FORTUNE PRESS WRITERS ON FRIDAY : NICHOLAS MOORE: 1918–1986

 

FORTUNE PRESS WRITERS ON FRIDAY

A short glance by William Cross, FSA Scot

Nicholas Moore

1918–1986

Publisher, Author, Editor, Poet, and Jazz Man.

‘Expansive, Eloquent, Self-conscious’ and Life-Affirming’ says Mark Ford.

Moore was a remarkable and eccentric fellow with a sizable poetry output and much input into the 1940s New Apocalyptics movement. From his schooldays Moore wrote poetry every day and submitted it to various magazines. During his years as an undergraduate at St Andrews and Cambridge Universities, Moore began his own literary review, “Seven”, working there as both editor and co-founder. After his graduation he continued to live in Cambridge, publishing pamphlets as part of the famous “Poetry London” imprint sweeping in the works of Dylan Thomas, George Scurfield, G S Fraser and Anne Ridler. His later collaborators included well known literary figures of the day including John Bayliss, Douglas Newton. Wallace Stevens Alfred Perlès, Julian. Maclaren-Ross, Conrad Aiken, Lawrence Durrell, Christopher Fry Henry Miller,. Saul Bellow, Paul Goodman, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Allen Tate.

Nicholas Moore, pictured above, with his book " The Island and the Cattle" holds a ubiquitous presence in the annals of the Fortune Press volumes including acting as the editor of several important anthologies:

MOORE’S FORTUNE PRESS TITLES INCLUDE

“The New Apocalypse: An Anthology of Criticism, Poems and Stories”

Fortune Press. 1940

“ The Island and the Cattle”

Fortune Press. 1941

“ A Wish In Season”

Fortune Press. 1941

“The Fortune Anthology - Stories, Criticism and Poems.”

Fortune Press. 1942

“The Cabaret, the Dancer, the Gentleman”

Fortune Press. 1942

“Thirty-five anonymous odes”

Fortune Press. 1944

“New Poetry”

Fortune Press. 1944

Design front cover is by Lucien Freud

NB Moore’s “ The Glass Tower”, ( Published by Nicholas & Watson), a selected poems collection from 1944, also appeared with illustrations by the young painter, Lucian Freud – it is a very much sought after and expensive work.

“Atlantic Anthology: New Voices”

Fortune Press, 1945

Moore also wrote as Guy Kelly

“The War of the Little Jersey Cows

Fortune Press, 1945

See Timothy D’Arch Smith 14, 22, 23, 26, 29, 325, 391-393

One contemporary comments that Moore “ faded into obscurity through a series of misfortunes and mysterious circumstances.” Another adds "Amid the scrambled history of neo-modernist revivals, the case for rediscovering Nicholas Moore recurs. Although prominent in the 1940s, Moore was subsequently neglected. Interest revived, along with new publications, in the late 1960s and early 1970s."

Many of his poems are addressed to his first wife Priscilla Craig, with others dedicated to jazz musicians. Moore had a shambolic, nomadic and chaoic home life over several decades from the late 1940s, into the 1950s, with a mixture of family deaths, poverty, martial and work bumps and serious publishing failures, he was also in very poor health, disabled and ultimately, despite some clever attempts aimed to bounce back, he was left in bits, failed and lost. A very sad epitaph to a natural born poet and an imaginative mind.

The Island and the Cattle

Because he sent a head of cattle on

Further than they should go, over the dykes,

Driving them with a switch and a dog beside him:

They sank in the quag, and he,

Frightened because of his sin, disappeared,

Never to be noticed again in that country:

Because he told them, in a letter,

That it was not his fault, he had gone mad,

Driven towards the sea by a vision of birds

Who whistled over his head in the wind,

Leading to a qujet island. He found a girl there,

Lay with her in the rushes, her beauty

Like a star being too much for him.

The wind rose, the morning was grey, his vision gone:

There was no girl, there were no cattle, and it was day.

—Nicholas Moore

Questions/ enquiries etc - contact Will by email

williecross@aol.com

150th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF ALMINA, COUNTESS OF CARNARVON

 

THE MANY FACES OF ALMINA CARNARVON

SUBJECT OF TWO BIOGRAPHIES

Today, 14 April 2026, is the 150^th anniversary of the birth of Almina Wombwell, later 5^th Countess of Carnarvon, chatelaine for almost 30 years of Highclere Castle, famous as the backdrop to film and TV’s Downton Abbey.

There are  two biographies of the extraordinary Almina, my book “ The Life and Secrets of Almina Carnarvon”, and  “Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey”, from Highclere’s stable.

The two works are polls apart in terms of sources used, in content and the years covered. The books stack up for closer scrutiny and integrity. One book was produced under the auspices of a worldwide kingdom of a major publishing house, whilst the other was compiled single-handed over three years, by me,  an experienced historical researcher, antiquarian and a Fellow of the Antiquaries of Scotland.

I was refused access to the Herbert family sources at its stately home at Highclere and the files hidden and forbidden that lie within the Archives of Highclere Castle, Hampshire, England, a place now a veritable shrine, an iconic a structure that television has turned into a glorified biscuit- tin image in adverts and programme breaks.

My book is  culled from devouring everything almost ever written about Almina and her first husband, George Herbert,  the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, the famed discoverer, with Howard Carter of Tutankhamun.

