Michael Davidson (journalist)

Michael Davidson (1897–1976) was a British journalist, memoirist, and an open pederast.

Michael Davidson
Born	1897 (1897) Guernsey
Died	1976 (aged 78–79)
Alma mater	Lancing College
Occupation	Journalist

Life and work

Michael Davidson was born into an upper-middle-class family in Guernsey in 1897. He was educated at Lancing.

Davidson joined the army in 1914. After being wounded in 1916, he became a newspaper reporter and a supporter of the Communist Party. He translated a number of anti-Nazi books. When he lived in Berlin in early to mid-1930s, he wrote newspaper articles about the full implications of Hitler's ideology, which he had seen up-close, but British newspapers were not interested in publishing the articles.[1] After being harassed by the SA for being British, a communist, and a homosexual, Davidson fled Germany. He spent the rest of his life serving as a foreign correspondent for The Observer, The News Chronicle, The New York Times and other newspapers.[2]

At age 26, Davidson met W. H. Auden, then 16, and they began a "poetic relationship".[3] Davidson mentored Auden and helped him getting published.

Davidson was open with his love for adolescent boys. His 1962 autobiography "The World, the Flesh and Myself" begins: "This is the life-history of a lover of boys." His follow-up memoir "Some Boys" (1970) focused entirely on the boys he had met around the world, while working as a foreign correspondent.

References

1. Davidson, Michael (1962), The World, the Flesh and Myself, p. 157
2. Aldrich, Robert (2002), Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History - from World War II to the present day, p. 104, ISBN 978-0-415-29161-3
3. Davidson, Michael (1962), The World, the Flesh and Myself, p. 126