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Concept
Paul Jennings (British author)
Summary
Paul Francis Jennings (20 June 1918 – 26 December 1989) was an English humourist and author. After his Catholic education, Jennings served in World War II. For many years he wrote a column, Oddly Enough, in British newspaper The Observer. Many collections of his work were published, including The Jenguin Pennings (whose title is a spoonerism) by Penguin Books in 1963. He also wrote popular children's books including The Great Jelly of London, The Hopping Basket, and The Train to Yesterday.
Jennings married Celia Blom in 1951. He died in 1989.
Paul Francis Jennings was born on 20 June 1918 in Leamington Spa. His parents were William Benedict and Gertrude Mary Jennings. He was educated at King Henry VIII school in Coventry and at the Douai Catholic school in Woolhampton, Berkshire.
Jennings served in the Royal Signals during the Second World War. In 1943 his piece "Moses was a Sanitary Officer" was published in Lilliput magazine. Freelance work for Punch and The Spectator soon followed. Leaving the army with the rank of Lieutenant, he briefly worked as a scriptwriter for the Central Office of Information and then spent two years as an advertising copywriter; throughout this period his freelance work continued to be published.
In 1949 he joined The Observer, contributing a fortnightly column entitled "Oddly Enough" until 1966, when he was succeeded by Michael Frayn, who was an admirer of his work. After leaving The Observer, he continued to write until his death, mainly seeing print in Punch, The Times and the Telegraph magazine.
His columns constitute several hundred 700-word essays. In general his pieces take the form of whimsical ponderings; some are based in real-life incidents, often involving his friend Harblow.
rightFor instance, one of his pieces, "How to Spiel Halma", concerns their attempts to establish the rules of halma from the instructions in a German set using their extremely limited knowledge of the language.
His pieces are sometimes poems, and sometimes written in novel forms of language, such as the Romance-eschewing Anglish, or that of a toy 19-letter pipewipen (typewriter).
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