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Maureen Duffy
Maureen Patricia Duffy (born 21 October 1933) is an English poet, playwright, novelist and non-fiction author. Long an activist covering such issues as gay rights and animal rights, she campaigns especially on behalf of authors. She has received the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature for her lifelong writings.
Maureen Patricia Duffy was born on 21 October 1933 in Worthing, Sussex. Her family came from Stratford, East London. Her Irish father, an important strand in her identity, left when she was two months old. To add to an already difficult childhood, Maureen's mother died when Maureen was 15. She then moved to Stratford in East London, where she had family living.
Duffy draws on her tough childhood in That's How It Was, her most autobiographical novel. Her working-class roots, experience of "class and cultural division" and close relations with her mother are key influences on her work. She developed an early passion for "stories of Ancient Greece and Rome, folk tales of Ireland and Wales, tales of knightly chivalry and poetry..."
Her mother, Duffy recalls, "early on instilled in me that the one thing they can't take away from you is education." she completed her schooling and supported herself before university by teaching at junior schools. She gained a degree in English at King's College London in 1956, then taught in Naples till 1958 and in secondary schools in the London area till 1961.
Duffy's earliest ambition was to be a poet. She won her first such prize at the age of 17 with a poem printed in Adam magazine, soon followed by publication in The Listener and elsewhere. She later edited a poetry magazine called the sixties (1960–1961).
While at King's she completed her first full-length play, Pearson, and submitted it for a competition judged by Kenneth Tynan, drama critic at The Observer. This brought an invitation to join the Royal Court Writers Group in 1958, when its members included Edward Bond, Ann Jellicoe, John Arden, William Gaskill and Arnold Wesker.
Duffy started writing full-time after being commissioned by Granada Television to write a screenplay Josie – broadcast on ITV in 1961 as part of the Younger Generation series – about a teenage girl, hoping to break out of factory work by pursuing a talent for fashion design. The advance of £450 enabled Duffy to buy a houseboat to live in. Pearson won the Corporation of London Festival Playwright's Prize in 1962 and was performed under the title The Lay Off at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. It drew on Duffy's experience of vacation jobs in factories. Pearson/The Lay Off is a modern reworking of Piers Plowman, and an early example of Duffy's inclusion of black characters in prominent roles and her opposition to racism. The set for Room for Us All recreates a small block of flats, with residents interacting, and the audience looking in as each is lit up. Two and Two Makes Five is about a teacher disillusioned by constraints on school culture deciding to quit the profession.
The play The Silk Room, about a male pop group, was produced at the Palace Theatre, Watford in 1966. An episode of TV drama Sanctuary was commissioned by Associated Rediffusion and broadcast on ITV in 1967.
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Maureen Duffy
Maureen Patricia Duffy (born 21 October 1933) is an English poet, playwright, novelist and non-fiction author. Long an activist covering such issues as gay rights and animal rights, she campaigns especially on behalf of authors. She has received the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature for her lifelong writings.
Maureen Patricia Duffy was born on 21 October 1933 in Worthing, Sussex. Her family came from Stratford, East London. Her Irish father, an important strand in her identity, left when she was two months old. To add to an already difficult childhood, Maureen's mother died when Maureen was 15. She then moved to Stratford in East London, where she had family living.
Duffy draws on her tough childhood in That's How It Was, her most autobiographical novel. Her working-class roots, experience of "class and cultural division" and close relations with her mother are key influences on her work. She developed an early passion for "stories of Ancient Greece and Rome, folk tales of Ireland and Wales, tales of knightly chivalry and poetry..."
Her mother, Duffy recalls, "early on instilled in me that the one thing they can't take away from you is education." she completed her schooling and supported herself before university by teaching at junior schools. She gained a degree in English at King's College London in 1956, then taught in Naples till 1958 and in secondary schools in the London area till 1961.
Duffy's earliest ambition was to be a poet. She won her first such prize at the age of 17 with a poem printed in Adam magazine, soon followed by publication in The Listener and elsewhere. She later edited a poetry magazine called the sixties (1960–1961).
While at King's she completed her first full-length play, Pearson, and submitted it for a competition judged by Kenneth Tynan, drama critic at The Observer. This brought an invitation to join the Royal Court Writers Group in 1958, when its members included Edward Bond, Ann Jellicoe, John Arden, William Gaskill and Arnold Wesker.
Duffy started writing full-time after being commissioned by Granada Television to write a screenplay Josie – broadcast on ITV in 1961 as part of the Younger Generation series – about a teenage girl, hoping to break out of factory work by pursuing a talent for fashion design. The advance of £450 enabled Duffy to buy a houseboat to live in. Pearson won the Corporation of London Festival Playwright's Prize in 1962 and was performed under the title The Lay Off at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. It drew on Duffy's experience of vacation jobs in factories. Pearson/The Lay Off is a modern reworking of Piers Plowman, and an early example of Duffy's inclusion of black characters in prominent roles and her opposition to racism. The set for Room for Us All recreates a small block of flats, with residents interacting, and the audience looking in as each is lit up. Two and Two Makes Five is about a teacher disillusioned by constraints on school culture deciding to quit the profession.
The play The Silk Room, about a male pop group, was produced at the Palace Theatre, Watford in 1966. An episode of TV drama Sanctuary was commissioned by Associated Rediffusion and broadcast on ITV in 1967.