Terence Hanbury “T.H.” White

In memoriam

Author. Born in Bombay, India, his father was a District Superintendent of Police and his mother the daughter of a judge. After the birth of their only child, she refused her husband any further relations, and the marriage was to end in divorce. In later years, T.H. White was to blame his mother for his own alcoholism and homosexuality. Known usually as "Tim" because Timothy White's was a well-known chain of chemist's shops, he was taken to England in 1911. He was educated at Cheltenham and at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he took a First-Class Honours degree in English. After graduation, he became the head of the department of English at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire; but, after four years, he resigned to live in a cottage on the school estate, where he devoted himself to writing and falconry. Here he wrote most of the tetralogy for which he is best remembered - "The Once and Future King", based on the legend of King Arthur. In February 1939, he moved to Doolistown in County Meath, and he remained in Ireland throughout the War. He attempted to join the Royal Air Force, but was refused. In 1945, he moved to Alderney in the Channel Islands (3 Connaught Square in the only town, St. Anne's.) His Arthurian books were made into a cartoon film, "The Sword in the Stone", by Disney, and into a musical, "Camelot", by Lerner and Loewe. The latter was itself filmed, with Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave. In 1961, T.H. White made his first visit to the United States, to see the musical with Richard Burton and Julie Andrews. Three years later, he returned for a lecture tour. He sailed back to Europe on the "S.S. Exeter", on which he visited Barcelona, Naples, Egypt and the Lebanon. However, on the morning on which the ship docked at Piraeus, he was discovered dead in Room 109. The ship's surgeon wrote : "It is my opinion that the likely cause of death was acute coronary heart disease." The inscription on his grave reads "Author who, from a troubled heart, delighted others, loving and praising this life."

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