Word: birkenhead
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...Born in Birkenhead, England, Powell Davies spent a robust youth on his father's farm (he rode a bull calf at the age of two, wore out five motorcycles). He almost went into British politics, finally decided that "the crucial field was an honest, believable religion," was graduated from London University's Richmond College of Divinity in 1925. For three years he was a Methodist minister in London, then left for the U.S. and two consecutive pastorates in Maine...
Died. Lady Eleanor Smith, 42, novelist (Red Wagon, Flamenco), daughter of the first Earl of Birkenhead; of septic colitis; in London. Prouder of her Romany blood than of her title, she specialized in gypsy and circus stories, wrote her autobiography at eight, did it again at 35 (Life's a Circus) with many a gypsy flourish...
...Some other Union officers: Lords Asquith, Curzon, Birkenhead, Tweedsmuir...
Against Oblivion is not exactly a fictionized biography, since letters and diaries carefully document it, but it includes a few invented scenes and speeches. The work of Sheila, Countess of Birkenhead (daughter-in-law of Severn's grandson) it is a labor of love in more senses than one. The affection for Keats with which it is suffused, its portrait of the gentle, sturdy, unworldly, innocent and perceptive Severn, its wonderful picture of Severn's happy family life make it a biography as tender and moving as any in recent literature...
...life story of Omaha's George Francis Train, who, after failing to become "President" of Australia (somebody bungled the revolution), invented eraser-tipped pencils, postage stamps with perforated seams, retractable carriage steps. After building the first streetcar lines between Liverpool and Birkenhead, Train circled the globe in 80 days (said Train of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days: "He stole my thunder. I'm Phileas Fogg"). During the Paris Commune, Train wrapped himself in French and American flags, screamed at a firing squad: "Fire, fire, you miserable cowards." He lived to be buried...