Editing R. F. Delderfield (section)

==Biography==

===Childhood in London and Surrey===
Ronald Frederick Delderfield was born at 37 Waller Road, [[New Cross]],<ref>Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</ref> London, in 1912 to Alice and William James Delderfield ({{circa|1873}}–1956). His father worked for a meat wholesaler in [[Smithfield Market]], and was the first [[Liberal Party (United Kingdom)|Liberal]] to be elected to Bermondsey Council. William supported [[women's suffrage]] and the Boer cause in the [[Boer War]]. He was a firm supporter of the [[temperance movement]], and of [[David Lloyd George]] until the latter allied himself in government with the Conservative Party. From 1918 to 1923, the family lived at 22 Ashburton Avenue, [[Addiscombe]], near [[Croydon]], Surrey. ''The Avenue'' novels were  based on Ronald's life in [[Addiscombe]] and [[Shirley, London|Shirley Park]].

Delderfield attended an [[infant school]] in Bermondsey, then a "seedy and pretentious" small private school — "seventy boys and four underpaid ushers, presided over by a jovial gentleman who wore blue serge".<ref name="autobiography">{{cite book|last1=Delderfield|first1=Ronald Frederick|title=For My Own Amusement|url=https://archive.org/details/formyownamusemen00deld|url-access=registration|date=1972|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-0-671-21125-7 }}</ref>{{rp|18}} He then went to a council school, which he hated, but which provided him with the prototype for Mr. Short in ''The Avenue''. This experience was followed by a [[grammar school]] whose dedicated teachers inspired several of his characters.  Once the family moved to [[Devon]], Delderfield first attended a co-educational grammar school and, finally, [[West Buckland School]].  In his autobiography ''For My Own Amusement'', Delderfield joked that West Buckland could be likened to schools in ''The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon'', ''The Avenue'' and ''A Horseman Riding By'', and that it had earned its fees three times over.<ref name="autobiography" />{{rp|22}} Again, in ''For My Own Amusement'', Delderfield divided the nation into city and suburb dwellers, rural dwellers, and those who lived in coastal towns.

On a family holiday in [[Swanage]] when he was young, Delderfield caught [[scarlet fever]] and had to spend three months in an isolation hospital.

===Residence in East Devon===
In 1923, Delderfield's father and a neighbour in Bermondsey bought the ''Exmouth Chronicle'', a local newspaper in [[Exmouth, Devon|Exmouth]], and William became the editor. In 1929, Delderfield joined the staff of the paper and later succeeded his father as editor. In ''For My Own Amusement'', he describes his work—attending Magistrates' Courts and Council meetings, covering amateur dramatics and other events, visiting the bereaved to write local obituaries, even cycling after the fire engine to see if there was a story, as well as relying on a large number of local correspondents.  His experiences during this period were clearly mirrored in the romantic novel ''Diana''. In 1926 he had a house, 'Dove Cottage' (now 'Gazebo'), built on [[Peak Hill, Devon|Peak Hill]] in [[Sidmouth]].

Delderfield's first published [[play (theatre)|play]] was produced at [[Birmingham Repertory Theatre]] in 1936; the ''[[Birmingham Post]]'' wrote "more please, Mr Delderfield".<ref name="autobiography" />{{rp|250}} One of his plays, ''[[Worm's Eye View]]'', had a run at the [[Whitehall Theatre]] in [[London]], and was filmed in 1951 with [[Diana Dors]]. Following service in the [[Royal Air Force|RAF]] during [[World War II]], he resumed his literary career, while also running an antiques business near [[Budleigh Salterton]], Devon. Having begun with drama, Delderfield decided to switch to writing novels in the 1950s. His first novel, ''Seven Men of Gascony'', a tale of French soldiers in the [[Napoleonic Wars]], was published in 1949 by [[Thomas Werner Laurie|Werner Laurie]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Delderfield|first=R. F.|url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25678815M/Seven_men_of_Gascony|title=Seven men of Gascony|date=1949|publisher=Werner Laurie|location=United Kingdom|ol=25678815M}}</ref> In 1950 he featured in a [[Television Newsreel|BBC Newsreel]] clip of the short-lived ''The Axminster and Lyme Regis Clarion'' in [[Lyme Regis]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Birth of a newspaper|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/birth-of-a-newspaper/zn9dgwx|access-date=2021-03-03|website=BBC Archive|language=en}}</ref>

===Autobiography===
In ''For My Own Amusement'' (1972), Delderfield discusses the inspiration for the storylines and tells in anecdotes the origin of several of his characters. He believed that authors draw inspiration from the scenes of their youth, pointing out that [[Charles Dickens]]' characters nearly always used the [[stagecoach]], when he was writing in the age of the train. Delderfield calls his sources "character farms", the main ones being his time in Addiscombe, schooldays, and his time at the ''Exmouth Chronicle''. Of ''The Avenue'' and ''A Horseman Riding By'' he said, "I set out to tell a straightforward story of a group of undistinguished British people—the only kind of people I really know." Delderfield pointed out in this autobiography that he had been criticized for his very conventional views of women's social roles.

===Death===
Delderfield died at his home, then called Dove Cottage, in [[Sidmouth]] of [[lung cancer]], and was survived by his widow, the former May Evans, whom he married in 1936. They had a son and a daughter.<ref>R. F. Delderfield, Writer, Dies; Chronicler of English Life. .[[New York Times]], 27 June 1972 [https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/27/archives/r-f-delderfield-writer-dies-chronicler-of-english-life-60-author-of.html]</ref>  A brother, Eric Delderfield (1909–1995) survived him and wrote several books on the history of England's [[West Country]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2013/11/more-on-fairlynch-and-delderfields.html|title=More on Fairlynch and the Delderfields}}</ref>