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.
Denys was always proud of being of Celtic ancestry, and he considered himself to be more Welsh than English, and this was an influence in his writings.
A lifelong pacifist and vegetarian, he was secretary of a pacifist community in Camden Town. He registered as a conscientious objector in World War II, and carried out rescue work in London during the Blitz.
Read more about this topic: Denys Val Baker
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“Today’s pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase “early ripe, early rot!””
—David Elkind (20th century)
“I put away my brushes; resolutely crucified my divine gift, and while it hung writhing on the cross, spent my best years and powers cooking cabbage. “A servant of servants shall she be,” must have been spoken of women, not Negroes.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm, U.S. newspaperwoman, abolitionist, and human rights activist. Half a Century, ch. 8 (1880)