LONDONFoto:G.Ludovice 2009
Sid Chaplin (1916 - 1986) Sid Chaplin was born on 20 September 1916 in Shildon, Co. Durham. In 1930 he commenced work in a bakery, but by 1931 was working at the Dean and Chapter Colliery in Ferryhill and became an apprentice to a colliery blacksmith in 1932.
In 1939 Sid won a scholarship to the Fircroft Working Men's College, Birmingham, but with the commencement of the Second World War, he returned to mining, working down the pit as a miner at the coal face. He married in 1941 to Irene Rutherford, living in Co. Durham until Sid was offered a post as feature writer on the National Coal Board's publication Coal, when they moved to Essex.
In 1957 he was offered a new post as Public Relations Officer for the Coal Board, based in Newcastle upon Tyne where he lived until his death, having retired in 1972 to concentrate on his writing career. In 1975 he had a heart by-pass operation at Shotley Bridge Hospital, Co. Durham from which he recovered sufficiently to resume his writing and produced two more published volumes of short stories before his untimely death in January 1986.
Initially Sid Chaplin wrote between mining shifts and would often write through the night to create the perfect piece of writing.
By May 1941 this had paid off with the publication of A Widow Wept in Penguin New Writing, edited by John Lehmann. More poems and stories were published in contemporary literary magazines, leading to a compilation of short stories, The Leaping Lad (1946), published by Phoenix House, which won the Atlantic Award in Literature in 1946. Novels, short stories and articles followed and he was a contributor to local and national newspapers and other publications throughout his life.
Quote/fact: Commenting on a Chaplin essay, a teacher once said: "Anyone who can make economics entertaining would be wasting his time on them. I think you should go in for writing."
He received an Honorary Master of Arts from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1978, an Honorary Fellowship from Sunderland Polytechnic (now Sunderland University), 1977 and an OBE in 1977 for his services to the arts and especially for his work at Northern Arts.
Sid Chaplin (1916-86) influenced a generation of writers including David Storey, Stan Barstow and Keith Waterhouse, and his novels and stories enjoyed a popular readership in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on his working-class upbringing and employment in the North-East of England, Chaplin's social observation, humane characters, evocative writing style and authentic dialogue are as fresh and relevant today as when he was alive.
The text of D.T. Taylor's lecture on Writing from the margins: the English regional novel from Sid Chaplin to Julia Darling, which was given at Newcastle's Literary and Philosophical Society on 28th October 2004, is now on their website.
Largely based on information on the Newcastle University website and used with permission and thanks.was a writer (novels, television screenplays, poetry and short stories) whose works are mostly set in the North East England of the 1940s and 50s. It is a commonplace that writers often exploit their families ruthlessly for material; Durham Literature Festival's tribute to Sid Chaplin, turned the tables and gave the writer's family and friends a chance to talk about him. Sid's son Michael Chaplin (himself an experienced journalist and screenwriter) had put together an evening which had the coherence and structure of a dramatic performance, but all the warmth and directness of a family conversation.
Largely based on information on the Newcastle University website and used with permission and thanks.was a writer (novels, television screenplays, poetry and short stories) whose works are mostly set in the North East England of the 1940s and 50s. It is a commonplace that writers often exploit their families ruthlessly for material; Durham Literature Festival's tribute to Sid Chaplin, turned the tables and gave the writer's family and friends a chance to talk about him. Sid's son Michael Chaplin (himself an experienced journalist and screenwriter) had put together an evening which had the coherence and structure of a dramatic performance, but all the warmth and directness of a family conversation.
There was a graceful acknowledgement of the audience, too: one purpose of the event was to celebrate the reissue by Flambard Press of Sid Chaplin's two Newcastle novels, The Day of the Sardine and The Watchers and the Watched, but, said Michael "I thought that coming to Durham to talk about Newcastle wasn't a terribly polite thing to do." Instead, he planned to focus on the area where Sid had lived for much of his life, in the pit villages of County Durham: "Welcome to Sid Chaplin's pit village".The first speaker was Sid's youngest brother, Colin Chaplin. There was an age difference of seventeen years between them, and in some ways his elder brother had taken on almost the rôle of a father: Colin recalled Sid bringing him to Durham to walk along the riverbank under the cathedral, hunting for conkers. This must have been the period of which Sid wrote in the introduction to The Leaping Lad, his first collection of stories: "I served my apprenticeship in bed" - that is, he had learned his craft as a storyteller at night, when it was his task to lull his brothers to sleep with narrative.
