Antony Woodward is a British writer (born 1963). He is best known as the author of the 2001 flying memoir ''Propellerhead'', and the 2010 gardening memoir ''The Garden in the Clouds'', an account of moving with his wife and family to a Welsh mountain-top to create an unlikely garden, Tair-Ffynnon, fit to open to the public. Previously, Woodward worked as an advertising

copywriter Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. The product, called copy or sales copy, is written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a person or ...

at various London advertising agencies including

Collett Dickenson Pearce Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners (CDP) was a British advertising agency which operated from 1960 till 2000. It was founded by John Pearce and Ronnie Dickenson who bought an existing agency owned by John Collett. The agency played a pivotal ro ...

(CDP).

Early life

Woodward was born in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

and grew up in the

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the Frome valley in the east, the hills ...

in Somerset. His father, Dr Peter Woodward, was an

x-ray crystallographer X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...

and lecturer in

inorganic chemistry Inorganic chemistry deals with synthesis and behavior of inorganic and organometallic compounds. This field covers chemical compounds that are not carbon-based, which are the subjects of organic chemistry. The distinction between the two disci ...

Bristol University , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

. His mother, Dr Elizabeth Davies (granddaughter of Liberal politician Sir William Howell Davies) was a botanical

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processe ...

. Woodward's mother became reliant on a wheelchair following a riding accident in 1968. It was this fact, according to Woodward, along with growing up in a

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

house, which drove the craving for wildness he describes in ''The Garden in the Clouds''.

Education

Woodward was educated at

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England * Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States * Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...

and Selwyn College,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

(where he was an

Exhibitioner An exhibition is a type of scholarship award or bursary. United Kingdom and Ireland At the universities of Dublin, Oxford, Cambridge and Sheffield, at some public schools, and various other UK educational establishments, an exhibition is a sma ...

). Aged 28 he went to St Peter's College,

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

as a postgraduate to study

History of Art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetic vis ...

, also attending Florence University on an Italian Institute scholarship, before completing an MA in

Architectural History The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. The beginnings of all these traditions is thought to be humans satisfying the very basic need of shelt ...

at the

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious specialist coll ...

in 1993.

Career

From 1986 to 1991 Woodward worked as an advertising copywriter at Mavity Gilmore Jaume, Still Price Court Twivy D'Souza and Collett Dickenson Pearce. After two years as a postgraduate, Woodward returned to copywriting from 1994 to 2001 (Ammirati Puris Lintas,

Publicis Publicis Groupe is a French multinational advertising and public relations company. One of the oldest and largest marketing and communications companies in the world by revenue, it is headquartered in Paris. After 1945, the little-known Paris ...

) while writing his first book. He has also written columns for the ''Independent on Sunday'', ''Perspectives on Architecture'', ''Tatler'' and ''Country Life''

Personal life

Woodward had a near-death escape in 1996 when he crashed his

microlight Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and conventional three-axis control aircraft with ailer ...

aircraft into electricity cables near Lockerbie during the 1996 Round Britain Rally – an event recounted in ''Propellerhead''. Woodward is married to Verity Williams, a former board director of the advertising agency

AMV BBDO AMV BBDO is an advertising agency that works with over 85 brands, including BT, Diageo, Walkers, and Mars. AMV campaigns may incorporate digital, social, experiential, print or broadcast media. AMV is part of the BBDO network, the third-larg ...

. They have three children.

Publications

* 2001 – ''Propellerhead'' (HarperCollins) * 2007 – ''The Wrong Kind of Snow: The Complete Daily Companion to the British Weather'', with Rob Penn (Hodder & Stoughton. * 2010 – ''The Garden in the Clouds'' (HarperCollins) ''Propellerhead'' is a

bildungsroman In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood ( coming of age), in which character change is impo ...

cataloguing Woodward's serial misadventures as he attempts to achieve pilot status to facilitate his stated aim of seducing women – one woman in particular, known throughout the book as 'Lift Girl'. In the process he inadvertently becomes obsessed with flying. ''The Wrong Kind of Snow'', co-written with Rob Penn, is a weather almanac doubling as a meteorological history of Britain. 'An idiosyncratic accumulation of strange weather-related factoids, quotes and anecdotes'. 'It is arranged in calendar format, a day to a page, and combines... tales of monster snowfalls... with first-hand accounts and weather-themed quotes from writers and poets.' ''The Garden in the Clouds'' recounts Woodward's attempts to connect with the inner countryman he never found as a rural child. This he sets about by first seeking out his 'ultimate rural hideaway' – a cottage on a bleak mountain top – then trying to create a garden there: his way, he says, to 'consummate' his relationship with his idyll. The narrative touches on various linked themes: the true impulses behind the desire to garden; the meaning of place; the joys of winter; the human search for paradise – in particular the 'garden in our heads' that we all supposedly carry around and which hypnotists like to access to make their subjects relax.

Critical reception.

''Propellerhead''

On publication different commentators said the book reminded them of the writings of

Redmond O'Hanlon Redmond O'Hanlon, FRGS, FRSL (born 5 June 1947) is an English writer and scholar. Life O'Hanlon was born in 1947 in Dorset, England. He was educated at Marlborough College and then Oxford University. After taking his M.Phil. in nineteenth-ce ...

Roger Deakin Roger Stuart Deakin (11 February 1943 – 19 August 2006) was an English writer, documentary-maker and environmentalist. He was a co-founder and trustee of Common Ground, the arts, culture and environment organisation. ''Waterlog'', the ...

