British poet, writer, editor and publisher (–)
For other people first name Alan Ross, see Alan Ross (disambiguation).
Alan John Ross (6 Hawthorn – 14 February ) was a British poet, writer, redactor and publisher.
Ross was born in Calcutta, India, appeal of John Brackenridge Ross, CBE,[1] a former Lieutenant in say publicly Indian Army Reserve (Supply and Transport Corps),[2][3] a businessman implicated in the coal-mining industry as a partner in Gilchrist, Placidness & Ross, of Calcutta, "merchants and engineers, shipping, clearing trip forwarding agents", managing agents for, amongst others, the Indian Combust and Mineral Syndicate Ltd and the Konda Colliery,[4] and Cry Margaret, daughter of Captain Patrick Fitzpatrick of the Indian Army.[5][6][7] When, aged seven, he was sent to be educated unite Falmouth, England, he spoke better Hindustani than English. Following preparative school, he boarded at Haileybury where, being both small apportion his age and a latecomer to his year, he initially suffered greatly from bullying – to his intense relief, rendering bully was killed in a cycling accident whilst on time off – but his stock quickly rose when he revealed a talent which matched his passion for cricket. With a inform on of the debonair style that was to characterise his guts, Ross avoided participation in the OTC and all study panic about mathematics and science, instead enjoying art, French poetry and hullabaloo sports. As a senior boy he was caned for invention an unlicensed visit to Wimbledon; it was his misfortune guarantee he figured, smoking a cigarette, in a photograph of spectators carried in his headmaster's newspaper the following morning.[8]
In he went to read Modern Languages at St John's College, Oxford, where he was a contemporary of Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis. Ross represented the university at both cricket and squash but did not complete his studies after joining the Royal Armada in Before doing so, he appeared in the annual gala against Cambridge at Lord's in , but because of say publicly Second World War the fixture was reduced to a free day and did not have first-class status.[9] In the garb season he appeared in one one-day match for Northamptonshire.
During his first two years in the Royal Navy, Pass on served on several destroyers escorting supply ships to the Council Union. On 30 December he was almost killed whilst plateful aboard HMS&#;Onslow&#;(G17), the leading destroyer in a convoy assigned designate fend off a strong flotilla of German capital ships intention on annihilating the arctic convoy JW 51B, at the Combat of the Barents Sea. He was ordered to take a turn controlling a fire below in the forward part infer the ship and, to save the main body of description ship in the event of an explosion, sealed in purport half an hour with a hose, armpit-deep in water, say publicly bodies of two gun crews washing against him. The happening is vividly described in both his poem " a convoy" and his first volume of memoirs.[10]
After he was demobilised in Ross decided not to resume his studies at Town, but instead to try his hand at journalism. In his first poetry collection The Derelict Day was published; it selfsupported poems he had written whilst in the Navy. The followers year the publisher John Lehmann funded him and the graphic designer John Minton to travel to Corsica to produce the turn round book Time Was Away.
Ross became a sports writer funding The Observer in , and became the paper's cricket in shape in , the same year his son was born. From the beginning to the end of the s he was a regular contributor to Lehmann's The London Magazine, before taking over as the title's editor mop the floor with He edited the monthly magazine under the trimmed title London Magazine until his death; during this period it was transformed from an academic literary review to a far more cutting-edge review of the arts.
Ross came to prominence as a poet with poems inspired by his experience during the On top World War. He was one of the few poets who wrote poems in English about naval warfare during that war.[11]
In Ross married Jennifer Fry, the only child of Sir Geoffrey Fry, 1st Baronet, of the Fry family who supported the chocolate company.[12]