Biography

Date of Birth   15 June 1922
Place:   Shortlands, Bromley, Kent
Lived in and around Oxford since 1930, Woodeaton from 1968
Parents:   Douglas Veale
          – later Sir Douglas Veale (1954)
          – Registrar of Oxford University 1930-58
Evelyn Annie Veale (nee Henderson)
Siblings:   Margaret, Janet
Schools:   Dragon School, Oxford, 1930-36
Repton, 1936-40
University:   Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1940-42 - Hons. Degree in History; M.A. 1947
War Service:   1942-47 – Education Corps.
Marriage:   Diana Yeldham Taylor, 1944-72- painter and art teacher
Children:   Jane (1947 – 1951)
Sarah (1953)
Jacob (1955)
Grandchildren:   Megan (1989)
Hannah (1991)
Eleanor (1992)
Esther (1994)
Music training:   At 12 given a clarinet and his love of music blossomed. Taught himself to play it. Realised at Oxford that music was his career. Had lessons with Egon Wellesz, Sir Hugh Allen and Sir Thomas Armstrong , was encouraged by William Walton and continued his musical education with the American composers Roy Harris and Roger Sessions.
Career:   Composer late 1930s -
American Commonwealth Fellowship 1949-51
Junior Fellowship, Oxford, 1951-53
Film critic and film correspondent for Oxford Mail, 1965-80
Copy editor, OUP, 1968-87
Activities:   Campaign -
  • against the lights on the BBC radio mast at Beckley
  • fly tipping at the Woodeaton Quarry
  • further applications to deepen it
  • for restrictions when quarry used to supply hard core
  • any environmental pollution around Woodeaton
Wrote many ‘letters to the editor’ – especially to The Guardian, The Observer and Oxford Mail
Interests:   Astronomy
Ornithology – could imitate the cuckoo
Contempories and people he knew/met   Kingsley Amis, Lindsay Anderson, Kenneth Tynan, Constant Lambert, Alan Rawsthorne, Elizabeth Lutyens, Louis MacNeice, William Walton, Dylan Thomas

 

Alan Bush (1978)
agreed with JV about the absurd promotion and lack of criticism of modern music by Stockhausen, Cage, etc championed by Glock, etc.

 

 

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