Fletcher, Ian, 1920-1988

Ian Fletcher was born in 1920 in a nursing home in Streatham, the only child of John Archibald Fletcher (1887?-1968), a farmer and retired army major, and Katherine Margaret Richardson (1888-1979), and grew up in Catford, South London. His family had strong Scottish antecedents and for a while as a young man he spelled his name Iain as a gesture to Scottish nationalism.

Fletcher was educated at Dulwich College. At some point in his youth his parents separated and Fletcher lived with his mother, a woman of forceful character, first in Catford and later in Shepherd’s Bush. Money was short and Fletcher left school at the age of 15 in order to earn a living. He worked as a librarian in Lewisham Public Library and at the same time he set out to write poetry and read widely. He haunted second hand bookshops and collected a library of works by lesser known and neglected writers of the 1890s. In 1939 he met John Gawsworth, another bibliophile and enthusiast for neglected writers, and remained a loyal friend to him throughout his life.

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