Forgotten Scribes : John Keir Cross : 19 August 1914 - 22 January 1967

 

Writer & Scriptwriter

John Keir Cross

A Forgotten Scribe 

1914-1967

John Keir Cross was an author of adult fantasy and horror stories. He also wrote many books especially for children. In addition he wrote and adapted stories for radio, famously working for several years as the  main scriptwriter  on “ The Archers” – for  BBC Radio- a programme still going strong today.

John also wrote the script for the first episode for Dr Finlay’s Casebook for TV and was a regular name as an adaptor of  Stevenson’s children’s classics, “Treasure Island”, and “Kidnapped”, for radio and TV. 

Born in Carluke, his childhood years were spent there and in Perth  in Scotland where  he became a well- kent children’s entertainer , with a remarkable feat for ventriloquism. But his job was in insurance and he soon tired of its boredom and routine. 

Son of Hugh Anderson Cross ( a school dentist)  and Lizzie Birch, there was a brother Harry who was lost at sea in WW2 and a brother David who established a large Cross clan in Glasgow and Dunbartonshire.

In 1937 John famously walked from Perth to London, with rucksack and frying pan dangling  from his back,  to seek fame and fortune and wrote an early autobiography telling of this  eventual trip, called “ Aspects of Life”, later appearing on the radio’s popular show, “ In Town Tonight”  to repeat the story of his epic journey where he was arrested en route for a murder.

John was  an  early pioneer of radio for the BBC and helped set up  the BBC studios in Glasgow in WW2 , where he became a regular Saturday night broadcaster, whilst secretly working for the Ministry of Information and was an unsung amongst  many scribes who hit hard  for the war effort behind a typewriter or a microphone.

John also wrote under the name of Stephen Macfarlane.

His fantasy titles include “ The Man in Moonlight” (1947), “The White Magic” (1947) and “The Dancing Tree (1955).  His historical tales include “ The Owl and the Pussycat (1946), “ The Other Side of Green Hills ( 1947).

As Macfarlane John  produced a series for younger children including “ The Blue Egg” (1944, “Lucy Maroon, the Car that Loved a Policeman” (1944, “Mr Bosanko and Other Stories” ( 1944) and “The Strange Tale of Sally and Arnold” (1944).

His stories for adults include  “ The Other Passenger: 19 Strange Stories ( 1944). Look out for the  1961 reprint with surreal full-colour illustrations by Bruce Angrave (1912-1983).

One reviewer says  "The Other Passenger" is an excellent Doppelgänger tale, and "The Glass Eye" one of the better Ventriloquism tales, though only "Clair de Lune" and "Esmeralda", both Ghost stories, are unequivocally supernatural…”

The Glass Eye”, was adapted for the Alfred Hitchcock TV series with Jessica Tandy as a lonely woman smitten with a ventriloquist, and also starring a very young William Shatner.

John anthologies include “Best Horror Stories” (1957), Best Horror Stories 2 ( 1965) and Best Black Magic Stories ( 1960).

Some of his other television work includes two episodes of the series “Sir Francis Drake” in 1962, a couple of “made for television” movies as well as adaptions of John Wyndham's “The Kraken Wakes”; Charles Dickens' “A Tale of Two Cities” and “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s adult romp,  “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”.

John Keir Cross died  today, on 22nd January, in  1967 . He had a  working farm called “Brushford” in Diptford, Devon, where he authentically wrote his work for BBC's “ The Archers”.  59 years ago this week many of  his BBC colleagues descended on "Brushford" to see how John intended the storylines of " The Archers" to pan out.

He was the sole writer. A lesson was learned that scripts for programmes should be generated by a team of people. 

John's  widow Audrey survived him and there were several children.   

William Cross, FSA Scot

( A cousin )

More information : contact williecross@aol.com

SOME COVERS  ETC OF JOHN'S BOOKS 

 

The Notorious Mitfords : A Talk From Tom's Biographer, William Cross, FSA Scot

 

“The Notorious Mitfords”  

Above: Unity, Tom, Deborah, Diana, Jessica, Nancy and Pam 

A Talk By William Cross, FSA Scot

Cwmbran, South Wales: 21 January 2026

The six famous Mitford sisters  led notorious lives in feats of scandal,  love, adultery, divorce and  following fascism as part of the 20th century's greatest  high jinx tales, and real  history and folklore.  No one  was allowed to ignore the Mitford clan. They are still talked about. The TV drama series called  “Outrageous” is  a word that sums them up perfectly.

