On reading about a child removed from school as a danger to others | Reflecting on Rosemary Sutcliff’s living with disability

Aside Anthony Lawton2 Comments

Princeton Professor Michael Graziano writes movingly about his six-year-old son who “was removed from school as a danger to others. His crime? (Apraxia) A disability you could find in any classroom”. He set me thinking about Rosemary Sutcliff’s disability – much rarer I think, not found in any classroom – and her experience of school […]

Rosemary Sutcliff’s cousin Jack, briefly mentioned in her memoir Blue Remembered Hills, was Air Marshall Sir John Slessor

Anthony Lawton3 Comments

Air Marshal Sir John Slessor, cousin of Rosemary Sutcliff

A Google alert for “Rosemary Sutcliffe” (wrong spelling, there is no E in Sutcliff of Rosemary Sutcliff, but too many get it wrong …) thew up an intriguing snippet today about one  Air Marshall Sir John Slessor, a cousin of Rosemary Sutcliff (sic):

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Cotesworth (Jack) Slessor GCB, DSO, MC (3 June 1897 – 12 July 1979) was a senior commander in the Royal Air Force (RAF). A pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, he held operational commands in World War II and served in the RAF’s most senior post, Chief of the Air Staff, from 1950 to 1952. He was considered a strong proponent of strategic bombing and the nuclear deterrent, and published several books, including an autobiography. He was a cousin of the children’s author Rosemary Sutcliffe who mentions “cousin Jack’s” depression at being turned down for the Army in her memoir Blue Remembered Hills.

I am left wondering if he writes anything about Rosemary Sutcliff in his autobiography. Anyone got access, who can find out?

  • Source of above quote here.
  • Other mis-spellings of Rosemary Sutcliff as Rosemary Sutcliffe (sic) here.