Morris Beckman is an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 writer. To date he has had five books published.

Early life

Morris Beckman was born in the north-eastern London Borough of Hackney

London Borough of Hackney

The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....

. He attended Hackney Downs School

Hackney Downs School

Hackney Downs School was a comprehensive secondary school, located near Hackney Downs off the A104 north of Hackney town centre, in the London Borough of Hackney.-Grocers' Company's School:...

. In 1939, when World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 started, he tried to enlist in the Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 to become a pilot, but was turned down and signed up for the Merchant Navy as a radio officer.

Merchant Navy

After three months training to become a radio officer, studying Morse code

Morse code

Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...

, Beckman was assigned to merchant vessels participating in the Battle of the Atlantic until 1942 and was torpedoed twice. He was posted to Bombay in 1942 and spent two years with the Mogul Line, crewing auxiliary vessels for the Royal Indian Navy

Royal Indian Navy

The Royal Indian Navy was the naval force of British India. Along with the Presidency armies and the later British Indian Army it comprised the Armed Forces of British India....

 across the Bay of Bengal, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
Beckman’s vessels landed troops at Port Augusta during the Allied invasion of Sicily

Allied invasion of Sicily

The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis . It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign.Husky began on the night of...

 in 1943 and, three months later, at Taranto during the Allied invasion of Italy

Allied invasion of Italy

The Allied invasion of Italy was the Allied landing on mainland Italy on September 3, 1943, by General Harold Alexander's 15th Army Group during the Second World War. The operation followed the successful invasion of Sicily during the Italian Campaign...

. In 1944 his ship was attacked by the Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

 en route to Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, lost a propeller and was towed to Port Sudan

Port Sudan

Port Sudan is the capital of Red Sea State, Sudan; it has 489,725 residents . Located on the Red Sea, it is the Republic of Sudan's main port city.-History:...

. He caught paratyphoid, convalesced in Karachi

Karachi

Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...

, then worked his passage back home via Durban

Durban

Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...

 and New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

.
By 1946 he was permanently onshore back in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and helped to found the 43 Group

43 Group

The 43 Group was an English anti-fascist group set up by Jewish ex-servicemen after World War II. They did this when, upon returning to London, they encountered British fascist organisations such as Jeffrey Hamm's "British League of Ex-Servicemen" and later Oswald Mosley's reformed fascist party,...

.

Career

Beckman tried his hand at several businesses and eventually went into partnership with John David Gold to start a men’s clothes manufacturer, opening their first factory in Crawley

Crawley

Crawley is a town and local government district with Borough status in West Sussex, England. It is south of Charing Cross, north of Brighton and Hove, and northeast of the county town of Chichester, covers an area of and had a population of 99,744 at the time of the 2001 Census.The area has...

 in 1952. The firm steadily expanded, at one time having several factories in the UK and one in Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

. In 1975, faced with increasingly cheap imports from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, the company went into liquidation. Beckman started further small-scale businesses in the same industry, eventually giving up work for writing in the 1980s.

Writing

While working for the Mogul Line, Beckman wrote many articles and short stories which were published in the Sind Gazette and Egyptian Mail amongst other newspapers. His first and only novel, Open Skies and Lost Cargoes, was published by Thacker & Co in Bombay in 1944. Beckman wrote little after leaving the Merchant Navy until the 1980s when he began to document his experiences growing up in Hackney, serving in the Merchant Navy and fighting British fascist groups with the 43 Group. Since The 43 Group was published, Beckman has lectured in Britain, Germany, Holland and Ireland to groups interested in the fight against fascism. Subsequent autobiographical works are The Hackney Crucible about growing up in Hackney before World War II, and Atlantic Roulette about the Battle of the Atlantic. Beckman also wrote The Jewish Brigade: An Army With Two Masters about the Jewish Brigade

Jewish Brigade

The Jewish Infantry Brigade Group was a military formation of the British Army that served in Europe during the Second World War. The brigade was formed in late 1944, and its personnel fought the Germans in Italy...

.

Publications

• Ocean Skies and Lost Cargoes (1944)
• The 43 Group (1993)
• The Hackney Crucible (1996)
• Atlantic Roulette (1996)
• The Jewish Brigade (1999)
• Flying the Red Duster, Spellmount 2011