Leslie Allen Paul (1905,

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

– 1985, Cheltenham) was an Anglo-Irish writer and founder of the

Woodcraft Folk Woodcraft Folk is a UK-based educational movement for children and young people. Founded in 1925 and grown by volunteers, it has been a registered charity since 1965 Registered Charity since 2013. and a registered company limited by guarantee s ...

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Life

Early life

Born in Dublin on 30 April 1905, Leslie Paul grew up in Honor Oak, the second child of advertising manager Frederick Paul and registered nurse, Lottie Burton. The family was fairly large, consisting of three sons and two daughters including younger siblings Joan and Douglas.*W. H. Saumarez Smith, 'Paul, Leslie Allen (1905–1985)’, rev., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 During his materially poor but culturally rich childhood, Paul contributed dramatic poetry recitations to family/neighbourhood entertainments. He later recalled performing a vignette called 'Two Coons', which gave a sympathetic representation of African culture.

Young manhood: between the wars

By the summer of 1922, Paul was a junior ledger clerk employed in the city (near Aldgate) at the International Stores on a weekly salary of 22 s. 6 d. In 1923 he joined his father's firm ''Pantlin and Paul'' in Fleet Street, hoping to find a way into freelance journalism. He actually succeeded in becoming editor of a magazine called 'The open Road', but the magazine failed after only six months. During that six months Paul attempted to become a freelance journalist, and wrote the unpublished 'The Journal of a Sun Worshipper'. During this period Paul came under the mentorship of Charles Watson, a retired unionist, bookseller and Swedenborgian. Watson loaned Paul books from his bookshop which were to have a major influence on Paul's political and social thinking. Another influence was Harold Laski, whose powers of oratory influenced Paul's thinking and writing style. During the 1930s Paul seems to have worked as a freelance journalist. He was also employed in London educational and social work, as well as working on the continent with refugees. He was a tutor with the London County Council as well as the Workers' Educational Association. In 1932 Paul published his strongly autobiographical first novel 'Fugitive Morning'. Paul's political views at this time were inspired by

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
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William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

, and

Edward Carpenter Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929) was an English utopian socialist, poet, philosopher, anthologist, an early activist for gay rightsWarren Allen Smith: ''Who's Who in Hell, A Handbook and International Directory for Human ...

, while his ideas about children's education were partly drawn from Rousseau's '' Emile''. In addition, Paul was also active in the pacifist No More War Movement.Martin Ceadel, ''Pacifism in Britain, 1914–1945 : the defining of a faith''. Oxford : Clarendon Press ; 1980. (p. 294, 303) Paul was an outspoken critic of the

Axis powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...

, as well as the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

following the latter nation's signing of the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those powers to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ri ...

. After the outbreak of World War Two and the rise of fascism, Paul abandoned his pacifism and supported the British war effort.

Creation of the Woodcraft Folk (1925)

After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Paul had become deeply involved with scouting and related youth movements. He left the Scouts to join the

Kibbo Kift The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift was a camping, hiking and handicraft group with ambitions to bring world peace. It was the first of three movements in England associated with the charismatic artist and writer John Hargrave (1894–1982). The Kindred ...

Kindred but after a dispute with the

leader,

John Hargrave John Gordon Hargrave (6 June 1894 – 21 November 1982), (woodcraft name 'White Fox'), was a prominent youth leader in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s, Head Man of the Kibbo Kift, described in his obituary as an 'author, cartoonist, inve ...

in 1925, some south London co-operative groups challenged Hargrave's authoritarian tendencies. The dispute was over his refusal to recognise a local group called "The Brockley Thing". The result was that in 1925 Paul and some other members broke away to form a new group, the

(which is still active). Although the Woodcraft Folk was the work of several people, Paul— its most eloquent member and its first leader— came to be seen as its founder and representative.

