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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.
Early life and education
Paul Francis Jennings was born on 20 June 1918 in Leamington Spa.[1] 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.[2]
Jennings served in the Royal Signals during the Second World War.[3] In 1943 his piece "Moses was a Sanitary Officer" was published in Lilliput magazine.[4] 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,[5] who was an admirer of his work.[6] 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.[7] In general his pieces take the form of whimsical ponderings; some are based in real-life incidents, often involving his friend Harblow.
The obvious meaning of this was that the Against-man must naturally again after that treat, this Stone how possibly in the own House of the Player to shut in.
— Paul Jennings, 'How to Spiel Halma'
For 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.[8]
His pieces are sometimes poems,[citation needed] and sometimes written in novel forms of language, such as the Romance-eschewing Anglish,[9] or that of a toy 19-letter pipewipen (typewriter).[10] Other articles were extended flights of fancy, such as "The Unthinkable Carrier"[11] based on the idea of cutting Britain free of the Earth's crust so that it could float around the oceans and guarantee world peace, with the Isle of Wight kept in place by a tow chain. In a late 1950s piece, "Sleep for Sale", he prefigured the concept of the capsule hotel ("Over to you, capitalists. But remember, I thought of it first.").[12] Several of his pieces touched on the invented philosophical movement of Resistentialism,[13] a concept that probably owes some of its force to the contempt that Jennings—a devout Catholic—felt for the intellectual fashion he was parodying.[citation needed]
Jennings was an admirer of James Thurber,[14] who attended a dinner party at Jennings's house and subsequently wrote of the conversation in a 1955 New Yorker piece.[n 1]
Dunlopera: The Works and Workings of the Dunlop Rubber Company. Dunlop Rubber Co, 1961. About Dunlop; illustrated by Edward Bawden; not commercially issued. OCLC59014464.
And Now for Something Exactly the Same (Gollancz, 1977). A novel.
As editor
The English Difference (Aurelia Enterprises, 1974) (co-edited with John Gorham)
The Book of Nonsense (Macdonald, 1977)
A Feast of Days (Macdonald, 1982)
My Favourite Railway Stories (Lutterworth Press, 1982)
Personal life
Jennings married Celia Blom, daughter of music critic and lexicographer Eric Blom, in 1951.[2] She provided illustrations for some of his books. The couple lived in East Bergholt, Suffolk, England, and had six children.[15] A keen chorister, Jennings sang with the Oriana Madrigal Society and the London Philharmonia Chorus.[16][17] In later years he was an active member of the church choir at St Thomas of Canterbury church in Woodbridge. Jennings died on 26 December 1989.[4]
Notes
^Jennings states that Thurber subsequently put incidents from the dinner into a New Yorker piece, including a discussion about writers' ages and a remark about people who might find it relaxing "to wash a Venetian blind". These can be found in: James Thurber, The moribundant life, or, grow old along with whom?, The New Yorker, 23 September 1955. Collected in: Alarms and Diversions, Penguin, 1957. Thurber mentions London but no names. The 1957 collection adds "two years ago" to the mention of the party.
^The 12-page booklet is a verse parody of European brochure-speak, produced as an advertisement for Guinness. On the back is printed 'Designed for Guinness by S.H.Benson Ltd. Written by Paul Jennings. Illustrated by John Astrop. Printed in Great Britain by W.S.Cowell Ltd. 587/66' It was the last of a series of advertising booklets, with different authors and illustrators each year, sent by Guinness to doctors each Christmas from 1933 to 1939 and 1950 to 1966.
^Paul Jennings, How To Spiel Halma, The Observer, June 1949. Collected in Oddly Enough, Reinhardt and Evans, 1950.
^'1066 and All Saxon' in three parts; published 15 June 1966 (No. 6562), 22 June 1966 (No. 6563), and 29 June 1966 (No. 6564). Punch Vol. 250 – Pt. 2, 1966. Library of Congress: AP 101 P8
^Paul Jennings, "Invenkion; buk Necessiki?", Times Literary Supplement, August 1982, reprinted in The Paul Jennings Reader, Bloomsbury, 1990
^Paul Jennings, "The Unthinkable Carrier", The Observer, November 1960.
^Paul Jennings, "Sleep for Sale", in Idly Oddly, Reinhardt, 1959.
