Norman Cameron
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J. Norman Cameron (1905 – 1953) was a Scot and a poet, distantly related to Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay who, pre-war, associated on Majorca with Robert Graves and Laura Riding; and later, as a part time Fitzrovian, with Dylan Thomas, Geoffrey Grigson, Len Lye, John Aldridge RA , Alan Hodge and many others. He worked as an advertising copywriter at J. Walter Thompson (being responsible for one classic campaign, Horlicks for night starvation) and at Ogilvy, Benson & Mather.
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[edit] Life
Born in Bombay the eldest of four, following the premature death of his father (a Presbyterian Minister, Chaplain of the Bombay Presidency) in 1913, he and his siblings returned with their mother to Scotland to live in Edinburgh. For his education he went to Alton Burn Preparatory School in Nairn and Fettes College in Edinburgh, where, at 11 years old, he was the youngest boy ever to be admitted to the main school. There he came under the influence of, and retained a friendship with, W.C. Sellar (who would later write '1066 and all that').
He went on to Oriel College, Oxford and his verse was published in Oxford Poetry from 1925 to 1928. Needing money, he taught briefly in Nigeria, working for that Colonial Government's Education Department and then spent time travelling on the European continent, in Germany particularly - where he was to witness starving inmates of a concentration camp being teased by local inhabitants (bread being thrown so that it was only just beyond their reach) - he was thus utterly dismissive of all later German denials of what was happening within these camps.
During the war he worked in London at Broadcasting House for the Political Intelligence Department using his fluency in French and German; in the North African Campaign, from Alexandria, he continued in the same shadowy organisation, where he wrote radio scripts for a comedy series called 'Kurt and Willy', picked up by Rommel's Afrika Korps. At some time, he was parachuted into Yugoslavia as a translator in dealings with Tito, probably with the 1943 mission lead by Fitzroy Maclean. For his work in the war he was awarded an MBE. At the war's end he worked in the British Zone of Austria (then under Four Power Military Occupation) in the British Delegation of the Allied Commission for Austria, in Vienna based at Schonbrunn Palace, restarting the newspapers - during which time he met his Austrian fourth wife, journalist Dr Gretl Bajardi.
Probably his life's worst moment was the serious fire in their flat in Queens Gate, South Kensington in 1951 in which, though all of his own works were saved, his life's collection of considerable works of reference in art and literature was completely destroyed. He told his younger brother Angus (then working in the British Army Staff in Vienna) that he was distraught, that the loss 'was like losing his own soul and one which he thought, perhaps, spelt the end of his writing'.
Speaking of Norman, Dylan Thomas said he was his best friend. He died in London, at home, of a brain haemorrhage, predeceasing Dylan by about six months.
[edit] Work
His poetic output amounted to about 70 poems, he translated works by François Villon, Balzac and Rimbaud and he also translated and contributed to Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944, with ohers including Hugh Trevor-Roper.
With the input from Fettes and then mostly self-taught, he was subtly influenced by his friend Robert Graves and he was, it is said, a poetic disciple of Laura Riding, whom he realised was infringing on his own style. So, whilst he was living in Deià on Mayorca at the same time as Robert, he separated himself, causing considerable consternation to Laura and some loss to his own wealth - but not to his own dignity.
[edit] Works
- The Winter House (1935)
- Work in Hand (1942) with Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, Hogarth Press
- Forgive Me, Sire (1950)
- Collected Poems 1905-1953 (1957) Hogarth Press
- Norman Cameron: Collected Poems and Selected Translations (1990) edited by Warren Hope and Jonathan Barker (published by Anvil Press Poetry ISBN 0 856 202 07 http://www.anvilpresspoetry.com/order.html
[edit] References
- Norman Cameron: His Life, Work and Letters (2000) Warren Hope ISBN 1-871551-05-6
