John Pick

John Barclay Pick (26 December 1921 – 25 January 2015), often credited as J. B. Pick, was a British poet, novelist, and biographer. He was a Quaker and a conscientious objector during the Second World War, serving in the Friends' Ambulance Unit and then as a coalminer.[1]

Pick was born in Leicester. He was married to Gene Pick (died 2019) with two children, both sons (Peter Pick and David Pick).[2] Pick received his education at Sidcot School, a Quaker institution in Somerset. He attended Cambridge University for a year but left at the outbreak of Second World War to join the Friends' Ambulance Unit. In the 1980s he moved to live in Balmaclellan in Galloway.[3][4]

Pick was the author of the novels Out of the Pit, The Lonely Aren't Alone, Under the Crust and A Land Fit for Eros, the last co-authored with John Atkins. He also wrote a number of short stories, articles, poetry, and nonfiction works. The Last Valley was his first book to be published in the United States.

Works

• The Last Valley Little, Brown & Co, 1959
• The Strange Genius of David Lindsay: An Appreciation (1970) with E. H. Visiak and Colin Wilson
• Neil M. Gunn: selected letters (editor), Edinburgh, Polygon, 1987

References

1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11509419/John-Pick-man-of-letters-obituary.html
2. https://funeral-notices.co.uk/Scotland-Dumfries+and+Galloway-Dumfries+and+Galloway/death-notices/notice/pick/4713437
3. Pick, The Last Valley, jacket.
4. Murray Ewing, violetapple.org.uk The Violet Apple: The Life and Works of David Lindsay (2009)