Family Background and Early Life
Blythe was born in Acton, Suffolk; he was to be the eldest of six children. His father, who had seen action in the First World War at Gallipoli and in Palestine, came from generations of East Anglian farmers and farm workers. His mother was from London and had worked as a VAD nurse during the war. Blythe can remember as a child seeing the sugarbeet being farmed by men in army greatcoats and puttees.
He was educated at St Peter's and St Gregory's school in Sudbury, Suffolk, and grew up exploring churches, architecture, plants and books. He was, he said, "a chronic reader", immersing himself in French literature and writing poetry.
Read more about this topic: Ronald Blythe
Famous quotes containing the words family, background, early and/or life:
“A family with an old person has a living treasure of gold.”
—Chinese proverb.
“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.)
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“To you, God the Singer, our voices we raise,
to you Song Incarnate, we give all our praise,
to you, Holy Spirit, our life and our breath,
be glory for ever, through life and through death.”
—Peter Davison (20th century)