, in 1958...and is a well-known neo traditionalist country singer. His family was not well off…. He sang in church as a child and his family listened mainly to gospel music. He started his own band, soon after high school and married... In the mid-1980s, he and his wife Denise moved to Nashville. He found a job in the Nashville Network’s mailroom and his wife happened to meet Glen Campbell… Glen helped him to get a start in the music business.He got a contract with a record company... and as the 1990s progressed, he became more and more successful. In the early 2000's he and George Strait performed "Murder Down in Music Row" which was something of a cut at the record company executives who were moving from "real" old fashioned country music to commercialised pop and rock country which had little to do with the genre's orgins.

Rupert Brooke Poet Part I

Rupert Brooke was born in 1887 to William Brooke, a schoolmaster and his wife, who was a school matron. The family was respectably middle class. His father moved to a post at the famous public school, Rugby, before his birth and Rupert was born there... His father had a post as House master. Schools were divided into houses. They ate and slept in these houses and the head master of each house would be expected to provide something of a home atmosphere for them, during their school days. Rupert was intelligent and grew to be a good looking young man. He had 2 brothers and one sister Edith. Rupert went to a preparatory school, and then went to Rugby. He was interested in literature and drama and wrote a thesis on Elizabethan drama, which secured him a scholarship to Kings College, Cambridge. When up at Cambridge, he was keen on Socialism and joined the Fabian Society. He also became friends with women who were the first generation of women to study at University. He had had several romantic relationships with boys and young men and seems to have been bisexual. His longest relationship with a young woman was with Katherine “Ka” Cox... She was the daughter of a liberally minded stockbroker who had encouraged her to go to University. Rupert was determined to be a writer and on leaving Cambridge, began to write poems.. being part of the "Georgian School"..He fitted in well with the romantic image of a poet, especially one who wrote about rural life. The Georgian school of poetry covered traditional subjects and was not modern in its writing style. Brooke’s poems were occasionally mildly shocking in their subject matter and sometimes involving "black comedy" but he was not an innovator.

Paul Scott writer

Paul Scott was born in London in 1920, the son of a Yorkshire man who had had a business as a commercial artist. Paul was sent to a good private school, but his father’s business failed when he was 14, and he had to leave. He took office jobs, to earn a living... But he had no qualifications- . He learned book keeping but tried to write in his spare time. War broke out in 1939, and Scott was conscripted… He went in as a private soldier but was commissioned in 1943. He was sent to India, and was working in the Intelligence Corps, ending the War as a captain. He found India overwhelming, the heat, the poverty and the masses of people shook him. But he grew to love the country and he was appalled by the racist attitudes of the British. India gave him inspiration to write. He had married early in the War, and was to have 2 daughters. After the ending of the War, he took a job as accountant to two small publishing houses and moved on to a literary agency. However, his own early novels did not do very well… Most of his novels were set in India or the East and covered themes like male friendship, and racial issues. He believed that he had a “great novel” on India within him but was forced to try and keep on earning a living. In 1964, he made a visit to India for the first time in many years. He hoped it would inspire him. He had suffered from ill-health for some years. He was glad to see India again, and to see how independence had worked out. Scott was by now a very heavy drinker. His wife had always been loyal to him, but as time passed, his drinking and occasional bouts of violence led her to separate from him. Paul wrote the first Volume of the Raj Quartet in 1964, after his return from India (The Jewel in the Crown). It had some resemblance to E.M. Forster’s novel, A Passage to India... in that it was about The British in India and centred on a possible rape. In Passage to India, Adela Quested, a young English woman who wants to “see the real India”, goes to visit the country. She tries to be friendly with the Indians, and is bothered by her fiancé’s dismissive attitude to them. She then believes that she has been sexually assaulted in a cave, on an outing... And her initial reaction is shock and horror. Scott’s novels are set during World War II, and again centre on an English woman and her interactions with the Indian people. His heroine, Daphne Manners does fall in love with an Indian man, Hari Kumar, who has been educated in England and is anglicized. Because of the situation in India, it is difficult for them to find places they can meet socially. Hari feels he does not fit in, here in his home country but he is looked down on by the British. To the Indians, he is too English and he feels ill at ease with them. To the British, he is just another Indian and not seen in any way as an equal. Eventually, the the young couple make love in a public garden at night. But they are attacked by some Indian men who rape Daphne. From this event, there are repercussions. Hari Kumar is blamed for it, though Daphne insists that it was not him who raped her... Scott’s 4 novels cover the War and its aftermath, coming up to the ending of “British India “. It covers the riots and killings that happened when India became independent and was partitioned. The last Novel is called “Division of the Spoils." The conflict over the rape leads to the death of the unsympathetic but intriguing Merrick, an Englishman in the police service. Merrick is of a lower class than most of the "British in India " and the police service does not have the cachet of the Army or the Civil Service. So when he meets the well spoken Anglicised Hari Kumar, he is angry and envious....The novels were published in the 1960s and 1970s, but were not that popular with the public though they attracted some critical admiration. Paul Scott was living in Hampstead at the time of the writing. He was working very hard, and his health was getting worse but he continued to labor on until his death..at the early age of 57. He wrote “Staying On” which was a sort of coda to the Quartet in 1978. It was televised, drawing attention to his works. It was set years after the end of the Raj, about an elderly English couple who had “stayed on” in India after independence. The couple, Tusker and Lucy, had appeared in the Quartet. In Staying On, the husband Tusker dies, leaving his wife alone. The TV adaptation was well liked and led to the commissioning of a large scale TV adaptation of the Raj Quartet which aired in the 1980s... It made stars of many actors including Art Malik and Geraldine James. Tim Piggott Smith, an excellent actor, played Merrick…. The TV adaptation was shot in India, and was massively successful and led to a greater interest in Paul Scott’s work. Scott's life was tragic in many ways, with his heavy drinking, leading to a break up in his marriage, and the long years of struggle before he managed to write his great work...

