John Sommerfield: archive

This page lists and includes extracts from the archive of the novelist John Sommerfield - for more about him and his writings, please click on this link. The archive was passed on to me by his son Peter Sommerfield in the summer of 2013, and he has also encouraged me to post extracts online. One scholar has already consulted this material - and it has now been be passed on to the Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birmingham with the finding no. MS873 - here's the link for more details.  

The material consists largely of typescripts of John Sommerfield's novels and short stories from the late 1940s and 1950s in particular, but also includes some earlier items - include notebooks from the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. There's a wealth of photographs and of review clippings, and a handful of letters - including a wonderful letter from Dylan Thomas, and a postcard from George Bernard Shaw.

I have posted at the bottom of this page a rudimentary list of the items in the archive, all of which fit comfortably into a single cardboard box (which is how I received them). The story of John Sommerfield's box is told in this article from the Spring 2014 issue of the Literary London Journal.

The highlights

I've posted here three of the most intriguing items in John Sommerfield's archive - I am sure you will enjoy them:

This is a wonderful letter to Sommerfield from Dylan Thomas in January 1941, by which time Sommerfield was with the RAF. Here's a transcript:

‘Old John,
  My first letter, too. After all these pints. It was better than a Pim’s to hear from you, and especially to hear that you’ll be in London so thirstily soon. I look forward, my constitution is not so happy. And get me here, will you, TEM. 1891, as quickly as you can once they let you out. We’ll make a date straightaway, for that moment. Wny can’t you desert for a bit? Or is this scrap and scribble pluepencilled? We’ll choose a good – qualified – place, but that doesn’t mean we won’t visit all the qualified bad places too. Glad you liked my winter verses, very quickly produced from my tame Swinburne machine, and don’t forget: TEM 1891, or above address, and we’ll be quietly noisy together for as long as you like and we can. All my lack of news then. Caitlin sends best love. Send ours to Molly. I’m still helping to produce those things that Beachcomber calls the series of priggish, facietious shorts extolling the virtues of sad girls in unfitting uniforms and the vices of happy  thinking, moving, and X-ing – one word I must use. How are you?
  Always,
  Dylan.’

.

An initialled postcard from George Bernard Shaw from December 1947, addressed to John Sommerfield at 'Our Time'.

The postcard reads: ‘As to theatres and magazines, it is my business to  get money out of them, not to put it in. There are  scores of them, all bankrupt
 ‘When the war taxation leaves me a few spare pounds / to give away they go to the Royal Literary Fund.
   ‘Do thou likewise.       G.B.S.’

---

This appears to be a British propaganda leaflet, printed on thin tissue, intended to demoralise Japanese troops. Sommerfield may well have picked it up while serving in Burma. I asked a friend (thanks, Miho!) for a translation of the Japanese. It reads: 'Five aircraft carriers, our (Japan’s) only hope, have sunk. Our future is bleak.'  In the picture, there are aircraft carriers with the names Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu and Ryukaku. These appear to be carriers which were sunk during the war - the Akagi, for example, was scuttled by its crew in June 1942 after sustaining severe damage.

The photographs

Just a small selection of John Sommerfield's photos from the Second World War - he's the one standing, towards the right, holding a cup in the top photograph (which I've posted again below so you can get a better sense of what Sommerfiedl looked like in his army days).

The portrait drawing

And the notebooks

This is the oldest of the items in the archive, a notebook which Sommerfield appears to have used while fighting with the International Brigades. It seems to be the notebook which he wrote about in The Imprinted (1977), p.16:

  'I'd started the first notebook in 1936, on the way to Spain. For Shorthand Typists, Reporters, Evening Classes, etc., it said on the cover, which was greasy, muddied and winestained. Traces of coffee and old sweat too. Some of the writing was a rapid pencil scrawl, often sloping off the page, and difficult to read.'

On the inside flap, Sommerfield has written as follows:

It's a little difficult to make out, but reads:
‘JOHN SOMMERFIELD / Sector IV / Compagnie Mitrailleuse / Marty Battalion / Vme Regiment’

I've posted below on the left a page from this Spanish notebook, and on the right a page from another notebook he kept during his service in the Second World War:

I have posted on a separate page a copy of the entire Spanish note book - here's the link  - and below I've posted both front and rear of a tiny photo which is loose in Sommerfield's Second World War notebook, taken at Durban and showing John smoking.

