Byron Rogers

I can't remember reading such an out-right entertaining biography before (not that I've read a large number) and certainly never one so funny which is a bit surprising considering the subject, a man many found forbidding, even a little scary. Yet Rogers finds the genuine comedy in the man's life as well as the humour Thomas displayed to the people who could get past the facade to the human underneath.

It seems like Thomas found it very difficult to express his emotions in any way other than through his poetry. This caused many problems, leaving his only child extremely bitter, for instance, and alienating many who he could not engage with on an intellectual front. Yet many of his parishioners found him endlessly patient and considerate in times of trouble, illness or bereavement. And so it goes on, developing a picture of a compicated man, full of contradictions, in search of something he never really found, that he probably couldn't name. Perhaps closest to it when bird watching, alone in a wild space.

Rogers, who knew Thomas, also offers helpful insight into the poetry and the social context of Wales in Thomas's lifetime, necessary to anything but a superficial understanding of the man. I strongly recommend that anyone interested in R.S. Thomas, the man or the poet, read this - it won't be a chore.… (meer)

Here's a wonderful thing. I recently read a novel called "A Month In The Country" by JL Carr. The book was first published in 1980, won the Guardian Fiction Prize that year, and was also nominated for the Booker Prize. It is also a masterpiece and you should read it. I then read another - very different - book by JL Carr based on his years as a head teacher called "The Harpole Report". It was very good. I was now intrigued by JL Carr, and so I read a biography called "The Last Englishman: The Life of J. L. Carr" written by his friend, the journalist and writer Byron Rogers. The biography was excellent, and reading it prompted me to look at other books by Byron Rogers. So, a few weeks later, I read "Me: The Authorised Biography".

The first thing to say is it's a wonderful autobiography. Whilst only half way through, I bought a copy for my Welsh brother-in-law. I concluded that the only thing that might make it more enjoyable would be a Welsh ancestry for added resonance and recognition. That said, although Byron Rogers calls it an autobiography, much of the book is devoted to other people. The first chapter quite brilliantly describes how, in the 1980s, Byron Rogers started to receive lurid and explicit letters from women who were in awe of his sexual prowess. A man, with a case full of Bryon Rogers' press clippings, was passing himself off as Byron Rogers. From this surreal and amusing opening, the book rewinds back to Byron Roger's childhood and then, over the course of the rest of the book, meanders back to old age.

The main theme is just how much things have changed in a generation or three. This is a topic that always fascinates me. The book is full of wonderful vignettes that illustrate this change. These include growing up in a staunchly methodist family in the 1950s; being educated in a Carmarthen grammar school; working on a regional newspaper; working for The Times and the Telegraph; writing speeches for Prince Charles; characters in his local pub; the life and death of an eccentric friend; and so on. Every page contains a strange incident, or a hilarious anecdote, or a bizarre image. It's a very enjoyable read. The only criticism I can find to level is that the book is a bit incoherent and goes off on all kinds of tangents, however that didn't impinge on my enjoyment and I will definitely be reading more books by Byron Rogers.… (meer)

The Last Englishman: the Life of J.L. Carr by Byron Rogers

"He was the Last Englishman"

I first became aware of J.L. Carr having read his novel "A Month In The Country". It is one of the best books I have ever read. It is rare that I have felt so powerfully affected by a story. In short, it's a masterpiece, and one that I look forward to re-reading. A few days after finishing "A Month In The Country", I read another J.L. Carr novel "The Harpole Report" - a very different book, both in terms of style and content, but a great read. So, by now, I was very intrigued by J.L. Carr. Who was he? How did he come to write two such contrasting books? Fortunately his friend, and journalist, Byron Rogers wrote this biography of J.L. Carr that was published in 2003.

I am very grateful to Byron Rogers for such a readable and thorough account of the unusual J.L. Carr. I tend to overuse the word maverick, however can confidently label J.L. Carr as a maverick. In short he was brought up in a staunchly Methodist, and deeply religious, family in the North East of England; he was a teacher, and head teacher; was a photographer in the RAF during the war; spent time in South Dakota teaching; played amateur football; campaigned for the preservation of a disused village church; and, upon retiring, became both a writer and a publisher. That, however, is but a fraction of what defined this fascinating character. It is his intellect, idiosyncrasies, values, determination, and originality, that make this book worth reading. Not only are all his novels biographical, and therefore this biography provides helpful and illuminating insights, his is also one of the most unusual lives I can imagine - despite hiding behind a facade of profound ordinariness. J.L. Carr died on 26 February 1994, and that was, to quote Byron Rogers, "the last day of his life and the only one in which he had not been fully conscious."

I will be reading the rest of J.L. Carr's novels, and my enjoyment and understanding will be greatly enhanced by this splendid biography. I heartily recommend it: interesting and inspiring.

Finally, I should mention that The Quince Tree Press, J.L. Carr's small publishing company, is still in business, and is run by J.L. Carr's son and daughter-in-law. All J.L. Carr's novels are available, in addition to to a range of pocket books, and J.L. Carr's maps of English counties. I intend to foist them on my friends and relatives at Christmas and/or on their birthdays.… (meer)

This is a quite wonderful book of essays, although it's very hard to describe as none of the words which come to mind quite do it justice. It is charming and offbeat, but both those words make it sound cutesy, which it definitely isn't - there's a desert-dry humour, as well as a deep sense of humanity, behind these essays. (To quote the start of one of the driest, about Rogers' accidental stint as a speechwriter to Prince Charles: "[the Prince's Private Secretary] had always been careful of speech to the point where you fancied you saw semicolons form in air. But this time he sounded as though English were a foreign language in which he was taking an oral exam.")

Rogers' interest is in English villages, and the individual human lives within them, both now and the traces that are left from the past. He has an eye for the quirky - one essay deals with what "the last Turkish POW in British hands", a tortoise captured at Gallipoli - but in fact, his interest is in the tortoise's owner, and how the story of the tortoise came to define his life. Even when he's writing about Roman tombstones, Rogers manages to bring to life the individual characters buried under them.

Truly a gem.

Recommended for: anyone with an indulgent eye for English eccentricity.… (meer)