Patrick Ryan (author and journalist)
Patrick Ryan (Isle of Wight, 1916 – 1989) was an English author and journalist whose best-known work, the satirical war novel How I Won The War was made into a film in 1967, directed by Richard Lester and starring John Lennon.
Biography
Patrick Ryan was born in Newport, on the Isle of Wight in 1916 to a family of Irish origin. He was educated at The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School. On the outbreak of war in 1939 he enlisted in an Infantry Regiment, was commissioned as an officer, and then transferred to the Reconnaissance Corps of the Royal Armoured Corps. He served in North Africa, Italy, and Greece. He moved to Leeds in the 1950s as Assistant Head Postmaster, and his "apprenticeship" in adapting to Yorkshire life is related in his humorous memoir How I Became A Yorkshireman, published in the late 1960s. He later became Head Postmaster at Harrogate and became a regular contributor for Punch and The New Scientist in the 1960s and 1970s as well as writing several television plays and writing some episodes of both "The Army Game" and "Bootsie and Snudge" both popular army based television sitcoms at that time. He also wrote pieces for The Smithsonian and the New York Saturday Evening Post. He was married with one daughter.
Published works
- How I Won the War (1963)
- Hubert Calendar Counts his Blessings (1965)
- How I Became a Yorkshireman (1967)
- Clancy, My Friend, My Friend (1969)