Mark Arnold-Forster
Encyclopedia
Mark Arnold-Forster, DSO
, DSC (16 April 1920 – 25 December 1981) was an English
journalist and author. He is best remembered for his book The World at War, which accompanied the 1973 television series of the same name.
Katharine "Ka" Laird, née Cox (b. 1887, d. 1938) and grandson of Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster
. His parents' families included leading politicians and writers, among them Matthew Arnold
and his mother had been close to Rupert Brooke
and his group as well as to Virginia Woolf
. Shortly after his birth his parents went to live in a picturesque Cornish house, Eagle's Nest, Zennor
, Cornwall
. They placed Mark at the age of seven in a boarding-school in the French-speaking part of Switzerland
, and at nine in Kurt Hahn
's Schule Schloss Salem
at
Salem in Germany
. When Hitler came to power in 1933 Hahn was driven into exile, and Arnold-Forster followed him to a new school, Gordonstoun in Scotland
, where he stayed until he left school in 1937. This upbringing made him fluent in French
and German
. Arnold-Forster won a place to study mechanical engineering at Trinity Hall
, Cambridge
, but he never took this up. Instead, after a year's apprenticeship during 1938–39 with the Blue Funnel Line
, involving a voyage to Manchuria
, Arnold-Forster went on to join the Royal Navy
.
convoy and then (1942–4) on motor torpedo boat
s in the English Channel
. Eventually he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in command of a flotilla at Dover
, despite looking quite young for his age. His tasks included engaging the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen
in battle and torpedoing a tanker. He limped home from a battle with a broken-down engine after being nearly rammed by a German destroyer. He also laid mines
under fire off the French coast and worked for naval intelligence. He was awarded the DSO
and DSC, was three times mentioned in despatches, and was demobilized as a reserve Lieutenant in 1946.
and then in Germany
, where he wrote about the immediate post-war period and the Berlin blockade
in 1948. In 1949 he became labour correspondent, a key job he carried out for eight years. He then joined The Observer
as a political correspondent. But in 1963, he had a falling out with The Observer over an issue related to an editorial change to one of his articles. He resigned in disgust and returned to The Guardian
as chief editorial writer. He later moved to ITN, as deputy to editor Sir Geoffrey Cox
, making the switch to television without any difficulty. In the 1970s, he wrote the series The World at War, with narration by Laurence Olivier
and Jeremy Isaacs
as the producer. He continued to write regular leaders for The Guardian until his death in 1981.
. Both were descended from the ‘intellectual aristocracy’ and related to successive secretaries of state for war, Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster
and R. B. Haldane. They had five children: three sons and two daughters. Their son Joshua Arnold-Forster is a researcher for the United Nations
and their son Jake Arnold-Forster a director of Carradale Consulting. Their oldest son, Sam Arnold-Forster, is an energy specialist working at Thomson Reuters.
and died at his home, 50 Clarendon Road, Notting Hill, London, on Christmas Day, 1981. He was cremated at West London crematorium on 5 January 1982.
Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
, DSC (16 April 1920 – 25 December 1981) was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
journalist and author. He is best remembered for his book The World at War, which accompanied the 1973 television series of the same name.
Early years
He was the only son of William Edward Arnold-Forster (b. 1886, d. 1951), painter, publicist, and gardener, and his wifeKatharine "Ka" Laird, née Cox (b. 1887, d. 1938) and grandson of Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster
Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster
Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster PC , known as H. O. Arnold-Forster, was a British politician and writer. He notably served as Secretary of State for War from 1903 to 1905.-Background and education:...
. His parents' families included leading politicians and writers, among them Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
and his mother had been close to Rupert Brooke
Rupert Brooke
Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier...
and his group as well as to Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
. Shortly after his birth his parents went to live in a picturesque Cornish house, Eagle's Nest, Zennor
Zennor
Zennor is a village and civil parish in Cornwall in England. The parish includes the villages of Zennor, Boswednack and Porthmeor and the hamlet of Treen. It is located on the north coast, about north of Penzance. Alphabetically, the parish is the last in Britain—its name comes from the Cornish...
, Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
. They placed Mark at the age of seven in a boarding-school in the French-speaking part of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, and at nine in Kurt Hahn
Kurt Hahn
Kurt Martin Hahn was a German educator whose philosophies are considered internationally influential.-Biography:...
's Schule Schloss Salem
Schule Schloss Salem
Schule Schloss Salem is a boarding school with campuses in Hohenfels, Salem and Überlingen in Baden-Württemberg, Southern Germany. It is considered one of the most elite schools in Europe.It offers the German Abitur, as well as the International Baccalaureate...
at
Salem in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. When Hitler came to power in 1933 Hahn was driven into exile, and Arnold-Forster followed him to a new school, Gordonstoun in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, where he stayed until he left school in 1937. This upbringing made him fluent in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. Arnold-Forster won a place to study mechanical engineering at Trinity Hall
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the fifth-oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich.- Foundation :...
, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, but he never took this up. Instead, after a year's apprenticeship during 1938–39 with the Blue Funnel Line
Blue Funnel Line
Alfred Holt and Company, marketed as the Blue Funnel Line, was founded by Alfred Holt on 16 January 1866.The main operating subsidiary was the Ocean Steam Ship Company, which owned and operated the majority of the company's vessels....
, involving a voyage to Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
, Arnold-Forster went on to join the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
.
Wartime career
Mark Arnold-Forster served throughout the Second World War, first as a merchant seaman and then in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. He served on a destroyer on the MurmanskMurmansk
Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...
convoy and then (1942–4) on motor torpedo boat
Motor Torpedo Boat
Motor Torpedo Boat was the name given to fast torpedo boats by the Royal Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy.The capitalised term is generally used for the Royal Navy boats and abbreviated to "MTB"...
s in the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
. Eventually he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in command of a flotilla at Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
, despite looking quite young for his age. His tasks included engaging the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen
German cruiser Prinz Eugen
Prinz Eugen was an Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruiser, the third member of the class of five vessels. She served with the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. The ship was laid down in April 1936 and launched August 1938; Prinz Eugen entered service after the outbreak of war, in August 1940...
in battle and torpedoing a tanker. He limped home from a battle with a broken-down engine after being nearly rammed by a German destroyer. He also laid mines
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...
under fire off the French coast and worked for naval intelligence. He was awarded the DSO
Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
and DSC, was three times mentioned in despatches, and was demobilized as a reserve Lieutenant in 1946.
Journalism career
In 1946, he joined the editorial staff of The Guardian. He worked first in ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and then in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, where he wrote about the immediate post-war period and the Berlin blockade
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first resulting in casualties. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied...
in 1948. In 1949 he became labour correspondent, a key job he carried out for eight years. He then joined The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
as a political correspondent. But in 1963, he had a falling out with The Observer over an issue related to an editorial change to one of his articles. He resigned in disgust and returned to The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
as chief editorial writer. He later moved to ITN, as deputy to editor Sir Geoffrey Cox
Geoffrey Cox (journalist)
Sir Geoffrey Sandford Cox, CNZM, CBE was a New Zealand-born newspaper and television journalist. He was a former editor and chief executive of ITN and a founder of News at Ten....
, making the switch to television without any difficulty. In the 1970s, he wrote the series The World at War, with narration by Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
and Jeremy Isaacs
Jeremy Isaacs
Sir Jeremy Isaacs is a British television producer and executive, winner of many BAFTA awards and international Emmy Awards. He was also General Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden .-Early life:...
as the producer. He continued to write regular leaders for The Guardian until his death in 1981.
Personal life
On 12 January 1955, he married Valentine Harriet Isobel Dione Mitchison (b. 1930), also a journalist, daughter of the Labour politician Dick Mitchison and the novelist Naomi MitchisonNaomi Mitchison
Naomi May Margaret Mitchison, CBE was a Scottish novelist and poet. She was appointed CBE in 1981; she was also entitled to call herself Lady Mitchison, CBE since 5 October 1964 .- Childhood and family background :Naomi Margaret Haldane was...
. Both were descended from the ‘intellectual aristocracy’ and related to successive secretaries of state for war, Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster
Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster
Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster PC , known as H. O. Arnold-Forster, was a British politician and writer. He notably served as Secretary of State for War from 1903 to 1905.-Background and education:...
and R. B. Haldane. They had five children: three sons and two daughters. Their son Joshua Arnold-Forster is a researcher for the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
and their son Jake Arnold-Forster a director of Carradale Consulting. Their oldest son, Sam Arnold-Forster, is an energy specialist working at Thomson Reuters.
Decline and death
Mark Arnold-Forster suffered from persistent ill health in his fifties, in particular a series of minor strokes. In 1979, he developed cancer of the upper colonColon (anatomy)
The colon is the last part of the digestive system in most vertebrates; it extracts water and salt from solid wastes before they are eliminated from the body, and is the site in which flora-aided fermentation of unabsorbed material occurs. Unlike the small intestine, the colon does not play a...
and died at his home, 50 Clarendon Road, Notting Hill, London, on Christmas Day, 1981. He was cremated at West London crematorium on 5 January 1982.
Books by Arnold-Forster
- Mark Arnold-Forster, The World at War, Publ: Pimlico, Revised Edition, 2001, (ISBN 0712667822).
- Mark Arnold-Forster, The Siege of Berlin, Publ: Collins, 1979, (ISBN 0002167395).
- Mark Arnold-Forster, The Future of the Labour Party: A Stock-Taking, Publ: Manchester Guardian and Evening News, 1955, ASIN: B0007JWQE2.
Selected publications
- Mark Arnold-Forster, "The East German parliament," Parliamentary Affairs, V(2), pp. 274–280. pdf