Charles Ackerman Berry

Charles Ackerman Berry (1908-1996) was an English writer and poet.
'When twilight moves not man dry rain shall fall,
When dry rain falls, springs of all life shall die.

Charles Ackerman Berry was born in Belgravia, London, 1908, into a theatrical and musical household. It was hoped that he would follow in the family tradition as a chorister at Chapel Royal, but circumstances did not allow and his was a riches to rags story. As a child, he famously taught himself to write in the margins of discarded newspapers with spent match-sticks, and to read The Times.
Best known for his highly acclaimed book, Gentleman of the Road (Constable, 1978), Charles won the League of Nations Literary Prize when he was just fourteen. His first poetry was published when he was sixteen. His other published works include regular articles for Punch, Wit and Wisdom, London Opinion and Cornish Times during the 1930s and early 1940s. Much of his work (principally his spiritual Root Philosophy and pantheistic poetry) was written while he lived as a recluse in a self-built cabin in the woods at Bourne, Cambridgeshire throughout the 1930s until the beginning of the war. His short stories: Stormy Decision, Woman Below, Deadly Move and Bitter Return were published in the press between 1954 and 1956. To Be a Vagabond was serialised by Bristol Evening Post in 1968. In 1977 his poetry was published in the Countryman and Country Life respectively, followed by the first of the Phoenix Broad Sheets - edited by Toni Savage: Senses in 1977 and Formula for Humanity in 1978. Gentleman of the Road, which was an immediate success and attracted a good deal of media interest, was published in 1978, followed by Threshold and Other Poems - Redcliffe Press, Bristol in 1979, and Wisdom from the Wilderness: A Selection of Philosophy and Poetry - published posthumously by Bohemia in 2000.
Significantly, author and Shakespearean historian A.L. Rowse was an admirer of Charles Ackerman Berry’s poetry, acknowledging him as ‘a genuine poet’.
A record of Charles Ackerman Berry’s early life may be found in his daughter’s book, Alias Richard Lee: Pictures of a Chaplin Actor (By Nanette Ackerman, published by Redcliffe Press, Bristol). He has since caught the imagination as Young Charles in the play, Dick and Daisy, a dramatization of the book.

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