Derek Wall Derek Norman Wall (born 26 May 1965) is a British politician and former member of the Green Party of England and Wales. He was the joint International Coordinator for the Green Party and stood against Prime Minister Theresa May as the Maidenhea ...

, '' Green History : A Reader in Environmental Literature, Philosophy and Politics'' Routledge, 1993. (pp. 228–229 232–34)

World War II

During the Second World War Paul served in the Middle East with the Army Educational Corps, and also taught at Mount Carmel College. When

Simone Weil Simone Adolphine Weil ( , ; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Over 2,500 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her work, since 1995. ...

died in Ashford, Kent, in August 1943 Paul paid £12 for a burial plot. This event is commemorated in his poem 'Lady Whose Grave I Own'. The war prompted Paul to return to his childhood Christian faith. He recorded his spiritual journey in his book The Annihilation of Man (1944), which received the Atlantic Award for literature in 1946. It had been nominated for the award by T. S. Eliot. After the Second World War Paul became an active member of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

. He moved away from the radically orientated Woodcraft Folk, and later became a professional clergyman. His most significant act within the Church was the production of his report on "The deployment and payment of the clergy" (1964), which led to extensive modernisation of the Church's organisational structure. He was employed as tutor at the Ashridge College of Citizenship (1947–8), and later as Director of Studies at Brasted Place Theological College (1953–7). Paul served as lecturer in ethics and social studies at Queen's College, Birmingham (1965–70), and on the General Synod (1970–5).

Later years

During the first half of the 1980s Paul was writer in residence at the College of St Paul and St Mary, Cheltenham, occupying a basement flat (accompanied by a black and white cat) in Shurdington Road. During this time he mentored young college and local writers through organized group readings, and co-edited the college poetry magazine, ''Cresset'', to which he contributed his poetry, including ''Meditations on the Four Quartets''. In 1984 Paul bequeathed or sold his personal library, and students Kim Lidstone and Angus Whitehead catalogued the library before it was moved. One memorable discovery was a paperback edition of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's "Psychopathia Sexualis". According to the

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

, Paul spent his later years living in Madley, Herefordshire. He died in Cheltenham General Hospital on 8 July 1985, after a heart attack.

Influences

During the first half of the 1980s Paul gave a series of talks on his life and the books that had affected him most profoundly. These included: *

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

, Great Expectations, a novel that Paul read annually. He claimed to have read every Dickens novel by the age of ten. * Rilke, The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge. Rilke's

Duino Elegies The ''Duino Elegies'' (german: Duineser Elegien) are a collection of ten elegies written by the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. He was then "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets", and began t ...

also had a profound effect on Paul's own poetry and thinking. * Boris Pasternak, Dr Zhivago – which Paul considered a a major novel of the twentieth century, resonating with his own visit to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

in 1931. * The writings of

Richard Jefferies John Richard Jefferies (6 November 1848 – 14 August 1887) was an English nature writer, noted for his depiction of English rural life in essays, books of natural history, and novels. His childhood on a small Wiltshire farm had a great influ ...

, a nineteenth-century nature essayist and mystic almost certainly inspired Paul's initial imaginings of the Woodcraft Folk. * A series of experimental novels of

Henry Williamson Henry William Williamson (1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English writer who wrote novels concerned with wildlife, English social history and ruralism. He was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for literature in 1928 for his book ''Tarka ...

. * Paul was proud to consider himself a surviving contemporary of Thomas Hardy. In talks Paul recalled burning a large collection of his poetry as a young man, to his later regret, and he noted that, at almost eighty, he was able to recall minute details from the first twenty years of his life but almost nothing from the years between 1925 and 1945. He recalled T. S. Eliot's friendship and support, and fiercely disputed David Miall's suggestion that Eliot was sympathetic with fascism .

