Alan Ross
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Alan John Ross, (6 May 1922 – 14 February 2001), was a British poet and editor. He was born in Calcutta, India, where he spent the first seven years of his life. When he was sent to be educated in Falmouth, England, Ross spoke better Hindustani than English.
In 1940 he went to read modern languages at St John's College, Oxford, where he was a contemporary of Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis. Ross represented the university at both cricket and Squash but did not complete his studies after joining the Royal Navy in 1941.
During his first two years in the Navy, Ross served on several destroyers escorting supply ships to the Soviet Union. On 30 December 1942 Ross was almost killed whilst serving aboard HMS Onslow when he was trapped in the ship's hold, which was flooding, before he was rescued. This moment was immortalised in his poem J.W.51B a convoy.
After he was demobilised in 1946 Ross decided not to resume his studies at Oxford but instead tried his hand at journalism. In 1946 his first poetry collection The Derelict Day was published, it contained poems he had written whilst in the Navy. The following year the publisher John Lehmann funded Ross and the artist John Minton to travel to Corsica to produce the travel book Time Was Away.
In 1949 Ross married Jennifer Fry, only daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fry, Bt. of the Frys who founded the chocolate company. He became a sports writer for The Observer in 1950 and became the paper's cricket correspondent in 1953, the same year his son was born. Throughout the 1950s Ross was a regular contributor to Lehmann's London Magazine, before taking over as the title's editor in 1961. He edited the monthly magazine until his death, during this period it transformed from an academic literary review to a far more cutting edge review of the arts.
[edit] Bibliography
- The Derelict Day (1947)
- Time Was Away (1948)
- Poems 1942-67 (1967)
- The Taj Express (1973)
- Open Sea (1975)
- Death Valley (1980)
- Blindfold Games (1986)
- Coastwise Lights (1988)
- Reflections on Blue Water (2000)
[edit] Major works on Cricket
- Australia 55 (1955)
- Cape Summer and the Australians in England (1956)
- Through the Caribbean (1960)
- Australia 63 (1963)
- Ranji : Prince of Cricketers (1983)
- A cricketers companion (ed) (1960). Republished as Kingswood book of cricket (1979)
- Green fading into blue (1999) (Writings on sport)
[edit] References
- Ross, Alan (1986). Blindfold Games. London, Collins Harvill. ISBN 0-00-272773-0.
- Ross, Alan (1988). Coastwise Lights. London, Collins Harvill. ISBN 0-00-271767-0.