One other item is also posted in full - here's the link - John Sommerfield's adaptation for radio of his 1960 novel North West Five, to which he gave the title 'More Room for Us'.

The Archive: list of contents

John Sommerfield typescripts and manuscripts
(inspected June 2013)

Shorthand Notebook

·         On inside flap in pencil: ‘JOHN SOMMERFIELD / Sector IV / Compagnie Mitrailleuse / Marty Battalion / Vme Regiment’

·          pencil notes and perhaps verse on 16ff (one large part missing), then apparent notes towards play script on 15ff; many blank sheets

·         loosely inserted, cut out of photocopy of British WW2-era plane; 

Notebook

·         Name ‘John Sommerfield’ on  front and rear – 77ff approx of notes, and some verse, in ink and pencil, mainly a diary of sorts, month by month, relating to war service

·         Loose inserts include: a handwritten postcard from George Bernard Shaw, dated 12/12/1947, addressed to JS at ‘Our Time’ and apparently a response to a request for financial support:

‘As to theatres and magazines, it is my business to / get money out of them, not to put it in. There are / scores of them, all bankrupt
 ‘When the war taxation leaves me a few spare pounds / to give away they go to the Royal Literary Fund.
  ‘Do thou likewise.       G.B.S.’

·         -  JS’s ‘Royal  Air Force Service and Release Book’ , inserted within a small wartime black-and-white photo, inscribed, and a much later colour photo of ? JS and Molly

·         - single handwritten sheet ‘Gremlinology’
 

Cardboard Wallet bearing label (largely removed)  ‘”SI  ---    BRITAIN”

·         Letter from Dylan Thomas, handwritten (paper very crumpled and torn but complete), foolscap, 6 January 1941, from Strand Film Company, Filmicity House, 5a Upper St. Martin’s Lane, London WC2:

‘Old John, / My first letter, too. After all these pints. It was better than a Pim’s to hear from you, / and especially to hear that you’ll be in / London so thirstily soon. I look forward, my / constitution is not so happy. And get me / here, will you, TEM. 1891, as quickly as you / can once they let you out. We’ll make a / date straightaway, for that moment. Wny / can’t you desert for a bit? Or is this / scrap and scribble pluepencilled? We’ll / choose a good – qualified – place, but / that doesn’t mean we won’t visit all the / qualified bad places too. Glad you liked / my winter verses, very quickly produced / from my tame Swinburne machine, and / don’t forget: TEM 1891, or above address, / and we’’ be quietly noisy together / for as long as you like and we can. / All my lack of news then. Caitlin sends / best love. Send ours to Molly. / I’m still helping to produce those / things that Beachcomber calls the series / of priggish, facietious shorts extolling / the virtues of sad girls in unfitting / iniforms and the vices of happy / thinking, moving, and X-ing – one word / I must use. How are you? / Always, / Dylan.’

·         Undated cutting from Guardian of review of The Imprinted, and three other titles, by Norman Shrapnel

·         Handwritten story, 2ff. incomplete, entitled ‘Mysterious Event on a Troopship’

·         Notes, mainly in pencil, 9ff, including two sheets which may be autobiographical

·         Typescript, 5ff, entitled ‘The Voice of London’

·         Black-and-white photographs, three postcard size, ten smaller than postcard size; of these, six inscribed on the rear; dating from the Second World War, including group photographs of troops (including JS), and several clearly taken in south Asia (one in Sindh), among them JS with bullock cart

Double-pocket Cardboard Wallet

·         Typescript 7ff, stapled together, ? incomplete, a synopsis of a play entitled ‘Rooney’; post-it accompanying: ‘7/12/08 / First time I’ve seen this / PMS’

·         Several dozen newspaper cuttings and a few photocopies, mainly 1950s and many from a cuttings service, largely  reviews or short notices of JS’s books but also including: an original pen and ink portrait of JS  ?? c1947; review of Trouble in Porter Street by Philip Bolsover in the Daily Worker, 23 March 1939; complete 4pp broadsheet Daily Worker of 12 January 1956, including review of JS’s The Inheritance;  JS article on pubs in Guardian, 11-12 February 1989, and similar JS article in Russian; war-related handbill in black and red on tissue, apparently British propaganda intended for Japanese troops.

