George Behrend

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George Behrend (born January 10, 1922 in Burghclere , † July 12, 2010 in Cullen ) was a British railway historian and travel writer.

Life

Behrend was born to John and Mary Behrend in the small village of Burghclere, Hampshire . His parents are active as art patrons, who among others supported the painter Stanley Spencer and commissioned him to paint the Sandham Memorial Chapel in Burghclere, today one of Spencer's most famous works.

After attending school, Behrend studied at Hertford College in Oxford . After graduating in 1942, he served as a soldier in the British 8th Army . During the Second World War he fought with the army in Algeria , Italy and Saloniki, among others , and was wounded several times.

After the war he lived as a farmer in Hampshire from 1946. In 1948 he became the assistant and chauffeur of Benjamin Britten , whom he had met in 1936, while still at school, at a music festival in Barcelona . Until 1956 he supported Britten and his partner Peter Pears in organizing the Aldeburgh Festival and accompanied them as a chauffeur to appearances across Europe. Britten dedicated one of his string quartets to Behrend's mother.

From 1956 Behrend lived as a freelance writer on Jersey , after he had published his first works from 1954, first about air traffic, but also a book about Stanley Spencer. His main topic was the railroad . In addition to publications on various British private railways such as the Great Western Railway , he mainly wrote about the railway networks and trains in various European countries. He published a total of 20 books since 1954.

Behrend made a name for himself above all with his works on the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits , their luxury trains as well as sleeping and dining cars . He also researched and published the Pullman Palace Car Company and its European offshoots, as well as the use of Pullman cars . His passion was above all luxury trains such as the Orient Express , the Night Ferry , the Golden Arrow or the Train Bleu . Behrend, who was last seen as the doyen of British railway authors, regularly undertook long rail journeys until shortly before his death. They took him to a total of 17 European countries over the course of 70 years.

Behrend was a member of the Garrick Club . In 1960 he was a co-founder of the British Guild of Travel Writers . In the same year he married his wife Jeannette D'Enyer, with whom he remained married until her death in 1992. From 1976 to 1981 Behrend lived temporarily in Bordeaux . In 1989 he and his wife moved to Findochty, Scotland . There he was involved with the Keith and Dufftown Railway , a museum railway in Banffshire . His most recent autobiography, An Unexpected Life , appeared in 2007 . Behrend died in 2010 in a home in Cullen, Moray, Scotland .

Publications (selection)

  • Gone with Regret. Recollections of the Great Western Railway 1922-1947 , Lambarde Press, 1964
  • Railway holidays in Switzerland. , Orell Füssli, Zurich 1966.
  • Grand European expresses: the story of the wagons-lits . Allen & Unwin, London 1962 (in German: Great Express Trains in Europe: The History of Wagons-Lits , Orell Füssli, Zurich 1967)
  • Railway holidays in France. , Orell Füssli, Zurich 1967.
  • Luxury Trains: From the Orient to the TGV , Book Sales ISBN 0-86565-016-0
  • History of luxury trains. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1977, ISBN 3-280-00918-9 .
  • Night Ferry: A Tribute to Britain's Only International Through Train, London-Paris / Brussels, 1936–80 , Jersey Artists, 1985, ISBN 0-901845-13-2
  • An Unexpected Life: Features Benjamin Britten and Stanley Spencer , Jersey Artists, 2007, ISBN 978-0-901845-24-5

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary_george_behrend_1_818083 (accessed on February 23, 2012)
  2. ↑ http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/obituaries/george-behrend-railway-historian-and-travel-writer-1.1042030  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on February 23, 2012)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.heraldscotland.com  

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Behrend, George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British railroad historian and travel writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Burghclere
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 2010
Place of death Cullen