Leslie Paul

Leslie Allen Paul (1905, Dublin – 1985, Cheltenham) was an Anglo-Irish writer and founder of the Woodcraft Folk.

Born in Dublin on 30 April 1905, Leslie Paul grew up in Honor Oak, southeast London, the second child of advertising manager Frederick Paul and registered nurse, Lottie Burton.

The family was fairly large, consisting of three sons and two daughters including younger siblings Joan and Douglas.

During his materially poor but culturally rich childhood, Paul contributed dramatic poetry recitations to family/neighbourhood entertainments.

He later recalled performing a vignette called 'Two Coons', which gave a sympathetic representation of African culture.

By the summer of 1922, Paul was a junior ledger clerk employed in the city (near Aldgate) at the International Stores on a weekly salary of 22 s. 6 d.

In 1923 he joined his father's firm Pantlin and Paul in Fleet Street, hoping to find a way into freelance journalism.

He actually succeeded in becoming editor of a magazine called 'The open Road', but the magazine failed after only six months.

During that six months Paul attempted to become a freelance journalist, and wrote the unpublished 'The Journal of a Sun Worshipper'.

During this period Paul came under the mentorship of Charles Watson, a retired unionist, bookseller and Swedenborgian.

Watson loaned Paul books from his bookshop which were to have a major influence on Paul's political and social thinking.

Another influence was Harold Laski, whose powers of oratory influenced Paul's thinking and writing style.

He left the Scouts to join the Kibbo Kift Kindred but after a dispute with the Kibbo Kift leader, John Hargrave in 1925, some south London co-operative groups challenged Hargrave's authoritarian tendencies.

The dispute was over his refusal to recognise a local group called "The Brockley Thing".

The result was that in 1925 Paul and some other members broke away to form a new group, the Woodcraft Folk (which is still active).

Although the Woodcraft Folk was the work of several people, Paul— its most eloquent member and its first leader— came to be seen as its founder and representative.

During the Second World War Paul served in the Middle East with the Army Educational Corps, and also taught at Mount Carmel College.

During the 1930s Paul seems to have worked as a freelance journalist.

He was also employed in London educational and social work, as well as working on the continent with refugees.

He was a tutor with the London County Council as well as the Workers' Educational Association.

In 1932 Paul published his strongly autobiographical first novel 'Fugitive Morning'.

Paul's political views at this time were inspired by H. G. Wells, William Morris, and Edward Carpenter, while his ideas about children's education were partly drawn from Rousseau's Emile.

In addition, Paul was also active in the pacifist No More War Movement.

Paul was an outspoken critic of the Axis powers, as well as the Soviet Union following the latter nation's signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

After the outbreak of World War Two and the rise of fascism, Paul abandoned his pacifism and supported the British war effort.

After World War I Paul had become deeply involved with scouting and related youth movements.

When Simone Weil died in Ashford, Kent, in August 1943 Paul paid £12 for a burial plot.

This event is commemorated in his poem 'Lady Whose Grave I Own'.

The war prompted Paul to return to his childhood Christian faith.

He recorded his spiritual journey in his book The Annihilation of Man (1944), which received the Atlantic Award for literature in 1946.

It had been nominated for the award by T. S. Eliot.

After the Second World War Paul became an active member of the Church of England.

He moved away from the radically orientated Woodcraft Folk, and later became a professional clergyman.

He was employed as tutor at the Ashridge College of Citizenship (1947–8), and later as Director of Studies at Brasted Place Theological College (1953–7).

His most significant act within the Church was the production of his report on "The deployment and payment of the clergy" (1964), which led to extensive modernisation of the Church's organisational structure.

Paul served as lecturer in ethics and social studies at Queen's College, Birmingham (1965–70), and on the General Synod (1970–5).

During the first half of the 1980s Paul was writer in residence at the College of St Paul and St Mary, Cheltenham, occupying a basement flat (accompanied by a black and white cat) in Shurdington Road.

During this time he mentored young college and local writers through organized group readings, and co-edited the college poetry magazine, Cresset, to which he contributed his poetry, including Meditations on the Four Quartets.

In 1984 Paul bequeathed or sold his personal library, and students Kim Lidstone and Angus Whitehead catalogued the library before it was moved.

One memorable discovery was a paperback edition of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's "Psychopathia Sexualis".