Roynon, Gavin 1936-

views updated

Roynon, Gavin 1936-

PERSONAL:

Education: Worcester College, Oxford.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Berkshire, England.

CAREER:

Writer, editor, historian, and educator. Eton College, instructor and French, German, and history, retired 1999. Military service: Served as a National Service Officer with the 13th/18th Royal Hussars.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Morgan Crofton, Massacre of the Innocents: The Crofton Diaries, Ypres, 1914-1915, foreword by Martin Gilbert, Sutton Publishing (Stroud, Gloucestershire, England), 2004.

(Editor) Georgina Lee, Home Fires Burning: The Great War Diaries of Georgina Lee, foreword by Hew Strachan, Sutton Publishing (Stroud, Gloucestershire, England), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author, editor, and historian Gavin Roynon is a retired teacher of French, German, and history at Eton College, in Eton, England. In Massacre of the Innocents: The Crofton Diaries, Ypres, 1914-1915, Roynon presents the wartime diary of Sir Morgan Crofton, a World War I-era soldier who was present with the troubled British Expeditionary Force when trench warfare became the norm, when the invading Germans were barely driven off from Ypres, Belgium, and when the war first began to look like it would become a lengthy conflict. Crofton had been a soldier in South Africa, where he fought in the Boer War. He was wounded and had retired from the military, but returned at the start of World War I in 1914, becoming an officer in the 2nd Life Guards. Crofton's diaries, kept from October, 1914, to June, 1915, contain insightful observations and detailed descriptions of the battles and their aftermath. He records his frank and often highly critical opinions of politicians and his military superiors, and makes it clear that he was an officer who was considerate of the men who served under him. "What makes his observations of particular interest is that Crofton, a keen student of military history, had a wider grasp than most soldiers of the war as a whole," noted Hugh Cecil, writing in the Spectator. The book also includes a number of photographs from the front line, secretly taken by Crofton himself, though such photography was actually forbidden. From the First Battle of Ypres, to the destruction of the historic Cloth Hall in Ypres, to the stresses and traumas of combat, Crofton offers a firsthand, on-the-ground treatment of the war. Cecil commented favorably on Roynon's "informative and sympathetic editing" of Crofton's diaries. A Contemporary Review critic commented that the "text is well edited and noted," and that as a whole the book provides a "substantial and valuable addition to our understanding of this vital period in the war's history."

Home Fires Burning: The Great War Diaries of Georgina Lee contains carefully selected and edited excerpts from the eleven-volume set of diaries kept by Georgina Lee, an Edwardian-era wife and mother who recorded her diaries of World War I for the benefit of her infant son. Her husband was a lawyer and her life was privileged, but the war still managed to make its destructive presence known to her and her family. Lee's diaries constitute a detailed account of the British home front during the entirety of the First World War. They provide a day-by-day account of the emotional highs and lows, the political turmoil, the social upheaval, and the great societal changes that the war brought about. Lee writes in vivid detail about the war's beginnings in 1914, and the fear and terror that pervaded London and the east coast of England during this time. She covers subjects such as food supplies and hoarding, conscription of soldiers, the effects of the war on civilian life, the devastating effect the war had on the stock market, and the constant threat of deadly, destructive air raids. She describes the harrowing Zeppelin attacks that British residents often endured, the severe shortages of food and supplies that occurred following the blockade of Britain, and the gradual realization that the war would not be over shortly, but would stretch out over years.

Throughout her diaries, Lee remains mindful of the conflict between loyalty to her husband and her maternal imperative to ensure the safety of her baby son. She describes her anguish as she decides to send her son to relatively greater safety in Wales. As the diary entries unfold, Lee acknowledges and praises the strength and resolve that the British civilian population showed in their steadfast endurance of the homeside travails of war. Her diaries are capped off with descriptions of the joy that accompanied the Treaty of Versailles and the end of the war. Lee's "wasn't a very unusual or especially exciting life, but she was a remarkable woman all the same," commented Christine Poulson on A Reading Life Web log.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Contemporary Review, May, 2005, review of Massacre of the Innocents: The Crofton Diaries, Ypres, 1914-1915, p. 312.

Literary Review, December, 2006, Hugh Massingberd, "Zeppelins and Jam," review of Home Fires Burning: The Great War Diaries of Georgina Lee.

Spectator, March 26, 2005, Hugh Cecil, "A Season in Hell," review of Massacre of the Innocents, p. 38.

Times Literary Supplement, February 18, 2005, Michael Howard, "One More Push," review of Massacre of the Innocents, p. 4; January 19, 2007, Judith Flanders, review of Home Fires Burning, p. 28.