Lee, Laurie

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English writer. His autobiographical Cider with Rosie (1959) is a classic evocation of childhood; subsequent volumes are As I Walked Out One Summer Morning (1969), and A Moment of War (1991), in which he describes the horrors of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. His travel writing includes A Rose for Winter (1955). Selected Poems was published in 1983. One of Lee's great strengths as a writer was his ability to play the inconspicuous observer, always reluctant to identify himself overtly with the characters and events in his work. His evocation of his Gloucestershire childhood conjures up a vanished world that, despite its rigours, seems attractive to people in the modern-day world.

Born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, he left school at 15, working as an errand boy and then a builder's labourer. He spent time in Spain and then worked as a journalist and scriptwriter, before working for the Ministry of Information. He married Catherine Francesca Polge in 1950.

Blue is the colour of the People's United Party. Sub umbra floreo, ‘I flourish in the shade’, is the national motto. Effective date: late 1980s. >>