P. J. Kavanagh

P. J. Kavanagh FRSL (6 January 1931 – 26 August 2015) was an English poet, lecturer, actor, broadcaster and columnist. His father was the ITMA scriptwriter Ted Kavanagh. Life Patrick Joseph Kavanagh worked as a Butlin's Redcoat, then as a newsreader for Radiodiffusion Française, in Paris. He attended acting classes but was called up for National Service, and was wounded in the Korean War. Kavanagh attended Merton College, Oxford, from 1951 to 1954; there he began to write poetry, and met Sally Philipps, the daughter of the novelist Rosamond Lehmann. He and Philipps wed in 1956; two years later she died suddenly, of poliomyelitis, while they were living in Java, where he was teaching for the British Council. His memoir about their relationship, The Perfect Stranger, won the Richard Hillary Memorial Prize. He published several volumes of poetry: One and One, On the Way to the Depot, About Time, Edward Thomas in Heaven, Life Before Death and An Enchantment and Something About. There were collections: Selected Poems, Presences: New and Selected Poems, and Collected Poems. In 1993 he was given the Cholmondeley Award for poetry. Kavanagh's first novel, A Song and Dance, was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize; he wrote three further novels: A Happy Man, People and Weather, and Only by Mistake; and two novels for children: Scarf Jack and Rebel for Good. He published a collection of essays and articles People and Places: A Selection 1975–1987, a travel autobiography Finding Connections, and a literary companion Voices in Ireland. He was editor of Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney, The Bodley Head G. K. Chesterton, The Essential G. K. Chesterton, The Oxford Book of Short Poems (with James Michie) and A Book of Consolations. He co-presented the programmes Poetry Please on BBC Radio 4 and Not So Much a Programme on BBC1 TV.