Denys Val Baker (24 October 1917 – 6 July 1984) was a Welsh writer, specialising in short stories, novels, and autobiography.

A lifelong pacifist and vegetarian, he registered as a conscientious objector in June 1939, prior to World War II, and volunteered to join a group of some 200 COs sailing to Jersey in May 1940 to work on the tomato and potato harvests.

The impending German invasion of the Channel Islands led to the return of half of the COs, including Val Baker.

He was by now beginning to supplement his income through freelance journalism and sales of short stories to the many literary magazines that were popular in the days before television.

He had by this time legally changed his surname to Val Baker in honour of his father, who had died in a flying accident in September 1942.

Val Baker started publishing his own quarterly magazine Opus, (later to be renamed Voices) in the early 1940s, which featured stories, poems and reviews by his contemporaries- many of whom went on to be well-known writers.

In 1943 he produced the first of his annual Little Reviews Anthologies through Allen & Unwin, which presented the best of that year's output from the country's many literary magazines.

When Val Baker purchased his own boat, MFV Sanu,[3] an ex-navy supply tender, it was an inspiration for his books, short stories, and magazine articles.

But finally, from the early 1980s, onwards Val Baker's health began to deteriorate and he suffered excruciating pain from irritable bowel syndrome, an illness that seems to have practically curtailed his writing career.

The popularity of his books was reinforced when with the introduction of Public Lending Rights in the year of his death, the royalties put him in the top 120 of most borrowed authors of over 6000 who had registered.

At this time Jess took lessons with the potter David Leach in Penzance and soon opened up a studio pottery, which continued for at least twenty years.

In 1967 the family moved to the Old Sawmills, an isolated, rambling house located in extensive woodland up a creek at Golant on the river Fowey approachable only by boat or walking along the railway belonging to English China Clays.

One of the reasons for this move was the safe mooring available for the newly purchased 60 ft ex-navy supply tender MFV Sanu.

On their return in 1972, with MFV Sanu now moored in the Mediterranean, they started planning to move to another old millhouse, at Crean between St. Buryan and Land's End in 1972.