Colin's recollections were counterpointed with murmurs of recognition from the audience; many of them remembered the times, people and places he described. Michael's mother, too, was clearly impatient to enlarge on his account, and her turn came next: Rene Chaplin's first recollection of the man she was to marry was that he had spoken at chapel, and had impressed her as altogether too sure of himself!
Edith Kirtley's acquaintance with Sid Chaplin also had its origins at the local Wesleyan Chapel; the young people were not always enthusiastic chapelgoers, but "We didn't mind going to hear Sid - I suppose he was telling us stories." She spoke of Sid's involvement with the Spennymoor Settlement, an extraordinary social, artistic and educational resource set up in the 1930s for the benefit of the people of Spennymoor, many of whom were unemployed. Sid's studies at the Settlement, and its library, enabled him to go to Fircroft College to study economics. His plan was to make a career in politics or the labour movement, but with the war he returned to Ferryhill, to work in the Dean and Chapter Mine, and continue to write.
Rene Chaplin recalled that during this period Sid had built up a substantial collection of rejection slips, but eventually made his first sale: his poem A Widow Wept was published by Penguin New Writing. They paid £5 for it, and Sid spent the money on a dinner service, a gift to his parents for their silver wedding anniversary.
John Bate first met Sid Chaplin during the war, and corresponded thereafter, and since John had kept all of Sid's letters over a period of 46 years, Michael Chaplin was able to read his father's words to the young man who had written to him, hoping to found a magazine, and suggesting they meet. Sid had sent directions about how to find him, and suggested that they might also go to the cinema. It was fascinating to hear this informal scrap of the writer's conversation.
But this was not the only time in the evening that Sid's voice was heard: Live Theatre's Laura Norton read extensive extracts from his writings with freshness and conviction; the young voice fitted perfectly the writer's descriptions of scenes from his boyhood. Her reading of the moving Grace Before Meat, set in the hard times of the 1926 General Strike, showed how regrettable it is that Sid Chaplin's short stories are not currently in print. Laura admitted she had not previously known Sid Chaplin's work, but had greatly enjoyed reading the Durham stories, and as a Newcastle lass herself was now looking forward to reading the two Newcastle novels.
Read David Whetstone's Journal article about this event.
His son is Michael Chaplin
Edith Kirtley's acquaintance with Sid Chaplin also had its origins at the local Wesleyan Chapel; the young people were not always enthusiastic chapelgoers, but "We didn't mind going to hear Sid - I suppose he was telling us stories." She spoke of Sid's involvement with the Spennymoor Settlement, an extraordinary social, artistic and educational resource set up in the 1930s for the benefit of the people of Spennymoor, many of whom were unemployed. Sid's studies at the Settlement, and its library, enabled him to go to Fircroft College to study economics. His plan was to make a career in politics or the labour movement, but with the war he returned to Ferryhill, to work in the Dean and Chapter Mine, and continue to write.
Rene Chaplin recalled that during this period Sid had built up a substantial collection of rejection slips, but eventually made his first sale: his poem A Widow Wept was published by Penguin New Writing. They paid £5 for it, and Sid spent the money on a dinner service, a gift to his parents for their silver wedding anniversary.
John Bate first met Sid Chaplin during the war, and corresponded thereafter, and since John had kept all of Sid's letters over a period of 46 years, Michael Chaplin was able to read his father's words to the young man who had written to him, hoping to found a magazine, and suggesting they meet. Sid had sent directions about how to find him, and suggested that they might also go to the cinema. It was fascinating to hear this informal scrap of the writer's conversation.
But this was not the only time in the evening that Sid's voice was heard: Live Theatre's Laura Norton read extensive extracts from his writings with freshness and conviction; the young voice fitted perfectly the writer's descriptions of scenes from his boyhood. Her reading of the moving Grace Before Meat, set in the hard times of the 1926 General Strike, showed how regrettable it is that Sid Chaplin's short stories are not currently in print. Laura admitted she had not previously known Sid Chaplin's work, but had greatly enjoyed reading the Durham stories, and as a Newcastle lass herself was now looking forward to reading the two Newcastle novels.
Read David Whetstone's Journal article about this event.
His son is Michael Chaplin
im:Wkikipedia and..
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen