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.