Philip Larkin Part II

Larkin started writing, but many of his works were spoof semi-pornographic parodies of “girls school stories”. Critics have felt that he was trying to work out his confused sexuality and compensating for a certain lack of success with women. His home background had not been a very happy one, in some ways. Although his parents were indulgent to him, they were not on good terms and there was a lack of warm affection in the household. He remained dutifully attached to his mother but she was demanding and difficult. His father had been domineering and had had sympathy with Nazism. Coupled with his shyness and awkwardness, this made Larkin very clumsy with women and also very reluctant to commit to anyone. When at Belfast, he started the series of affairs that went on for most of his life. He had 3 women whom he saw simultaneously, being unwilling to marry or settle for any one of them. The first woman was Monica Jones, a lecturer. He started a relationship with Maeve Brennan, an Irishwoman who worked in Hull University’s library. She was a devout Catholic but in time, she became his mistress. He also began a relationship with Betty who was his personal secretary at the library, which continued for 20 years. In spite of his very “ordinary” middle class lifestyle, he seems to have stubbornly refused to follow conventional middle class mores, and get married and have a family….. He wrote a couple of short novels at Oxford (as well as the spoof school stories).. He also wrote poetry, under the influence of Yeats’ more symbolistic works… However in Belfast, he began to find his own voice as a poet. He wrote of ordinary things, had a gloomy and pessimistic viewpoint and used slangy and vulgar language at times in the poems. He believed that the image of England as a rural meaningful place where there was a sense of national community was passing away, and would not come back...and he was sad about it. He saw the country as increasingly fragmented and empty... He wrote sadly about families... stating baldly that “They F-ck you up, your Mum and Dad”… the poem ends with the gloomy lines “Get out as early as you can.. and don’t have any kids yourself”….which seems to fit in with his own refusal to marry and have children.

