Desmond Hawkins

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Desmond Hawkins (October 20, 1908—May 6, 1999), born in East Sheen, Surrey, was an author, editor, and radio personality.

Contents

[edit] Career

The political and artistic upheavals of the 1930s meant a proliferation of serious magazines. Desmond wrote for Purpose, The Listener, Time & Tide and the New Statesman. He became literary editor of The New English Weekly, and T. S. Eliot made him fiction chronicler of his critical journal The Criterion. Before the Second World War Desmond had edited two books and had published two novels, the first of which was The Times's novel of the week.

Desmond also had programme ideas accepted by the BBC and 1936 saw his first appearance in Radio Times with a programme called A Nest of Singing Birds – an anthology he compiled of English poets on English birds. Working extensively for the BBC as a freelance, particularly on the Sunday programme Country Magazine and on the daily War Report, he was asked to join the Corporation's staff in Bristol in 1945 and soon became a features (ie documentary) producer. Desmond took the West Country to his heart and saw that among the assets of the region was the countryside and the wildlife. Having had a lifelong love of birds and nature, it was decided he should try and develop programmes of this type.

What followed eventually became the Natural History Unit (known as Desmond's baby), having its origins in radio early in 1946 when Desmond designed a programme called The Naturalist, with the curlew's song as a signature tune. This was followed by Birds in Britain, Birdsong of the Month and many more. Early in the 1950s, when television became able to attract a national audience, Desmond went to Lime Grove to learn the new trade, and with Peter Scott planned the long-running series of wildlife programmes, which Desmond named ‘Look’, because he felt television was about the opportunity to “look”.

In 1955 Desmond became Head of Programmes in Bristol, and Frank Gillard was promoted to be the West Region Controller. The two of them had enough clout in the BBC to establish in a formal sense in 1957 a specialist unit in the West Region to provide wildlife programmes for the national network – the Natural History Unit.

As well as developing wildlife programmes in radio and TV, Desmond dramatised five of Thomas Hardy's major novels as ‘classic serials’ and enlarged Hardy's global impact. His version of ‘The Return of the Native’ won the Society of Authors' Radio Award for the best dramatisation of 1976. In 1978 he dramatised ‘The Woodlanders’ to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Hardy's death, and this again won the award for the year's best dramatisation.

[edit] Honours

[edit] Bibliography

  • BBC War Report: ed with intro. Oxford Univ. Press 1946. New edition BBC 1985
  • Thomas Hardy (English Novelists series) Barker, London: Swallow, Denver 1950 new edition entitled - Hardy the Novelist. David & Charles 1965.
  • The BBC Naturalist. Rathbone Books 1957. Second BBC Naturalist 1960
  • Wildlife of the New Forest. Russell & Co 1972. Newsome 1981.
  • Avalon & Sedgemoor. David & Charles 1973 New Edition (Alan Sutton) 1982
  • Hardy: Novelist & Poet. David & Charles 1976 Barnes & Noble, New York 1976
  • Hardy: Novelist & Poet. Macmillan (paperback) 1981
  • Hardy: Novelist & Poet. Translated by Tetsuwo Maekawa - Tokyo 1981
  • Cranborne Chase - Gollancz 1980.
  • Concerning Agnes (Alan Sutton) 1982
  • Hardy's Wessex: Macmillan 1983. The Tess Opera: Hardy Society 1985
  • When I Was (autobiography) Macmillan 1989.
  • Hardy at Home: Barrie & Jenkins 1989.
  • Thomas Hardy: his life and landscape. National Trust 1990.
  • Shelley's First Love. Kyle Cathie Limited 1992
  • Dorset Bedside Book. Dovecote Press 1996.
  • The Grove Diaries. Dovecote Press 1995.
  • Pilford - biography of Captain John Pilford, RN (an uncle of the poet Shelley) 1998.

[edit] References

  • Desmond's own chronicled career notes left with his daughter, Teresa Donovan, for use and interest after his death (unpublished)
  • A "Radio Times" article by Desmond published 21 March 1968
  • Desmond's autobiography "When I Was" as above
  • The Obituaries from "The Times" on 13 May 1999
  • "The Independent Weekend Review" on 8 May 1999
  • The Royal Society of Literature 2000 Magazine