Denys Val Baker

Denys Val Baker (24 October 1917 – 6 July 1984) was a Welsh writer, specialising in short stories, novels, and autobiography. He was also known for his activities as an editor, and promotion of the arts in Cornwall.

Early years

Born Denys Baker in Poppleton, York, North Riding of Yorkshire on 24 October 1917 where
his father, Welsh born Valentine Henry Baker, was stationed as a pilot instructor during World War I. His mother was Dilys Eames, who was from Anglesey in North Wales and had played harp at the National Eisteddfod of 1901. He grew up in Sussex and eventually lived with his parents in Surbiton, then in Surrey, now in Greater London.

Val Baker was always proud of being of Celtic ancestry; he considered himself to be more Welsh than English, and this was an influence in his writings.

A lifelong pacifist and vegetarian, he registered as a conscientious objector in June 1939, prior to World War II, and volunteered to join a group of some 200 COs sailing to Jersey in May 1940 to work on the tomato and potato harvests. The impending German invasion of the Channel Islands led to the return of half of the COs, including Val Baker. He became secretary of a pacifist community, Youth House, in Camden Town. and carried out rescue work in London during the Blitz.

Career

Val Baker showed an interest in writing from when a young man. He was particularly drawn to the short story format, which was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and he would send stories to many magazines. Thanks to his father’s contacts with the
Harmsworth family, Val Baker managed to get a job as a reporter on the ''Derby Evening Telegraph'', one of the Harmsworth family’s regional titles, and stayed there for three years. After that he moved to London where he worked as a jobbing journalist on various trade papers.

He was by now beginning to supplement his income through freelance journalism and sales of short stories to the many literary magazines that were popular in the days before television. He had by this time legally changed his surname to Val Baker in honour of his father, who had died in a flying accident in 1942.

Val Baker started publishing his own quarterly magazine ''Opus'', (later to be renamed ''Voices'') in the early forties featuring stories, poems and reviews by his contemporaries- many of whom went on to be well-known writers. In 1943 he produced the first of his annual ''Little Reviews Anthologies'' through Allen & Unwin, which presented the best of that year's output from the country’s many literary magazines. There were also a series of anthologies of short stories by British and international writers.

As a writer of fiction his career really started with ''Selected Stories'', which was a little stapled paperback issued in 1944. This was quickly followed by ''Worlds Without End'', a hardback published in 1945, and then his first novel ''The White Rock'' in the same year. The latter was also published in US and the Netherlands. A second novel ''The More We Are Together'' soon followed and then a third ''The Widening Mirror'' in 1949.

Val Baker was also increasing his output of short stories, many of which were not only published in magazines, but also read on the
BBC
...