Mark Arnold-Forster

Mark Arnold-Forster, journalist and author, was born on 16 April, 1920 at Cheriton Nursing Home, Westlecott Road, Swindon, UK, and died 25 December, 1981, Clarendon Road, Notting Hill, London, UK.

Early Years

He was the only son of William Edward Arnold-Forster (b. 1886, d. 1951), painter, publicist, and gardener, and his wife Katharine (Ka) Laird, née Cox (b. 1887, d. 1938). His parents' families included leading politicians and writers, among them Matthew Arnold and his mother had been close to Rupert Brooke and his group as well as to Virginia Woolf. Shortly after his birth his parents went to live in a picturesque Cornish house, Eagle's Nest, Zennor, Cornwall. They placed Mark at age 7 in a boarding-school in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and at 9 in Kurt Hahn's school at Salem in Germany. When Hitler came to power in 1933 and drove Hahn into exile, Arnold-Forster was one of two British boys who followed Hahn to a new school in Scotland at Gordonstoun, Moray, and he stayed on until 1937. This upbringing made him fluent in French and German. Arnold-Forster won a place to study mechanical engineering at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, but he never took this up.

Wartime Career

Mark Arnold-Forster served throughout the Second World War, first as a merchant seaman and then in the Royal Navy. He spent most of the war in command of motor torpedo boats and of MTB flotillas based at Dover attacking German coastal convoys and minelaying in the continental estuaries. He was awarded the DSO and DSC, was three times mentioned in despatches, and was demobilized as a reserve Lieutenant in 1946. As a newspaperman he was blockaded in Berlin in 1948 and reported on post-war Europe. He was chief editorial writer for The Guardian newspaper and continued to write regular leaders for the paper until his death in 1981.

Instead, after a year's apprenticeship, during 1938–9, with the Blue Funnel Line, involving a voyage to Manchuria, Arnold-Forster went on to join the Royal Navy. He served on a destroyer on the Murmansk convoy and then (1942–4) on motor torpedo boats in the English Channel. Eventually he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in command of a flotilla, winning the the DSO, DSC—he looked young for his age and at this time only looked sixteen. His tasks included engaging the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen in battle and torpedoing a tanker. He limped home from a battle with a broken-down engine after being nearly rammed by a German destroyer. He also laid mines under fire off the French coast and worked for naval intelligence.

Journalism Career

In 1946, he joined the editorial staff of the The Guardian. He worked first in Manchester and then in Germany, where he wrote about the immediate post-war period and the Berlin blockade. In 1949 he became labour correspondent, a key job he carried out for eight years.

Personal Life

On 12 January 1955 he married Valentine Harriet Isabella Digne Mitchison (b. 1930), also a journalist, daughter of the Labour politician Dick Mitchison and the novelist Naomi Mitchison. Both were descended from the ‘intellectual aristocracy’ and related to successive secretaries of state for war, Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster and R. B. Haldane. They had five children. Their son Joshua Arnold-Forster is presently a researcher for the United Nations.

Decline and Death

Mark Arnold-Forster suffered from persistent ill health in his fifties and a series of minor strokes, in particular. In 1979 he developed cancer of the upper colon and he died at his home, 50 Clarendon Road, Notting Hill, London, on Christmas day, 1981, and was cremated at West London crematorium on 5 January, 1982.

Books by Arnold-Forster

• Mark Arnold-Forster, The World at War, Publ: Pimlico, Revised Edition, 2001, ISBN-10: 0712667822.

References

• G. Taylor, Changing faces: a history of The Guardian 1956–1988 (1993)
• The Guardian (28 Dec 1981)
• The Times (13 Jan 1955)
• The Times (28 Dec 1981)
• D. Ayerst, Guardian: biography of a newspaper (1971)
• A. Hetherington, ‘Guardian’ years (1981)
• P. Scott, The battle of the narrow seas, 1939–1945 (1945)
• H. L. Brereton, Gordonstoun (1968)
• H. Röhrs and H. Tunstall-Behrens, eds., Kurt Hahn (1970)
• B. Sendall, Origin and foundation, 1946–62 (1982), vol. 1 of Independent television in Britain (1982–90)
• P. Delany, The neo-pagans (1987)
• N. G. Annan, ‘The intellectual aristocracy’, Studies in social history: a tribute to G. M. Trevelyan, ed. J. H. Plumb (1955), pp. 241–87

External Links

• BBC Archive with reference to Arnold-Forster
• About Arnold-Forster's TV series
• Arnold-Forster's article on East Germany
• Reference to Arnold-Forster's house

Category: 1920 births Category: 1981 deaths Category: British journalists Category: English columnists Category: Guardian journalists Category: Dead people Category: People from Notting Hill Category: People from Swindon Category: British authors Category: British writers