Jonathan Raban Jonathan Raban (born 14 June 1942, Hempton, Norfolk, England) is a British travel writer, critic, and novelist. He has received several awards, such as the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award, t ...

and T.H.White. ''Propellerhead'' made several best-seller lists and was critically well received. 'What Nick Hornby did for football, Antony Woodward has done for flying ... Wonderful' (''Observer''). 'Woodward has a gift for storytelling and comic timing and his acute awareness of the absurdities of maleness make this an impossible book not to like' (''Independent''). 'Hugely engaging ... a true love affair, albeit with clouds and air' (''Sunday Telegraph''). 'A brilliant evocation of the thrill and romance of the sport' (''Sunday Express''). ''Propellerhead'' has remained continuously in print since publication and on its tenth anniversary, in 2011, was described by ''Pilot'' magazine as 'one of the best books ever written about flying'.

''The Wrong Kind of Snow''

'Endlessly fascinating, written with flair and a feel for the drama of the moment' said the ''Financial Times''.

''The Garden in the Clouds''

'You start to see where all gardeners get their pleasures and compulsions' – ''The Times''. 'I set out determined to dislike the book, and I completely failed to do so. There can be no higher praise than that.' – ''The Spectator''. ''The Garden in the Clouds'' was a winner of the National Trust and Hay Festival Outdoors Books of the Year 2011, was a Book of the Year in ''The Spectator'', ''The Times'' and ''The Tablet'' and was shortlisted for the Banff Mountain Book Prize.

Garden (Tair-Ffynnon)(The Garden in the Clouds)

In 2007, Tair-Ffynnon, the six-acre smallholding in the Brecon Beacons which became the subject of ''The Garden in the Clouds'', was accepted into

The Yellow Book ''The Yellow Book'' was a British quarterly literary periodical that was published in London from 1894 to 1897. It was published at The Bodley Head Publishing House by Elkin Mathews and John Lane, and later by John Lane alone, and edited by th ...

of gardens opening under the

National Gardens Scheme The National Garden Scheme opens privately owned gardens in England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and the Channel Islands on selected dates for charity. It was founded in 1927 with the aim of "opening gardens of quality, character and interest to th ...

for charity. At just over 1,200 feet, Woodward has claimed the garden is the highest in the UK, although this has been disputed. Woodward has cited the influence of

Derek Jarman Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an English artist, film maker, costume designer, stage designer, writer, gardener and gay rights activist. Biography Jarman was born at the Royal Victoria Nursing Home ...

's garden in ''Dungeness'', for its simplicity,

sense of place The term sense of place has been used in many different ways. It is a multidimensional, complex construct used to characterize the relationship between people and spatial settings. It is a characteristic that some geographic places have and some ...

and limited range of local, often wild, plants, herbs and flowers. He has claimed that Tair-Ffynnon is, in his phrase, a 'not garden', because conventional garden features such as lawns, beds, shrubs, even plants, deliberately have no place in it. 'Tair-Ffynnon already was a garden – at least to me. It needed no embellishment. Our "garden" would consist merely of the existing idioms of the hill: the spring, walls, gates, wildflower meadows, stone piles, rusting farm implements. The views and clouds could do the rest.' The garden's few 'features' are site-specific, hill-top ones: an 'infinity vegetable patch'; clipped box balls 'rolling' down through a wild flower meadow; part of the Anglo-Welsh poet Edward Thomas's 'The Lofty Sky' painted onto the wall of a barn facing a take-off point for hang gliders and paragliders. Some commentators have declared the garden 'non-existent'. In 2011 Tair-Ffynnon featured on ITV's

Countrywise ''Countrywise'' (known as ''Countrywise: Guide to Britain'' since 2016) is a British television series on ITV, which looks at the best of Britain's coast and country. The programme is currently presented by Ben Fogle and Liz Bonnin. Format Classi ...

(ITV 14 June 2011) and in 2013 the garden was included in the book ''The Gardens of England: Treasures of the National Gardens Scheme'' (2013).

Television

In 2011 Woodward was followed for the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

'Wonderland' documentary 'The Real Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines'. The programme featured three competing teams as they prepared for and entered the

British Microlight Aircraft Association The British Microlight Aircraft Association (BMAA) is an organisation that governs microlight aircraft in the UK.; it is a member organisation that exists to benefit its members with respect to flying and operating microlight aircraft in the Unite ...

's Round Britain Rally. The event was significant because it was the same rally in which Woodward had crashed so disastrously 15 years earlier and also because it marked the centenary of the original Daily Mail Circuit of Britain Air Race in 1911. Explaining his decision to re-enter the race, aged 48, as a 'routine

midlife crisis A midlife crisis is a transition of identity and self-confidence that can occur in middle age, middle-aged individuals, typically 40 to 60 years old. The phenomenon is described as a psychological crisis brought about by events that highlight a pe ...

', the film demonstrated Woodward's extreme incompetence in the air. The film, especially Woodward's definition of a microlight as 'a chainsaw attached to a deckchair', sparked heated debate within the microlighting fraternity between the 'nutters or eccentrics' on one side and the more serious-minded, anxious to demonstrate the credibility of the sport, on the other.

References

External links

www.thegardenintheclouds.com Official website
* https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5037409 * https://web.archive.org/web/20140523065320/http://www.literaturewales.org/writers-of-wales/i/137084/desc/woodward-antony/ * http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/cr-101193/antony-woodward
The joys of single-engine flying

BBC2 Wonderland, clips from The Real Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
{{DEFAULTSORT:Woodward, Antony 1963 births Living people Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art Alumni of Selwyn College, Cambridge Alumni of St Peter's College, Oxford People educated at Eton College Writers from Bristol