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Dear Sir
There
is one extremely famous resident of Merton whom I expect many readers of the
Parish Magazine are not aware of. His name is Ford Madox Ford. He was born
at 5, Fair Lawn Villas, now
245 Kingston Road. The
family name was Ḥffer
but Ford switched to Ford round about the end of the First World War. His
father was a distinguished musicologist and was music critic of The Times.
It
is fair to say that Ford Madox Ford was one of the greatest English
novelists of the twentieth century. Indeed there is a growing body of
opinion that he may well be the premier name.
He
died in the summer of 1939 in
France. Despite the
passage of time his novels continue to be republished and are now appearing
as popular paperbacks. By far the best known is “The Good Soldier” but his
tetralogy about the First World War – “Parades End” – is outstanding. The
latter is often referred to as the Tietjens saga.
In
1963 Graham Greene claimed that the Tietjens series seemed to him almost the
only adult novels dealing with the sexual life that have been written in
English. They were our answer to Flaubert.
And
this brilliant man, whose only desire in life was to write, was born in the
Parish of St Mary the Virgin in Merton
Yours sincerely
The Revd. David Mason
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