Background
Smiley was the 4th and youngest son of Sir John Smiley, 2nd Baronet and Valerie Champion de Crespigny, youngest daughter of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, who was a noted jockey, balloonist, sportsman and adventurer.
His father fought in the Second Boer War between 1899 and 1900 with 4th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and before joining the North of Ireland Imperial Yeomanry (redesignated North Irish Horse in 1908). He gained the rank of Major in the service of the Carabiniers (6th Dragoon Guards) and fought in World War I.
David Smiley was educated at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, Berkshire, England, where he was a noted sportsman.
Some have suggested that John le Carré unconsciously took David Smiley's surname for that of his hero George Smiley.
Read more about this topic: David Smiley
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)