MS 675

Reference code

MS 675

Title

Gavin Young collection

Level

Sub-fonds

Administrative / Biographical history

Young, Gavin (1928–2001)

Gavin Young was a journalist and travel writer.

He was born on 24 April 1928 in Cornwall to Gavin Young, a lieutenant colonel in the Welsh Guards, and Daphne Young, the daughter of Sir Charles Leolin Forestier-Walker, Bt, of Monmouthshire.

He was educated at Rugby before going to Trinity College, Oxford where he read Modern History.

On graduating he joined the Welsh Guards on military service in Palestine and subsequently, at the age of 22, he got a job as a clerk with a shipping company in Basra. After meeting Wilfred Thesiger, Young was persuaded to abandoned his plan to explore the desert and live with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq where remained for two years.

He continued to travel in southern Iraq until 1956, when the Suez Crisis forced him to seek work for Radio Morocco. In 1960, he joined The Observer of London as a foreign correspondent. During his 20 years as a journalist he covered 14 wars, including the Algerian war and the war in Nagaland in the mountains of north-east India where the Naga rebels who were resisting the Indian government. He also visited Vietnam and Cambodia.

In the late 1970s he gave up journalism and turning to writing books instead. He published 10 books in total, the bestselling of which are ‘Slow Boats To China’ (1981) and ‘Slow Boats Home’ (1985).

The work of Joseph Conrad was a significant influence on Young throughout his life and in 1991 he published ‘In Search of Conrad’.

He died on 18 January 2001 in London.

Date

1970s-2001

Extent & medium

20 boxes

Content description

The collection covers Gavin Young’s literary papers and contains notebooks, typescripts, letters and other items relating to Young’s writings. They give an insight into Young’s working methods, his experiences travelling to various parts of the world, and the people he met. Young was also a keen photographer, recording for posterity the places he visited and this has also been represented in this collection.

The papers also reflect Gritta Weil’s professional assistance to Gavin Young, both in relation to his work for The Observer and with the publication of Young’s books. The collection contains a mix of material created and accumulated by Young himself and by Weil, acting on his behalf.

The collection mainly relates to Young’s writing career; however some of the files contained within the final series include a limited amount of personal items and administrative papers. The correspondence within the various files relate to his literary work and travel.

The collection includes papers relating to Young’s time with the Marsh Arabs and, they provide an interesting comparison to Wilfred Thesiger’s experiences during the same period. However they contain little information on Thesiger himself. There are no family papers and his early life is not represented in this collection.

Provenance

This collection was housed in the home of Gritta Weil, the editorial secretary at The Observer.

Arrangement

The papers came to the Library in a number of lots and the original order is hard to determine. The records of Gavin Young and Gritta Weil have become intermingled and as a result it is difficult to establish how the current order was imposed.

The collection was prepared and listed by Alexander Maitland prior to transfer to Eton College Library and, in the absence of any other original order, the packing order imposed has been maintained. The hierarchical description of the papers has been imposed according to the cataloguing archivist’s view of the material contained in the various boxes.

This is represented by the following four series:
MS 675 01: Typescripts and research material for published works
MS 675 02: Travel notebooks
MS 675 03: Photographs
MS 675 04: Personal/ administrative papers

The folders have been rehoused and where physical rearrangement has occurred for preservation purposes, the original arrangement has been noted at the appropriate level.