Philip Larkin Part I

Philip Larkin is one of the better English poets of the 20th century... but is also famous for having controversial views and for his profession, his being a librarian. He led a very dull life, in many ways, working as a University librarian. He did not aim at anything more glamorous like being a TV pundit or academic lecturer….He spent much of his life in the provincial university of Hull...(Unlike the older Universities like Oxford and Cambridge). He was born in Coventry in the heart of the English provinces and seemed to be born to lead a dull provincial life. His parents were Sydney Larkin and his wife.. They lived in Radford, part of Coventry. They were doing OK financially. His father was comfortably middle class with a good job in local government. His mother was a rather difficult passively demanding woman. She was dominated by her husband and their marriage was not a very happy one... Probably this was why Philip was always reluctant to commit wholly to marriage or any woman. He had one sister who was a lot older than him. His father was very right wing and had a serious interest in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Sydney attended Nuremberg Rallies and sympathized with the Germans. He had swastikas decorating his house, and did not apparently take them down till War was declared in 1939. It was not a warm household and the Larkins did not mix much with friends or neighbors. But Philip seemed happy enough with his family, when young. He went to grammar school and did very well, making friends and enjoying school. He loved jazz music, and his parents were indulgent enough to buy him a drum kit. He didn’t do well in his first exams at 16, but he stayed on at school another year, then passed his entrance exams for Oxford. Philip went to Oxford in 1940 when he was 18. He had poor eyesight and so was not able to join the army. This meant he was able to undertake a full degree course. Many of the male students were on shorter courses, due to war service. He was a highly intelligent young man but was rather awkward and plain looking with a bit of a stammer. He made friends, including the novelist, Kingsley Amis... But he was not very successful with girls. After college, he started to train as a librarian and got a job in Wellington, Shropshire. When he qualified as a university librarian, he got another job in a college in Leicester. He seemed to fit into provincial Britain of the 40s and 50s. The country had won the War, but had “lost the Peace” being left with enormous debts, suffering from poverty, bomb damage and a general feeling of depression. His father died of cancer in 1948, and Philip proposed to his then girlfriend, Ruth Bowman. Their relationship broke up when he got another job at Queen’s University Belfast and moved there.

Tammy Wynnette Part II

In the 1960’s women were becoming more noticed in the country music world as songwriters and artists, rather than just as “pretty girl singers” or support acts. The young Dolly Parton had moved to Nashville, and started a song writing career as well as singing. Country music was still like the rest of America, a sexist world, but there was a beginning of recognition. So it was ironic that Tammy’s best known hit “Stand by Your Man” was seen by many budding feminists as a highly controversial and reactionary song. But the message of the song was somewhat two edged... in that men were apt to stray and make mistakes but that a woman was strong enough “if she loved him” to forgive him and tolerate them. Tammy divorced her second husband, Don Chapel in 1968. She married George Jones; who was by then a successful artist. The couple were married for several years and were seen as a successful glamorous “country couple” like Johnny Cash and June Carter. However, due to George’s alcoholism and difficult behaviour, they divorced in the 1970's. George adopted her daughters. Tammy was a woman of her time... She was independent and willing to work hard to support herself.. And in other ways she was often submissive. There were rumours that she suffered domestic violence. But in spite of the "Stand By your Man" song.. she did not stick around all the time.. She walked out on various men to follow her dreams. She left her first husband, Euple, because he had laughed at her belief that she could be a music star. However she always renewed her beauty operator’s license every year, just in case she had to go back to earning a living in a day job. After the divorce from George Jones, she and he continued to work together.. duetting. She had numerous health problems, including scarring from a hysterectomy.. She had to have several major surgeries, though she managed to keep on touring. In the 1980s, due to her many ailments, she had developed an addiction to painkillers, which further weakened her health. She sought treatment in the Betty Ford Clinic. At the age of 55, she died from a blood clot, asleep on her couch….

Tammy Wynnette Part I

Tammy Wynnette was born in Mississippi in 1941, the daughter of a farmer. Her birth name was Virginia Wynnette Pugh. Her father died when she was a baby - so her mother was left badly off. Mildred Pugh had to leave her daughter in the care of her own parents, while she took a job in a defence plant. Tammy grew up without much in the way of material comforts. Her mother got married again, to a farmer called Foy Lee. Tammy attended high school but married young, to a construction worker, Euple Byrd, who was not very good at holding down a job. She had to take low paying jobs to help support herself and their children. She worked at jobs like waitress, and barmaid, but then went to Beauty College and trained as a hairdresser. She had dreams of becoming a singer but her husband was far from supportive and she left him after the birth of their third child. In 1965, she appeared briefly on TV and then in 1966 she moved with her three daughters to Nashville. She finally succeeded in getting a recording contract and had a hit with a Johnny Paycheck song, “Apartment Number 9”. She changed her name, using her middle name, Wynnette and called herself Tammy after the heroine of a film with Debbie Reynolds. Her first hit was followed by "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad” which did even better on the country charts.