Works

*"Pipes of Pan; Poems" (1927) *"The Ashen Stave, Songs etc" (1928) *"The Folk Trail; An Outline of the Philosophy and Activities of Woodcraft Fellowships" – Woodcraft Folk leaders manual (Noel Douglas, 1929); on the title page Leslie is described as "Little Otter; Headman of the Woodcraft Folk." *"The Green Company" (The C. W. Daniel Co., 1931) *"A Green Love, and Other Poems" (1931) *"Fugitive Morning" (Dennis Archer, 1932) – early novel *"Two One-Act Plays: 'Augustus Intervenes'; 'The Picnic Party'" (1933) *"Periwale: His Odyssey" (Dennis Archer, 1934) – early novel *"Co-operation with the USSR; A Study of the Consumers' Movement" (1934) *"Story Without End; The Junior Book of Co-operation" (1935) *"The Training of Pioneers: The Educational Programme of the Woodcraft Folk" (1936) *"Men in May" (1936) – early novel based on the events of the 1926 General Strike *"The Republic of Children; A Handbook for Teachers of Working Class Children" (Allen & Unwin, 1938) *"The Annihilation of Man" (1945) *"The Living Hedge" (1946) *"Heron Lake" (1948) – diary of a year spent in the Norfolk countryside. *"The Soviet Union" (1948) *"The Meaning of Human Existence" (1949) *"Portrait of an Angry Saint; The Poet Peguy" (1949) *"The Age of Terror" (1950) – on Stalinist Russia. *"Angry Young Man" (1951) – autobiography. The title, pluralised, subsequently became a label for a generation of 1950s British writers, including

Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social a ...

and

Colin Wilson Colin Henry Wilson (26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013) was an English writer, philosopher and novelist. He also wrote widely on true crime, mysticism and the paranormal, eventually writing more than a hundred books. Wilson called his phil ...

, and (over-broadly) applied to authors of "

kitchen sink drama Kitchen sink realism (or kitchen sink drama) is a British cultural movement that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, whose protagonists usually could be described as "angry young men" w ...

s". *"Exile and Other Poems" (1951) *"Sir Thomas More" (1953) *"The English Philosophers" (1953) *"The Adventure of Man, Geographies" (1954) *"The Jealous God; Three Meditations on Christian Discipline" (1955) *"The Boy Down Kitchener Street" (Faber & Faber, 1957) – a novel based on Leslie's childhood in London. Jacket design by Edward Ardizzone. *"Nature into History" (1957) *"Persons and Perception" (1961) *"Son of Man; The Life of Christ" (1961) *"Hot House" (1961) *"Values in Modern Society" (1962) *"The Transition from School to Work; a Report Made to King George's Jubilee Trust and Industrial Welfare Society" (1962) *"Traveller on Sacred Ground" (1963) – journal of his field trip to the Middle East to research 'Son of Man'. *"The Deployment and Payment of Clergy" (1964) *"Alternatives to Christian Belief" (1967) *"The Death and Resurrection of the Church" (1968) *"Coming to Terms with Sex" (1969) *"Eros Rediscovered; Restoring Sex to Humanity" (1970) *"Man's Understanding of Himself" (Hale Memorial Sermon) (1971) *"Journey to Connemara and Other Poems" (1972) *"A Church by Daylight; A Reappraisement of the Church of England and its Future" (1973) *"The Waters and the Wild" (1975) – novel set during the Second World War about two young boys in an East Anglian village. *"First Love; A Journey" (1977) *"Rural Society and the Church; the Herford Consultation" (1977) ith Anthony Russell, Laurence Reading, eds. *"O Pioneers" (1978) – poetry inspired by time spent in America *"Bulgarian Horse" (1978) – a Cold War thriller. *"Springs of Good and Evil; Biblical Themes in Literature" (1979) *"The Early Days of the Woodcraft Folk" – a historical pamphlet (undated, believed written between 1975 and 1980) *"The Secret War Against Hitler" (1984)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paul, Leslie 1905 births 1985 deaths People associated with the Woodcraft Folk People from Forest Hill, London English anti-fascists