That assault course involved delving into numerous British, European and American Archives, The Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, the Rothschild Archives, London, the National Archives at Kew and the British Library among them- as well as papers and diaries held in private hands.

Testimonies were gathered far and wide from many people who knew Almina, or knew about her. This was an epic process which began long before television, press or public made Highclere a universal phallus. Importantly,  my book draws on the personal testimony about Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon from her late godson, Anthony ( Tony ) Leadbetter ( 1938-2019). Tony actually lived with Almina for almost thirty years of her very long, colourful life.  His Aunt Alice Butler and his mother, Anne Leadbetter, were Almina's housekeepers from 1935 until 1969. If anyone knows what Almina was like it is Tony Leadbetter. There is no one in the Herbert family who has this experience of living under the same roof,  for the same duration with Almina over a number of the decades of life, and now, reliably, lovingly  recalling her voice, her memories and from a time when she was finally free at last to speak out candidly and frankly about her life and about those she knew, and loved and some whom she hated.

A writer and a publisher should always strive for indisputable accuracy and objectivity. The unvarnished truth about Almina, 5th Countess of Carnarvon is much too big to be suppressed, and that's why one of these books about her whole life, not a half life, half told, but all her life, told with a sense for seeking out the truth, will endure, with integrity, as her definitive biography, whilst the other will surely only be a minor accompaniment to a highly overrated television fiction.

The Life Secrets of Almina Carnarvon, Third Edition, is still available on ebay .

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204794598968

For further details please contact William Cross, by e-mail, williecross@aol.com

William Cross, FSA Scot

14 April 2026, Newport, South Wales

Charlie Cross - Our Dear Brother 1955-1995

 

 CHARLIE CROSS : BORN 1 APRIL 1955:  DIED 18 JUNE 1995

 Our dear brother Charlie Cross would have been 71 today.

He was born at the William Smellie Maternity Hospital, Lanark, on 1 April 1955,  to John and  Daisy Cross,  a second son.­

Our Mother said that " he was like a leopard " when born, covered in spots, owing to some blood disorder.

My first memory of  my brother Charlie is seeing him in his pram with a pretty white hat, made of cotton, tied round his neck in a bow.­ He was just so tiny, and he cried a lot.­ It must have been his first or second summer and my third or fourth.­

Daily ( our  Mother)  got us ready to go out. I was expected to walk, reigns attached.­ I couldn't grasp who this other little chap was, but soon got used to him.

 Our Mother took us out regularly down the Wishaw Low Road. ­Another favourite jaunt was down the High Road, towards the Calder Water and Swinstie, where there were always a nest of swans. ­

Somehow, I remember the sun was always shining, the pavements were hot to walk on, the tar on the roads even melted sometimes. There was also a peacefulness in the air.­ The traffic was lighter and slower, the Calder Water was clean and free of smells and effluent. ­This was a 50s childhood, in a small village in Lanarkshire where coal and iron ore mining had been the principal occupation for over a hundred years.

Charlie had a reputation as a singer and his rendering of old gospel hymns was very moving.­ As a party piece he did a marvellous take on  Zena Zavaroni  " Ma, he's makin' eyes at me..." We did try a few duets together, we disappeared at the seaside to make a record in one of the record booths that were popular in the 60s & we repeated our " Someone " in later years, at New Year parties, in London.

Charlie had the chance to go to agricultural college when he was 11, it was regretted later that he did not go there. ­As_it was he transferred from Cleland and Omoa JS School  to Coltness High School and ended up leaving school at 16, in 1971.­ He joined our father then, who had started his own central heating business in 1970, and the running joke for years was that Charlie was the very oldest_apprentice in Scotland. ­The two of them became inseparable as Oil Heat Services Lanarkshire.­They didn't always agree and much­ of their work was dirty and spent out in all weathers.­ But they were both good engineers and very reliable.

Charlie looked forward to his weekends off and this was spent in the company of a small crowd.­ Saturday night was club night, for years with best pal, Frank Keenan. ­He developed a  very skilful singing  act on the clubs circuit, taking the micky out of TV adverts& helped raise money for many good causes.

­Dear Charlie suffered a great deal through his long illness after kidney failure, and the dialysis  ordeal took its toll. ­But, he could be amusing & witty & sometimes impossible,  but always brave. Charlie remained close to our brother Keir, they had been in the house together with our parents after I left Scotland in 1972.­ Keir moved South in 1983, but they had memories and experiences that I didn't share and they both had a interest in sport, both played together in the Bellside football  Team, usually overseen by Bellside weans. Charlie, like Keir was a good goalie.

 ­He had a rigorous regime of having to attend the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow three times a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, he ­was on a dialysis machine for   5 hours at each visit and he­ did this for 8 years. In between he had numerous operations and repairs including two horrendous, failed kidney transplants. Charlie’s life was full of illnesses. He  died on 18 June 1995, aged 40.

There is a good word for Charlie that sticks in my mind and it was in fact the word used by Rev Mr Wilson, of Cleland Parish Church, to sum him up  in his  funeral address.­ That word is EXTROVERT.

He is still very much loved  and missed.

Happy Birthday, Charlie.

 

With Charlie ( right) at Holytown Churchyard at the grave of our Pettigrew grandparents - c1991. 

Charlie is also remembered in other anecdotes in my book " BEECHWOOD : A STORY OF CHILDHOOD"

William Cross, FSA Scot

email

williecross@aol.com