 

The girls were Nancy (1904-1973), a writer, Pamela  (1907- 1994), ( Rural Miford ), Diana ( 1910-2003 ),  who deserted her first husband for the dangerous Oswald Mosley), Unity ( 1914-1948)  ( who pursued Adolf Hitler), Jessica (1917-1996),   (a Communist, a writer, & who became an American citizen), and Deborah, ( 1920-2014) , the youngest of the tribe who became Duchess of Devonshire & chatelaine of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.  There was one boy in the  line up,  third born, Tom, ( 1909-1945). He was not a headline seeker like his sisters, but a barrister, soldier and talented concert pianist.  Yet, he is as controversial as his sisters with a mangle of  love tangles & affairs involving both sexes. A handsome devil with a passion for married women.

 

The Mitford parents were minor British aristocrats.   David Freeman-Mitford ,  the  2nd Baron Redesdale  ( known to his children as "Farve" ) and his wife  Sydney Bowles ( known to her children as “Muv”).  They married, for  love, in 1904, but it was a underlying  business deal. The  Great War affected David’s position as the family’s “spare” after his elder brother was killed in action and so he became the Redesdale heir on his father’s death in 1916.

 

One  Mitford ancestor was a Lord Chancellor of England, another a notable traveller in Japan, who was a well known landscape gardener designing several Royal Estates for King Edward VII.   The Bowles family were sailors, Sydney’s father  was an  MP and publisher of  magazine titles including“ Vanity Fair” and “ The Lady”  .

 

Childhood for the Mitfords was in London and after the Great War, they lived in a succession of properties mainly in the Coltswolds. The countryside offered  a safe but fragile upbringing, with many madcap rituals, overseen by Muv,  nannies and governesses.    Money was tight but despite this it was remembered mostly with affection, although Nancy and Jessica  published critical accounts of their childhood. Each thought Muv was unloving and harsh and Farve a bully. Tom  was indulged by his parents and often resented by his sisters as he always got whatever he wanted.

 

Farve was an upright figure, a farmer/squire &  Peer, eccentric,  a stickler for rules, one being that girls should not be educated at  any school, only at home.  Tom however the family heir was  sent to preparatory and public school.  Muv was a curiously hands on character, with rules on food, health, based on her own upbringing with a ban on pork and shellfish and bizarre beliefs  that the good body did not need any  medicines, the good body would eventually  heal itself,  Muv  was a watchful wife and kept Farve from straying into the arms of other women, but he flirted with several domestic staff. Later, he had  a mistress whom he lived with for many years,  separating from Muv in the 1940s.  He died at Otterburn,  a Mitford homestead in Northumberland in 1958. Muv survived until 1963, and died in Scotland. Farve, Muv and four of the sisters, Nancy, Pam, Unity and Diana  are all buried at St Mary’s Churchyard, Swinbrook, a Mitford heritage site.  A memorial to Tom is also to be found inside the Church.

 

Farve  admired Muv’s ability with housekeeping budgets,  seeing that all six girls were prepared for presentation  at Court as debutantes and experienced foreign travel. The idea being that this route would find them husbands. The girls had they own ideas and each of them were a trouble to their parents  all their adult years.  Tom  was   Farve’s pride and joy. And Tom  was also always there for his sisters, despite their  many antics at home and abroad  and choice of husbands and lovers and friends and politics.  When troubles hit hardest Farve bought a Scottish Island, Inch Kenneth,  near Mull, which became the family’s refuge. Tragedies hit the Mitfords hard. Tom was killed in 1945  fighting the Japanese. Unity was reduced to a child like creature after attempting suicide and this led to her early death in 1948. The other girls lived to old age.

 

Will Cross  has made a close study of the Mitford clan  for a biography entitled  “ TOM MITFORD : A FEARFUL OLD TWISTER” & written  articles for the Mitford Society Journal.  He  is a writer and lecturer based in Newport,  a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.  Will’s  e-mail for enquiries on books/talks  williecross@aol.com

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