Cleverdon, Douglas

BBC producer who produced Dylan Thomas's radio play Under Milk Wood.

Bookseller, publisher, and BBC producer and director.

Douglas Cleverdon, 1903-1987, was educated at Bristol Grammar School and Jesus College, Oxford. He began his career as proprietor of a bookselling and publishing firm in Bristol, England, in the 1920s. His first publication, Eric Gill's Art and Love in 1927, was printed at the Golden Cockerel Press. In 1929 he published Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrated by David Jones, which in 1964 he re-issued with a new introduction by Jones as the first of his Clover Hill Editions under the imprint of Chilmark Press, New York. Other fine press books followed and he later published several books under his own name. His career for the British Broadcasting Corporation began with free-lance work as an actor and writer, but after his bookshop was bombed during World War II, he went to work for the BBC full-time as a producer with the Features Department. Following the war he worked mainly on productions for the Third Programme until his retirement in 1969. Many of his productions were submitted as Italia Prize entries, the most famous of which to win that honor was Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, written specifically for the BBC and with Cleverdon often described as its midwife. Other particularly fine productions included In Parenthesis and The Anathemata, by David Jones, both of which used the full technical resources of radio acoustics and effects. Cleverdon also devised and produced poetry festivals and recitals, and directed several stage productions of Under Milk Wood.

Radio producer.

Cleverdon began his career as a free-lance actor and writer for the BBC West Region; in 1939 he joined that organization as part of the Children's Hour and in 1943 he became Features Producer in London, working primarily with the Third Programme from its inception in Sept. 1946 until his retirement in 1969. Since that time he has continued as a free-lance producer.

David Michael Jones was born in Brockley, Kent, England, on Nov. 1, 1895. His father was James Jones, a printer's manager, and his mother was Alice Ann Bradshaw, the daughter of a mast and block maker. His mother encouraged his artistic interests and he began sketching at an early age. Some of these childhood sketches not only attracted public attention but also were exhibited at the Royal Drawing Society. From 1909 to 1914 Jones attended the Camberwell School where he was introduced to modern trends in art. His education was interrupted by the First World War, during which he served with the 15th Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. From 1919 to 1921 Jones attended the Westminster School of Art in London. In 1921 he was received into the Roman Catholic Church and in 1922 began his artistic association with Eric Gill at Ditchling, Sussex, later following him to Capel-y-ffin, Wales. During this period, after studying wood and copper engraving with Desmond Chute, Jones began producing book illustrations for St Dominic's Press, The Golden Cockerel Press and other publishers. Disappointed with the published reproductions of some of his engravings, Jones turned his attention to watercolor, which would become the dominant medium of his work for the remainder of his life. In 1937 Jones published 'In parenthesis', a volume written in a mixture of poetry and prose and inspired by his experiences in World War I. This was followed in 1952 by 'The anathemata', which was intended to be part of a longer poem, parts of which were collected in 'The sleeping lord, and other fragments' published in 1974. A posthumous volume, 'The Roman quarry, and other sequences', edited by Harman Grisewood and René Hague, appeared in 1981, followed in 2002 by 'Wedding poems', three previously unpublished short poems edited by Thomas Dilworth. In poor health for many years, Jones suffered a stroke and fall in 1970. His last years were spent at the Calvary Nursing Home of the Blue Sisters, Sudbury Hill, London, where he died on Oct. 28, 1974.

Douglas James Cleverdon, bookseller and radio producer, was born on Jan. 17, 1903 in Bristol, England, the elder son of Thomas Silcox Cleverdon, master wheelwright, and his wife, Jane Louisa James. He was educated at Bristol grammar school and Jesus College, Oxford, where as an undergraduate he published his first catalogue of books, thus establishing his reputation as a lover of fine printing and illustrated books. In 1926 Cleverdon opened a bookshop in Charlotte Street, Bristol, and also began publishing, with a limited edition of Eric Gill's 'Art and love' appearing in 1927, and an edition of Coleridge's 'The rime of the ancient mariner' with 10 engravings on copper by David Jones appearing in 1929. The Great Depression brought an end to Cleverdon's publishing venture, but he continued to sell books until the end of the 1930s when he began working part-time for the BBC. In 1939 he became a west regional features producer, and in 1943 a features producer in London. Shortly before the Second World War Cleverdon met Elinor Nest Lewis, daughter of James Abraham Lewis, canon, of Cardiff, Wales. They wed in 1944, and during the course of their marriage had two daughters and three sons. Dec. 1942 saw the first broacast of 'The brains trust', an informational radio program which he created with Howard Thomas. It reached an audience of twelve million, which was at that time about 29% of the population of the United Kingdom. After a brief stint in 1945 as a BBC war correspondent in Burma, he began developing a series of radio portraits for the Third Programme. He dramatized David Jones's In Parenthesis (1948) and The Anathemata (1953), broadcast the poems of John Betjeman, Thom Gunn, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Siegfried Sassoon, Stevie Smith and Wole Soyinka, and produced the work of Jacob Bronowski, David Garnett, Rose Macaulay, and Compton Mackenzie. In addition to producing programs of folk song with A. L. Lloyd and Alan Lomax, Cleverdon commissioned new music from Lennox Berkeley, Peter Racine Fricker, Alan Rawsthorne, Humphrey Searle, Mátyás Seiber and Aleksandr Tcherepnin. His most famous commission was Dylan Thomas's 'Under milk wood', first broadcast in 1954 with an all Welsh cast and starring Richard Burton. After retiring from the BBC in 1969, Cleverdon returned to publishing. Among the publications of his Clover Hill Editions were works of Michael Ayrton, David Jones, and Reynolds Stone. Douglas Cleverdon died on Oct. 1, 1987 at his home in London.

English author and bookseller.

Cleverdon was born in 1903 and graduated from Oxford in 1926. He maintained a book shop for many years, and published works on English artists and authors such as Eric Gill, David Jones and Stanley Morison. From 1939 to 1969 he worked for the BBC.