Laurie Lee

Laurence Edward Alan Laurie Lee, MBE was an English poet, novelist and screenwriter, who was brought up in the village of Slad and went to the Central Boys School, Stroud, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie , As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment of War . The first volume recounts his childhood in the Slad Valley. The second deals with his leaving home for London and his first visit to Spain in 1935, and the third with his return to Spain in December 1937 to join the Republican International Brigades.

Having been born in Stroud onJune 1914, Lawrence Edward Alan Lee moved with his family to the village of Slad in 1917, the move with which Cider with Rosie opens. After fighting in the First World War with the Royal West Kent Regiment, Lees father, Reginald Joseph Lee, did not return to the family. Lee and his brothers grew up loving their mothers family, the Lights, and intensely disliking the Lee side. His sister, Frances Nemariah Joan Lee died in September 1915 agedwhen Lawrence Lee was a toddler. He had older siblings from his fathers first marriage, including Dorothy, Phyllis and Marjorie. His brother Jack Lee was to become a film director.

Source: Wikipedia