Two ring binders tied together with a note which reads:  ‘Manuscripts of “PRESS ON REGARDLESS” Short Stories, 12/1/10 P. Sommerfield’ [many of these stories appeared in JS’s books of short stories, The Survivors, published in 1947]

·         First binder has typescript, 145ff, of ‘Press on Regardless’, fourteen short stories relating to wartime service

·         Second binder has carbon copy of typescript above; loosely inserted – copy of RAF ‘Certificate of Service and Release’; typescript small list of writings; one scrap of paper

Softbound Ringbinder, on front ‘The Simple Life’, ‘From John Sommerfield/ 107 MANSFIELD RD / NW3’

·         Extensively corrected typescript, 344ff

Black Document Folder, including loose:

·         Typescript, 9ff, ‘Fireproof Jack’

·         Typescript, 7ff, Who’s Laughing Now?’

·         Typescript, 9ff, ‘What a Shame …’ [2 copies, and a third copy of first page]]

·         Typescript, 27ff, ‘Five Girls: Chapter One’

·         Typescript, 5ff, ‘People in Glass Houses’

·         Typescript,23ff, untitled, opening words: ‘The train went and her eyes filled with tears.’

·         Typescript, 2ff, untitled and incomplete, opening words: ‘At about ten past four …’

·         Typescript, 5ff, untitled, opening words: ‘Now the cinemas and theatres are emptying.’

·         Typescript, 6ff, ‘The Character of a Landscape: theme for a film’

·         Handwritten in pencil, 4ff paginated starts at 8, untitled

·         Handwritten in pencil, 10ff, pagination irregular, opening words: ‘S’ong fellers, he said.’

·         A further 8 sheets, typewritten or handwritten

·         A cutting from the Daily Express, undated, ‘Dog takes tram for a ride’, which relates in subject to one of the stories; a cutting from the Guardian, a review by Norman Shrapnel of JS’s The Imprinted and three other titles

Black ring binder  [the two following items constitute the typescript of The Inheritance, published in 1956]

·         Loose in ring binder, ‘The Inheritance, typescript 263ff, with end papers, one of which listing JS’s book for an advertisement page

Black soft ring binder, with paper labels on front: ‘THE INHERITANCE by John Sommerfield’, ‘VOLUME TWO – Carbon Copy’

·         Carbon copy of typescript paginated from 262 – 464, so 203ff

Xerox radio drama script

·         53ff, foolscap, duplicated, ‘“More Room for Us” by John Sommerfield from his novel “North West Five”, Produced by R.D. Smith. For transmission on the Home Service, 13 August 1960, with a cast of nine

Brown ring binder  [this is the typescript of The Imprinted, which was subtitled ‘Recollections of Then, Now and Later on’  and published in 1977]

·         Carbon typescript, 203ff, ‘Now, Then and Later On’

·         Loosely inserted, four cuttings of reviews of JS’s The Imprinted

Published items

·         Our Time, August 1945 (two copies, both incomplete), includes JS’s short story ‘The Night of the Fire’, pp.10-11

·         Our Time, February 1947 (two copies, one incomplete), includes JS’s ‘Waiting for Tolstoy? War Reportage is not Enough’, p Pp.148-9

·         Our Time, May 1947, pages with JS’s book review missing

·         Our Time, July 1948, JS article in review of Alexander Baron’s From the City, from the Plough,  p.257: ‘I think this is certainly the best book to come out of the war so far. The confidence and accuracy of its writing are truly remarkable for a first novel.’

·         London Magazine, 14/2, June-July 1974, includes JS’s review of Douglas Day’s Malcolm Lowry: A Biography, pp.139-144

·         London Magazine, 17/5, November 1977, includes JS’s review of Edward Upward’s The Spiral Ascent, pp.87-89

AW   [ENDS]


REVISED NOVEMBER 2013 - link to 'John Sommerfield's Box' article added JULY 2014, link to the site of the Cadbury Research Library added November 2014