John C. Moore

 

 Mr. John Moore, novelist, play­wright and broadcaster was born in Tewkesbury, Gloucester­shire.  Educated at Malvern College, he began his working life in the family auctioneering and estate agency business at Tewkesbury, but at an early age took to writing, notably on the countryside.

 

He became firmly established as a novelist with Portrait of Elmbury, which was followed by another widely popular book, Brensham Vil­lage, and his last published novel, The Waters Under the Earth, on which he was engaged for three and a half years, has been printed in seven languages.

 

In 1949, he helped to inaugurate the Cheltenham Festival of Literature (as a companion event to the cele­brated Music Festival, which had be­gun five years earlier) and he was its shaping spirit from then on. He was chairman of the Festival Committee until 1956, when he was joined as co-director by the late Robert Henriques, and even after his retirement in 1964 from a central organising role he continued to make an impor­tant contribution as an ordinary committee member, and as a judge of the Guinness Poetry Competition. In 1956-57 he was chairman of the Society of Authors.

 

Moore wrote about English country life from the inside.  In his work there was none of the townsman's conscious effort in writing about rural England as if it were a picturesque foreign country. If he knew his village hierarchy and vividly portrayed it in his novels he was well aware of change in the countryside; nowhere is this more sharply realised than in The Waters Under the Earth.

 

As he remarked in The Season of the Year, he believed it to be a virtue in itself to do as many things as pos­sible.   It was a virtue he practised: while he could write with great truth and perception about birds and horses and flowers and fishing his life was not bounded by these things.  As a young man he had been a free-lance foreign correspondent in the Spanish Civil War and later he learnt to fly.  He served with distinction in the Second World War in the Fleet Air Arm, which figures in the novels Wits End and Escort Carrier and whose individual flavour he inter­preted so strikingly in a short histori­cal account of the service, The Fleet Air Arm.  It was during this period that in 1944 he married Lucile Douglas Stephens.

 

A prolific author, he wrote plays, among them The White Sparrow and The Elizabethans; books on angling and programmes for radio and tele­vision. Probably his best writing is con­tained in his country essays and country calendars, like The Season of the Year, Come Rain, Come Shine; and The Year of the Pigeons. It was in character that he should have published The Life and Letters of Edward Thomas.   Constable, who also came of yeoman stock, once said:  "There is room for a natural painter."  Moore was a natural writer.  Moore’s last few years were spent writing at Kemerton, a village below the southern slopes of Bredon Hill, not far from his beloved Tewkesbury.

 

 

 

 

John Moore Society

 

The John Moore Society, formed in 1988, offers many benefits to those interested in the work of this widely respected and enjoyed author, much of which is now out of print.  The Society produces a 32 page A4 journal twice a year; June and December full of interesting articles, photographs etc.  If you would like membership details please contact the Society’s Membership Secretary:

 

Phillip Robbins

3 Normandy Close

Hampton Magna

Warwick

CV35 8UB

 

Telephone: 01926 494368

Email: phillrobbins@yahoo.co.uk

 

 

 

John Moore Countryside Museum

 

Dedicated to the memory of John Moore, the museum provides an insight into the wildlife of Tewkesbury and the surrounding area.  Children particularly enjoy the attractive and interesting displays, and the chance to handle wild animals in safe surroundings – although visitors of all ages will find much to entertain and inspire.  The museum with its delightful garden is situated in a restored mediaeval cottage close to Tewkesbury Abbey at 41 Church Street, Tewkesbury, Glos. GL20 5SN, telephone 01684 297174.

 

Opening times: 1^st April – 31^st October, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am – 1pm and 2-5pm.  Open all Bank Holidays during season.  Open at other times by prior arrangement.