Peter Wildeblood

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Peter Wildeblood (born May 19, 1923 in Alassio , Liguria , † November 14, 1999 in Victoria , British Columbia ) was a British - Canadian journalist , writer , filmmaker and LGBT activist.

Early years

Wildeblood's father was an engineer in India and his mother the daughter of a sheep farmer in Argentina. The family moved to London in 1926 when Wildeblood was three years old. Wildeblood grew up in Ashdown Forest , Sussex , where he developed a keen interest in nature.

Wildeblood attended Radley College, a public school near Oxford . At the age of 18 he went to Trinity College in Oxford, but left it after a short time due to illness and inner dissatisfaction. After dropping out of college, Wildeblood began training as a flight attendant in the Royal Air Force . For this purpose, he flew to what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe ) to take part in flight training there. It was at this time that his interest in meteorology began . During the Second World War he had brief relationships with women that turned out to be unsatisfactory for him. At that time, Wildeblood was coming out from within . In November 1945 Wildeblood returned to Trinity College, Oxford, where he continued his studies. He spent the weekends in London , where he made many gay friends. Wildeblood graduated from Oxford at the age of 24.

Working life

Wildeblood initially found it difficult to find employment, and he began freelance writing. He sold items to Vogue , one to Printer's Pie and two to Punch . Then he wrote the piece Primrose and the Peanuts , which is about the conditions in Rhodesia. The play appeared at the Playhouse Theater and ran at the Bedford Theater in Camden Town. Contrary to good reviews, however, the piece did not make it to the West End in London. Furthermore, Wildeblood adapted the play Cold Comfort Farm for the Haymarket Theater together with Kenneth Tynan .

Wildeblood then started as a reporter for the Daily Mail . After a while, an article made it to the front of the newspaper. In the following five years Wildeblood rose professionally at this newspaper. He became a Buckingham Palace reporter, columnist for the coronation of British monarchs , correspondent for the Festival of Britain . Wildeblood reported in the newspaper about the court case against Derek Bentley , interviewed Tallulah Bankhead as a reporter and rose to the position of acting diplomatic correspondent for the Daily Mail in August 1953 .

Social controversy and prison

At that time Wildeblood met Edward Montagu (also known as Lord Montagu of Beaulieu), who was three years his junior . He also became friends with Eddie McNally , 23 , who worked for the Royal Air Force as a corporal at a military hospital in Ely, Cambridgeshire. In the summer of 1952, the couple arranged a vacation with Edward Montagu at his beach hut in Dorset . John Reynolds, who also worked in the British Air Force and was an acquaintance of Eddie McNally, joined the holiday in Dorset. This vacation together became the subject of the Montagu / Pitt-Rivers / Wildeblood trial in 1954.

On Sunday, January 9, 1954, Wildeblood was arrested at his home in Canonbury , Islington , and his home was ransacked. He has been accused of committing immoral acts in association with Edward Montagu and Michael Pitt-Rivers with Eddie McNally and John Reynolds. The incident became public and filled the headlines in the British newspapers the day after the arrest and afterwards. Eddie McNally and John Reynolds witnessed the indictment in the trial. Kenneth Tynan deposited the bail for Wild Blood.

The trial began in March 1954. Wildeblood became one of the first men in Great Britain to publicly announce his homosexuality in the trial . On March 24, 1954, he was found guilty and sent to prison for 18 months. Initially he was in Winchester prison but was transferred to a prison at Wormwood Scrubs in London after five weeks . Jail time was terrible for Wildeblood. During this time he was visited by Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (later known as Lord Longford). After serving 12 months in prison, Wildeblood was released early in March 1955. Frank Pakenham, his daughter Antonia Fraser and Patrick Thursfield, a loyal college friend of Wildeblood, picked Wildeblood up at the prison gate.

After his release from prison, Wildeblood began working extensively as an LGBT activist. He embarked on a campaign to reform UK sex law, bringing the truth to the House of Lords and the Wolfenden Report .

After prison time

Wildeblood wrote a book entitled Against the Law in 1955 about the background and course of events . The three main aspects of the book are that first, homosexual acts between adults in private settings are not punishable, second, the prison only encourages homosexual acts, and third, prisons like the one at Wormwood Scrubs have no rehabilitation facilities .

Wildeblood bought a small alcoholic drinks club on Berwick Street in Soho , London , which attracted a mix of people from different walks of life. While observing the club, he collected material for a fictional "autobiography" about the club. The later book was titled A Way of Life .

His other novel, West End People , was produced as a musical entitled The Crooked Mile in Cambridge and enjoyed great success in the West End when it was first performed at the Cambridge Theater in London on September 19, 1959. The music for the musical was by Peter Greenwell , and the actors Elisabeth Welch and Millicent Martin played in the musical.

In another collaboration with Greenwell, The House of Cards was created in 1963 . The play was less well received by the public but was much appreciated by Andrew Lloyd Webber .

A third collaboration between Wildeblood and Greenwell resulted in the musical The People's Jack , which was based on the life of John Wilkes . In 1969 the musical was filmed on television.

Since Wildeblood did not expect to work successfully as a newspaper journalist again, he wrote more novels, plays and television plays. In 1969 he joined the staff at Granada Television and began working as a television producer. In the early 1970s he accepted a career offer from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and left England. He moved to Toronto and became a Canadian citizen. Over the next 16 years he wrote and produced a number of successful series.

When he finished his professional career, he moved to a house in Victoria, British Columbia, from where he had a view over the Juan de Fuca Straights to the Olympic Mountains via Seattle . Here he could enjoy the closeness to nature of his childhood again. In June 1994 Wild Blood had a stroke , so he lost his ability to speak and quadriplegia suffered. He learned to communicate on computers by moving his chin accordingly. Wildeblood passed away at the age of 76. Shortly after his death, the book Against the Law was republished in 2000 with an introduction by journalist Matthew Parris.

Works

  • Primrose and the Peanuts , 1946, play
  • Against the Law , 1955, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 189 pages
  • A Way of Life , 1956, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 191 pages
  • The Main Chance , 1957, novel
  • West End People , 1958, novel
  • The Crooked Mile , 1959, a musical story (music by Peter Greenwell)
  • The Younger Generation , 1961, as a television producer for 11 plays
  • The House of Cards , 1963 (music by Peter Greenwell)
  • The People's Jack (music by Peter Greenwell)
  • The Duke Ellington Show , 1963, as a television producer
  • Victoria Regina , born in 1964, as a television producer
  • It Only Seems Like Yesterday , 1965, as a television producer
  • Six Shades of Black , 1965, as a television writer and television producer
  • Blackmail , 1966, as a television producer
  • Rogues' Gallery , 1968-9, as a television producer
  • Conception of Murder , 1970, as a television producer
  • Stables Theater, 1970, as a writer for The People's Jack television
  • Confession, 1970, as a television writer for Death of a Ladies' Man
  • Victorian Scandals , 1976, as a television producer
  • Tales of the Klondike , 1983, as a television writer

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wildeblood, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-Canadian author, journalist and television producer
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Alassio , Liguria
DATE OF DEATH November 14, 1999
Place of death Victoria , British Columbia