Stan Barstow

Biography

Barstow was born in Horbury, near Wakefield in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father was a coal miner and he attended Ossett Grammar School. He worked as a draughtsman and salesman for an engineering company. He was best known for his 1960 novel A Kind of Loving, which has been turned into a film, a television series, a radio play and a stage play. The author's other novels included Ask Me Tomorrow (1962), The Watchers on the Shore (1966) and The Right True End (1976). He frequently attended public events in Ossett, where he grew up, and Horbury, his birthplace.

Barstow's other works included Joby, which was turned into a television play starring Patrick Stewart, A Raging Calm, A Season with Eros, A Brother’s Tale, Just You Wait and See, Modern Delights and an autobiography, In My Own Good Time (2001). He also wrote plays and short stories. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 1999.

Barstow married Connie Kershaw in 1951, and they had two children. In the late 1980s, he met Diana Griffiths who was beginning to learn her trade as a writer with Barstow's help. He and Connie Kershaw separated in 1990, though never divorced. Stan started a new life with Griffiths, now a writer in her own right, with eight original plays and nearly twenty dramatisations to her credit. Later he lived in Pontardawe, South Wales, with her. Stan Barstow died on 1 August 2011, aged 83.

The Stan Barstow Memorial Garden in Horbury is named after him.

Bibliography

Novels

• A Kind of Loving (1960)
• Ask Me Tomorrow (1962)
• Joby (1964)
• The Watchers on the Shore (1966)
• A Raging Calm (1968)
• Through the Green Woods (1968)
• The Right True End (1976)
• A Brother's Tale (1980)
• Just You Wait and See (1986)
• B-Movie (1987)
• Give Us This Day (1989)
• Next of Kin (1991)

Short Story Collections

• The Desperados and Other Stories (1961)
• The Human Element and Other Stories (1969)
• A Season with Eros (1971)
• A Casual Acquaintance and Other Stories (1976)
• The Glad Eye and Other Stories (1984)
• The Likes of Us: Stories of Five Decades (2013)

Plays

• Stringer's Last Stand (1972) (with Alfred Bradley)
• Joby: a Television Play (1977)
• 'We Could Always Fit a Sidecar' in Out of the Air: Five Plays for Radio (1978)
• The Human Element, and Albert's Part: Two Television Plays (1984)

Autobiography

• In My Own Good Time (2001)

References

References

1. Haywood, Ian. (2011-08-01). "Obituary: Stan Barstow". The Guardian.
2. "Stan Barstow".
3. "The Literature of Stan Barstow: A Biography".
4. "Stan Barstow".
5. "Ossett History - The People of Ossett".
6. (2011-08-03). "Stan Barstow, British author of 'A Kind of Loving,' dies at 83". The Washington Post.
7. "SE2918:The Stan Barstow Garden, Horbury".